Happy to help.
Thanks again. Discovering the EDC concept was absolutely revelatory for me.
I’m not sure that there’s a correlation here. I don’t notice offsets adding any difficulty to picking sequences.
The EDCs facilitate absolutely bonkers fretting hand speed. In order to pick each note, you would need a picking movement that can keep up, and the margins on error in synchronisation are very tight. I can imagine that if the cyclic patterns aren’t even, strongly connected to your internal clock and you aren’t able to feel the pulse of the cycles from an offset starting point yet, this would be extremely problematic for hand synchronisation.
However, I would suspect that most of the reasons to incorporate hammers (or hybrid picking) is because it allows the principle to applied to achieve a much more expansive set of patterns. There is only so much that can be done with even numbers of notes per string alternate picking and one-way economy.
This should actually be very possible to test, though. Any “pick perfect” EDC sequence can generate five others by changing the starting digit or reversing cycle direction. So, for example, the Shawn Lane descending fours and fives pattern (pick perfect for USX)
u d u d d u d u d u d u d d u d u d etc.
e|-9-7-6---7-6-------|-------------------|
B|-------9-----9-7-6-|-9-7-6---7-6-------|
G|-------------------|-------9-----9-7-6-|
D|-------------------|-------------------|
A|-------------------|-------------------|
E|-------------------|-------------------|
4 2 1 4 2 1 4 2 1 4 2 1 4 2 1 4 2 1 etc.
Can be offset, maintaining the same picking sequence, giving
u d u d d u d u d u d u d d u d u d etc.
e|-7-6-9---6-9-------|-------------------|
B|-------7-----7-6-9-|-7-6-9---6-9-------|
G|-------------------|-------7-----7-6-9-|
D|-------------------|-------------------|
A|-------------------|-------------------|
E|-------------------|-------------------|
2 1 4 2 1 4 2 1 4 2 1 4 2 1 4 2 1 4 etc.
or
u d u d d u d u d u d u d d u d u d etc.
e|-6-9-7---9-7-------|-------------------|
B|-------6-----6-9-7-|-6-9-7---9-7-------|
G|-------------------|-------6-----6-9-7-|
D|-------------------|-------------------|
A|-------------------|-------------------|
E|-------------------|-------------------|
1 4 2 1 4 2 1 4 2 1 4 2 1 4 2 1 4 2 etc.
Similarly, we could reverse direction from backwards to forwards and produce three more solutions.
I sincerely doubt that anybody would think to play either of the variation patterns unless they explicitly understood the rules of the game, being the classic USX picking formula and the EDC concept.
Truthfully, I haven’t practiced either of the variations given above, but having spent just a couple of minutes with the first variation (starting on the 2nd finger), I know it would work with some practice.
The McLaughlin lick is (2 1 2 4), correct. This isn’t an EDC as I have defined the term, and the reuse of the 2nd finger can be troublesome.
Watch carefully
Notice the “rocking” motion that McLaughlin makes with his wrist while playing this line. Much of the movement to lift and refret with the 2nd finger combing from this rocking motion.
This fretting sequence appears in some of Shawn Lane’s playing. This pattern from Power Licks is (2 4 2 1), which is (2 1 2 4) offset by two notes.
This pattern isn’t as fast as the EDC based sequences on Power Licks, and the “rocking” action is also visible in a better quality version of the video also.
In my experience, there’s much less freedom with what can be done with the 2nd finger in this movement pattern than with the general EDC.