Sounds cool, can we hear the track isolated?
you want just the guitar on it’s own?
Yeah, would be cool to hear what it sounds like on its own. I have had similar issues gettjng the lower notes to pop a little more and it would be good to hear the raw tone and compare it to mine (not that I can play it to tempo! 
No problem - it’s real nightmare trying to decode a tone - when you have bass/drums mixed it.
I have no problem showing how awful my picking is - it’s sounds disgusting on its own 
- but this toon is all about the timing
it’s the high end “crunch” on the notes that gives the timing and sound.
Cheers dude.
Don’t be too harsh on yourself, its sounds great. It is a monster tune after all, by one of the legends of picking!
1 Like
Hi all!
I have forgotten completely about this riff. These riffs are still way too difficult for me. Currently working on similar licks mechanically speaking from a band called Angra Help to improve TWPS
Wow that’s a great riff!
What I’ve found is - it’s all in the tone - it’s that simple.
I’ve been able to play the TD riff at speed since 2004 (not joking) - and it’s always sounded like complete crap. The things that are making it work for me are as follows:
-
Turn bass completely off on the amp
-
Pick lightly - it’s like a scraping thing - very hard to explain this
-
Some dynamics processing - a downward expander - that really cleans up the 2 string muting riffs
Once you have the right tone - it’s about 1000 times easier to play!
hope that helps
You’d think that… but then go back and watch that video Tommo posted in Sept 2018 when Gilbert is playing this, at tempo, with a clean/edge of breakup tone, with (high output, to be fair) singlecoils. A lot of that “revving” sound is just totally in-the-pocket, precice picking. He’s just good.
Fair point. He is that good.
That being said, sometimes tone can really mess with the perception of your technique. Recently I thought that I had totally lost all facilty to play cleanly on the lower 2 strings (in pitch) - no matter what I did it sounded cruddy. I had recently moved the living room around and realised that I was sitting at a different distance and angle from the cab than usual and that if I stood up or moved my head a few of inches eitherside, my technique returned. I discovered (after a google search) that I was experiencing the speaker ‘beam’. It sounded so harsh and messy that my ear couldn’t really hear what was going on. Blew my mind! I knew that pointing a mic on axis at the centre of the cone is harsh, but I never thought i would experience something so baffling to my ears.
Caveat: I do have a bit of hearing loss which probably didn’t help lol!
I love the tone on that video (the “conjar” video ) - it’s my next quest hahahaha.
Actually when you think about it - those kind of live videos - you know those cameras have usually have some sort of AGC system - which acts like a compressor and makes tone decoding even more difficult
I’ve been practicing this song lately, and I’ve been looking at videos of Paul Gilbert picking for a better main riff performance for this song
And I found this video. I think this is the cleanest playing video I’ve ever seen from Paul Gilbert’s technical difficulties.
What I can see in this video is that PG starts the palm mute riff with a downstroke.
So, i think he is primary dsx wrist motion user, similar to Andy wood and Al.
But, he is also mixed escape wrist player. And I can see that he transform his picking motion into usx during the palm mute riff.
6-note-pattern is full of downstroke escape.
What do you all think? If there’s anyone who’s tried this song, please give me some advice!
Have a nice day
Have you tried starting the three note runs on an upstroke? That’s much easier for me
Moved here. Hope you’ll find the discussion above useful 
1 Like
I just broke from strict alternate picking - I find it much easier to start the riff on a down stroke, then just start the fast lick on an upstroke anyway even though it requires a change xd
Looking at that videos, I’m pretty convinced for the 6 note pattern he does a double downstroke, but instead of normal economy picking a la Yngwie - the thumb pushes the string changes causing both the cleaner attack and the illusion that it’s alternate picked (the down stroke is broken into 2 motions rather than a sweeping one). It also aligns with the exaggerated thumb bending and apparent finger involvement. I’m gonna try practicing that, plant the wrist and bend the thumb/index up to get above the strings starting in DWPS, as the thumb pushes through the last note end it in UWPS for the rest of the run.
I’m thinking of this as a 7 note pattern with 2 chunks with the last note being the first note the the more rhythmic portion. So it’s like 8 7 9 – 8 on the E and A strings are chunk 1. 9 10 – 10 on the A and D strings are chunk 2. the last note of each is a thumb/index movement with the last one possibly involving a bit of forearm in combination when changing pickslant although you could potentially use the finger motion alone to change it.
Thanks! Good discussion 
1 Like
Agreed, in no small part because the trademark “Gilbert 6s” pattern from this song is a classic escaped downstroke motif. The main riff of this does take some two way escaping though.
This has been a “i need to work on my alternate picking, let’s take up Technical Difficulties again” project of mine, and I also favor a downstroke escape by default. It appears like that might have been in part due to simple picking mechanics, but I also wonder if that was luck, or if there’s a chicken and egg element here and the fact I’ve tried to get this up to tempo for years is a big part of the reason I favor escaped downstrokes. 
Yup.
Basically starting with dsx, switching to usx, and then coming back to dsx.
But I’m a USX user and I’m also working on starting with upstream. I’m not used to Al’s DSX wrist motion. I’m practicing for it
Alright, I’ve messed with this piece a few times before and it’s definitely tricky as hell - decided to just slow down and think through it a bit. all the transitions are a bit sloppy and jagged but I think I have the core of it working. Considering I’m rocking some 9-46 gauge strings in D standard it seems like the motions will work - might need a bit more string tension though.
I’m starting on a down stroke for both the 6 note ascending runs and the crosspicking thing. I’m using kind of a DSX primary wrist anchored cross picking movement for the latter - I’m starting DSX on that initial downstroke and then on the upstroke I supinate the forearm so it escapes on the upstroke looking like a standard UWPS escape. I just keep bouncing that back and forth.
On the ascending runs I pronate my forearm extra and at least try to remember to bend my thumb a bit for angle and to get it positioned as above the strings as I can while anchoring the wrist.
One the first string change for the ascending run, - what I consciously was going for was switching from DSX to USX on the first note of the A string and continue that way until the D string downstroke - I don’t think I’m doing that.
I think what I’m doing is D U D, then forearm supination into A string for a more accented economy stroke, reverse that with an upstroke, then downstroke the 6th note, and another forearm rotation into the first note of the crosspicking type sequence.
Wow Amazing!
I’m a Primary Wrist USX Player Like EJ, Mike Stern
So, I can start this riff with Upstroke. If then, It will UDU DUD etc…
But, the same situation comes again, I have to change my motion to DSX.
1 Like