Trouble choosing a reliable picking motion (Forearm / USX / 200 BPM tremolo)

[AustinK]

Love the playing. Definitely looks like a FW blend when you have the outside of your palm on bridge in a classic USX anchoring setup.

I want your fantastic speed! How’s it look with odd note per string phrasing?

[qwertygitarr]

@AustinK

Definitely looks like a FW blend when you have the outside of your palm on bridge in a classic USX anchoring setup.

Yes it could well be a blend but the feeling is still rotational and tha driving force of the motion seem to come from the wiggling of the forearm.

@AustinK

How’s it look with odd note per string phrasing?

It’s USX only for me with no way to really control angles, so it’s a lot of swiping. When the motion is really locked in (it takes a LOT of warming up for me til it does) the swiping is incredibly effortless and also sounds really ok. But when the motion is off the stringchanges can feel really sticky and unreliable. The arm needs to be completely relaxed. So in live use for example I seldom use this for harder parts since my body tends to tense up and therefor automatically reaching for wrist motion and ruining the rotation. I’ll see if I can make a video of it.

[Scottulus]

@qwertygitarr

The speed was there from the beginning.

NICE! It’s great you have that kind of speed right out of the gate, must mean you did something right! I have “a” forearm rotation mechanic, mostly DSX but it is limited in speed, particularly for dbx stuff right around 16ths@130bpm. I have tried everything, lol that’s my speed cap for that motion!

@qwertygitarr

It really is all about shaking your arm as fast as possible, as if you would like to get something scary off your hand.

hahah Yes, but I think I “add” some sort of tension. Always the “hard way” for me lol

@qwertygitarr

Yes it is USX. I tried to get DSX as well but can’t seem to get the angle of the motion to work. As soon as my body tries to do DSX or get tense and try to control itself, it goes into wrist motion. And my standard wrist motion is DSX.

I wonder if the USX version is just faster; I tried to get a USX together with forearm rotation, but no dice - lots of tension and really not a lot of gains.

I have since pretty much gone all in with my wrist DSX+ hybrid and am getting good results. What you did in your videos is super impressive! Rock on!

[YuriKoch]

@qwertygitarr

But since you mention the max speed only thing, which is the same as mine, it really is hard to slow down. And I use it for these max speed licks only. For things that are slower I use blends of wrist. So I think you might be better of finding a blend of this and your motion nr 2 for that. But still, it is worth pursuing getting this rotation to sync never the less.

Yeah, thanks for the reply. I’ve been practicing syncing for about a week now, and I can already feel things locking in — exactly like you mentioned.
And it really feels like this is the path: pure forearm for maximum speed, and some kind of blend when slowing things down.