Saw this guy’s ad for his album on Facebook. I think his name was Michael Blectley or something?? Anyways, I’m trying to figure out how he’s picking this lick.
Wow that is really annoying that I can’t figure it out. Slight of hand??? lol! There must be an answer. When I slow it down I feel (and mute audio as there seems to be a one note sync issue on the YT player at the slow speed) I feel like I see him doing 2 downstrokes in a row, on one string. That would make the picking
|---------16-19-18--------16-19-18
|-16-19------------16-19-------------
D D U D U D D U D U
And you’d have to swipe to make the change from the b to e strings. That can’t be right though. It feels way to choppy to play that way and he looks pretty relaxed. Sorry for the (probably) no help, color me confused!
If you held a gun to my head and made me play that exact phrase, no slurs allowed, I would do it like this:
|---14-16-19-18
|-16------------
D D U D U
Nice little 4 finger circular economy picking lick!
Is it slow enough to be brute forced with an inefficient motion? (Not saying he is, but…)
Mixed escapes? When you say DWPS, are we saying old vocab here?
I think so. My Metallica days are long gone so my repeated down picking sort of sucks (which is how I think he might be playing it lol). I feel like even at this speed, which as you pointed out is way less than insane, it would look jumpy to play it that way. He looks pretty relaxed to me.
JoeBegly and PickingApprentice, indeed. It is a conundrum.
I think his slant is downward (one-way) and he escapes upward. When I analyzed the pattern I came to the same conclusion that he’s playing 2 downstrokes on the B string.
The audio in the clip appears to be a quarter second off, which doesn’t make it any easier.
How is he playing this?? 
MIDI. It has to be MIDI. That’s always the answer in times like these 
Joebegly, 
. Of course!
Ha yeah…joking aside, this is seriously bugging me. The same way it bugs me if I see an actor/actress and can’t remember where I know them from. Well, nowadays I can figure it out with google…but 20 years ago things like that really bothered me, sometimes for days or weeks.
We’ve gotta solve this!
Slowed a section down in transcribe. This is what it looks like to me, I could be wrong but it’s starting on an upstroke and sometimes I can hear a double note on the first up due to down on the E and up on the B, he sometimes hits the E on the way up.
I can play it at way at speed for like 4 to 5 times before it falls apart; but it’s an easy pattern if that’s how you want to play, it’s just horrible/awkward for us at CTC once we start escape a note to even things out. Or as @joebegly made it a 1-4 pattern.
Yeah, its more an issue with my brain than with the picking…I alternate pick it but its a bit trippy!
Edit: I suck at repeating licks!
Quick attempt, could’ve muted better. I think you need to fullscreen to see the picking hand (just strict alternate picking anyways).
The only way I can see this picked is by upward pickslanting, using the following strokes. However, My primary pickslant in downwards, so even this is pretty uncomfortable.
I can’t get the tab to go right but, re-engineer the fretting to
D D U D U
E-----------------19–18–
B----19—21
G-20
I like it! Not sure if that’s how he plays it but that is a smooth approach.
That’s a great solution too! I learned from Tommo a few weeks back that the trick to make the tabs embed correctly is to precede each line with 4 empty spaces.
It’s this, easier to see/hear with audio in sync with fretting. (VLC users, try 4 j presses.)
Right or wrong, a day when my initial inclination is aligned with @JBakerman’s…that’s a good day for me Unfortunately I read this first thing in the morning, so that means my day will probably only get worse from here lol
I think I figured out a way to do this last night. It involves flipping the slant every iteration (5 notes x 2 = 10 notes). I will post later today.
One minor word of caution. If I’m telling you something you already know I’ll gladly bugger off. Your initial reference to “DWPS” as opposed to the current “USX” makes me think you might be trying to tackle this via the all but deprecated “Two Way Pickslanting” concept. The way that was initially presented by CtC has been largely abandoned. It’s been replaced by the concept of helper or “secondary” motions:
It’s not that Two Way Pickslanting isn’t a thing, because you have to call things what they are. Frank Gambale actually does this. Most people who successfully navigate more than one escape within a phrase achieve this without such overt movements as “flipping the slant”. What’s worse, there were many video critiques on this forum where an overemphasis on this flipping was causing the players issues.
Again, just wanted to make sure you were aware. There is SO much info available on this site it’s easy to miss when changes in recommendation like this occur. To Troy and Co’s credit, I think it’s awesome that they do further research on topics that seem like they’ve already ‘cracked’ and provide more up to date guidelines like this. I’ve lost track of all the threads I’ve read in just the past 2 years where Troy has personally apologized for unleashing the term “Two Way Pickslanting” on the world.