Personally speaking I am relatively sure I use a form of DBX, but when the speeds increase I’m sure there is likely swiping in either direction. That said because I somehow unknowingly trained myself to both use quite a bit of edge picking, and to only aim for hitting the top portion of the strings, unless I really want an accent, I find the swiping, if it’s there, barely noticeable because I’m mostly gliding over the top half of the string and not really disturbing it all that much if I am actually hitting it. Of course I’m not sure but I can assume. It feels like nothing, and there’s less to have to mute out. I also do not use rest strokes (not that I can discern) even when economy picking or sweeping.
I second this. You don’t have to change your grip for everything. I use a slightly more compact grip for sweep picking than I do for my forearm and wrist usx playing. Sometimes slightly different grips just work better for different things.
I think it’s key to solving the upstrokes feeling sticky problem. It won’t hurt to experiment with it a bit.
@adamprzezdziecki did you experiment with a more positive pick point? I tried to take a screenshot of your playing but YouTube keeps crashing; it looks like your pick point is pretty perpendicular (unintended alliteration lol).
@adamprzezdziecki I’m assuming you’re using a red tortex because of the PG influence, so I recorded your USX line with one. I hold my pick in frame at the end if you want to compare with your pick point:
Interesting to hear, my DBX I’m pretty sure is through thumb / finger extension / flexion!
Cool, sounds good! It looks like your motion is completely parallell to the strings, like the pick is fully trapped. Yet there is very little swiping noise. Myself being interested in develop my swiping, have you worked specifically on keeping the swiping noise down?
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@qwertygitarr I’ll have to think about that next time I’m playing. I don’t feel as if I’m swiping; I could very well be doing that, but it doesn’t feel bad? I recorded some video with the pick I normally do as well, I’m curious if it looks trapped there too.
The most I notice swiping is when playing some acoustic stuff. I could record this again on acoustic and see if I feel / hear any swiping there.
Aim for only the top half portion of the strings unless you want an accent. That will keep swiping noise down since the arc rotational styles naturally create will tend to have a little bit of a rise on the extreme ends of each pick stroke. Since you play with a more visible downward pick slant and diagonal trajectory into the body you may need to play around with it and positioning a little more so you don’t just drag the string too much with your pick. My hand positioning is just like yours but for whatever reason I escape on down strokes (and maybe up I don’t know), so that may be part of it. I also recall you mentioned that you have many places your fingers are glued to the guitar and strings
I wouldn’t actually worry much about doing any of this if it screws with your picking too much though. You have a pretty good thing going so I wouldn’t mess with it too much.
I have a similar motion to you but maybe a bit more rotational. You’re a really sick guitarist and further along than I am, from the first clip your wrist looks like mine before I totally relaxed everything.
The only way I can get my right hand rotating and doing a bit of wrist deviation is when it feels totally at ease with no tension. It doesn’t need any warming up when I think about it in that way. It also means I don’t choke the strings with the pick and have a lighter touch.
Getting my hands synchronised is another matter and needs a fair bit of playing before its anywhere near full tilt. I also have to totally relax my left. Just my 2 cents and hope it helps!
I did experiment with more positive pick point, it helps a litlle but it’s still way too sticky, especially with non abraded picks. More grip extension results in even more stickiness.
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I’ve been working a rotational movement in the past year or so too. One thing I notice, is that at times, on the down strokes I start doing a slight “extension” with the wrist. That will of course create some DSX as it move the pick away from the body. I almost can’t even feel when this happens. I can see it if I’m looking though. In theory this would be ok as long as on the upstrokes we are either using enough supination to break free on the upstrokes, or even a little wrist flex to counter act. I can totally see how otherwise we have a slightly trapped ‘sticky’ feeling in this scenario.
I can’t tell if I see this happening in your clip or not. I think I do, but that could just be me “wanting” to see it lol!
Yes great that you mention this! I have thought about the same thing for a while and sometimes have the same problem.
I think I can see a bit of that in @adamprzezdziecki s first video. Maybe that could be the source of the stickiness. Since your first motion was a DSX motion it’s not unthinkable that your body “wants” to move that way when picking. For e it happens on stage when the body gets tense and has to perform. You said earlier that you thought that the body had to do some accompanying wrist motion together with the rotation to pick properly, but I’m not sure about that. I think you probably could try an even straighter “in and out of the string plane”-motion that might be less sticky.
Have you tried the angle pad grip? It’s difficult to describe but there is a good guide in the pick grip section and even more detail in the forearm and wrist section of the primer. I started with this one for forearm and wrist motion. But over time I settled on an extended trigger.
I actually think your motion is correct. It’s easy to overthink and try to micro manage the motion, but you have it. I’m almost certain the problem is in the grip and possibly the type of pick.
I just tried it with a grip similar to yours and I can’t do it, the upstrokes feel sticky. But if I extend the index out, make sure not to have the thumb overhanging too much as you need to be able to adjust the edge picking (which also affects the slant).
There is also a section in the primer somewhere which demonstrates wrapping and pressing the thumb, which affects the slant and causes one of the strokes to be sticky. If there is a mismatch with how you hold the pick, (thumb bent, straight, pressed), and the motion path, one of the strokes won’t be smooth.
I’ll renew my membership next month and watch it, thanks.
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Also just to note, I found an old Dunlop floppy pick lying around and tried it. It definitely feel’s stickier. I did manage to get it smooth with some grip adjustments but it really feels like the wrong pick for this mechanic. I don’t have this issue with jazz iii picks or any pointy style pick I’ve tried.
@jptk I kinda agree that the red floppy pick isn’t as nice as the jazz 3s that I use, but you can still make it work and feel comfortable. If anything, I feel way more “immediacy” with the jazz picks.
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It all depends on how your using them and where on the string your hitting. If you have been used to a heavy beveled pick for a while like a flow or jazz 3, it’s going to feel sticky and alien, that’s just how it goes in the biz.
I don’t think this on it’s own is bad so long as it’s not super obvious extension like string hopping. Pure rotation will do that, and plenty of players that use some rotation like Paul Gilbert do that to an extent. it’s where you are holding your hand that really dictates the escape with rotation. Rotate your hand so that you are muting the strings with more or the side of the hand (karate chop) and then make the rotational picking motion, your down stroke will still bury towards the body of the guitar and the upstrokes escape. Rotate that hand a bit so that it is flattening more on the body and you are muting with more or the meatier part of the palm, and make the same rotation motion you are now closer to what you would use for a DBX. Further still so you are muting with the second meatier part closer to thumb, now your down strokes are more likely to escape and the ups bury in the guitar, using all the same relatively rotation motion.
Yeah I got it to work after playing around with it for a bit, but I prefer jazz iii’s for most situations now anyway. It was just a bit of an experiment to see how it would feel.
I tend to go for beveled picks too. I use the flow most frequently, because I like a little of the dirtiness they give, the nylon jazz picks are cleaner though. before that I used the Ultex sharps and the tortex versions of the jazz three, and on occasion the jazz iii.
Both the Jazz and Flow have a nice textured grip
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Some follow up vids for @qwertygitarr and @jptk, here’s the part of the video where I used my usual tortex jazz III:
And I recorded a clip on archtop to hopefully accentuate swiping noise. I honestly didn’t like either pick for that: red was too floppy to get a good feel, and white didn’t project well for me. I pulled out my pick stash and found these .73 sharp Ultex that were much snappier for projection. The rounded .60 version felt better than the reds (much stiffer), but the sharp point definitely adds volume I think. It’s a longer video because I had to get used to both the archtop again, and this pick; you see me pull my hand away from the frame a few times to get the grip situated. I think the last few reps sounded better, so I hope it looks like improvement lol:
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