W-wait what, are my hands out of sync?

Technique Critique
#1

Soooo, its been a while since I last posted something here.

Been practicing and honing my technique, and coming up with my own killer shred so that I can write songs and stuff.

I’ve never gotten the opportunity to slow down my playing, and I did so in my video editing software. But to my horror I think I might have uncovered a flaw somewhere.

I recently came up with this lick that I’ve been creating after observing players like Petrucci and Rusty Cooley.

But wait…what the heck? Why does it sound like I missed a note at 0:24? And from the slow mo part onwards it kinda feels like I’m not accurately hitting the strings with the force that I intended to, and I kinda noticed that after every last 3 notes of each 6 note chunk it has this very ‘‘floppy’’ and poorly articulated transition into the next chunk. I’m not sure if you guys know what I’m on about here but that’s what I’m hearing and it feels as if I’m unconciously using this speed I have to hide this imperfection in order to not make it sound like a pile of slop.

At the very least I’m able to hear better articulation in the second slow mo take at 0:34

Is it my hands? Or is it something else?

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#2

I would play it clean with no effects, record it, and see how articulated it sounds. That normally helps me decide if I messed up or if the slow motion distorted something.

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#3

This is exactly what happened to me after learning about pickslanting. My picking technique got so much better, but the hand synchronization didn’t catch up to it. After I realized what was going on, I started to practice with a completely clean tone and the bridge pickup. The tone might be a bit harsh, but it is completely unforgiving and makes all the mistakes really obvious.

Practicing this way definitely helped, but I’m still not completely satisfied with my hand synchronization.

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#4
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#5

To be honest it does not seem as bad as you say, apart from a couple of transition points and for “effect” it already works.

But if you are interested in cleaning it up 100%, maybe you can see what happens at intermediate speeds, and identify the critical speed where errors start to pop up?

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#6

Does it only happen with this particular lick?
It sounds like it’s only happening where you are making transitions both from string to string and when you are making position shifts.
I’m wondering if maybe it’s just due to the fact that you’re fret hand has more travel distance to traverse?
Try recording a more traditional scale run in slo mo and see if it happens then as well.
It may just be this particular lick and not something in your playing as a whole.

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#7

Sounds good. Yes hand sync is a little off. You’re not getting to the position shifts in time. Nothing a little chunking practice won’t take care of. As an aside, learning to hear when things are not clicking, without slow motion video, is just as important.

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