playing fast

[wartorn2112]

Step 1, listen to Sadus

Step 2, pick very lightly when speed picking insanely fast. If you're doing a thrash riff, palm muting is optional.
Start slow the work your way up,

Step 3, dont use little lead picks, those things are a bitch

Step 4 - make sure you guitar strings arent too loose

 

[Sunbane]

I could go off at length about practicing, but I'll try to keep it short.

Practice by playing the songs you like. Imitate riffs and copy them. Make sure you know every little accent of the riff you're trying to play. It helps a lot if you know exactly which notes are downstrokes and which are upstrokes. Playing old Metallica stuff is what built my rhythm playing. Sometimes, I can even look back and say "hey, that riff is what taught me this technique", like how the main riff in CoC's "I Am The Eyes Of God", taught me how to successfully mix speedy downpicking with bursts of tremolo picking. Good stuff.

Practicing slowly to begin with is the only way to build precision in your playing - be it with rhythm or lead playing. If you're going to play Damage Inc. for instance, learn the riff slowly and gradually increase speed.

'bane

 

[Hexer]

someone said "hold the pick at a 45 degree angle to the strings" what exactly do you mean with that?
could someone post a pic with a guitarist holding a pick that way? I don't really get what you mean..........

 

[Sunbane]

someone said "hold the pick at a 45 degree angle to the strings"

If you angle the pick so it's attack at the strings no longer is "flat on", it will slip over the strings easier/faster.

I don't agree with that recommendation though. I feel that when doing that, the pick attack loses much of its crispyness and the sound turns mushy - especially when playing fast. I'd rather recommend you to keep the pick as parallel to the strings as possible. It will help your tone a lot.

'bane

 

[Hexer]

ah, so you mean:

_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________ (strings)
...........\ (pick)
instead of:
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________
_________________(strings)
..........-- (pick)

right?

 

[Sunbane]

Yup.

 

[xenophobe]

Well, holding the pick and your angle of attack is pretty much a personal preference thing, but the only time I generally hold my pick flat against the strings is when I'm doing arpeggiated sweeps. Otherwise, I hold it at an angle as well...

 

[Bryant]

I allways hated that nylon strings anyway..........
and as I'll have to buy new strings for that acoustic anyways (one string is broke, and I don't have one to replace it) I'll probably get steel strings for it
what kind of strings (gauge, .......) would you recommend? I dont have experience in buying steel-strings for acoustic

so basicly what I should do is 1. play acoustic and 2. learn to play without digging at the strings, right?

Yeah like the other guys said, you can't put steel strings on a classical (nylon string) guitar.

I still suggest getting a steel string acoustic guitar though. There is enough "metal" out there that at least have acoustic parts in it to maybe keep your interests up enough to stick with it some. The classical guitars take an advanced player to make them sound good. In fact, rather than an "advanced" player, they take a player that can use that instrument to it's strengths. They don't sound that good when I play them because of the stuff I play on them.
As far as string guage for the steel strings, starting off with 11s (lights) will be fine. I actually use 13s (mediums) on mine, but I use mine strictly for chords. I'll toot my own horn and call myself an "advanced" guitarist, but I can't play solos hardly at all with those 13s, so for practicing purposes, use the 11s.
If you later decide you want a "slow part" in a song with just some acoustic chords or something, the 13s give great volume and "fullness" but they are tough to play.


Bryant

 

[Hexer]

the acoustic in question was bought by my mother when she started to learn to play guitar some years ago (she gave up later) and it had steel-strings on it. my mum just changed to nylon, because the steel-strings hurt her fingers to much. when i started to play around with the thing, I kinda hatet the nylons, mainly because they go out of tune so easily and I like the sound of steel-strings better, anyway
so I don't think it will be a great problem to put steel-strings on that guitar

 

[Hexer]

I just found a little trick that helps a bit with playing fast riffs. it's just a little setup-change:
you know those fast rythm-riffs with staccato-riffing on one of the low strings (mostly low E) and some high notes mostly one or two strings above the "base-string", right? (a good example would be Arch Enemys The Immortal, it's also used a lot in those Death-Thrash-style things).
I always managed to miss a note or get stuck in between the strings and therefore got out of timing. Now when playing my Marathon ProSeries RR (that I havent played for quite some time) I suddenly remembered that it has that nice bridge (kinda Floyd-styled) that lets you adjust the hight of each string (above the fretboard) seperately. So I just raised the low E-string a bit higher than the others and now those riffing is a little easier (especially at high speed).
I also scratched the surface of my pick to keep it from turning when my fingers sweat.

may be a bit of cheating, but it works really well

 

[Bryant]

the acoustic in question was bought by my mother when she started to learn to play guitar some years ago (she gave up later) and it had steel-strings on it. my mum just changed to nylon, because the steel-strings hurt her fingers to much. when i started to play around with the thing, I kinda hatet the nylons, mainly because they go out of tune so easily and I like the sound of steel-strings better, anyway
so I don't think it will be a great problem to put steel-strings on that guitar

Cool. Sounds like you are set there.

Bryant

 

[Hexer]

Bryant: hmmmm....... I was wrong about that guitar......
we had 2 acoustics, the one with the steel-strings changed to nylon and one thats made for nylons. what I had forgotten: the "normal" one (with the steel-strings) was broke (I think the bridge was broken in some way) so I only have the nylon-acoustik left.....

 

[Sunbane]

what I had forgotten: the "normal" one (with the steel-strings) was broke (I think the bridge was broken in some way) so I only have the nylon-acoustik left.....

Take the steel stringer to a repair shop for a price quote on the repair. I bet they can fix it right up.

'bane