How fast can you pick?

BossArky

No cheating!

1) Get your hands out of your pants and onto the fretboard for this little competition.
2) Set up your metrone at a moderate speed and see what tempo you can maintain an alternate picking pattern at for 1 minute solid, no speeding up or slowing down.
3) For the sake of uniformity let that string be an open palm muted D.
4) Once you can keep constant tempo, up the speed of the metronome.
5) Post your whiplash speed
6) Accept the awe of your fellow boarders.

*Note* No w@nkers - unfair advantage.

Karl Hungus

Well I do pretty regular excersizes with the metronome, which involves playing chromatic excersizes at 4 notes per beat. I can go up to about 140/150 or so BPM, any more and it starts to get real sloppy. How's that?

Giblet

Ok.

Giblet

http://www.sleevesmahoney.com/blah.mp3

****ty mic /

I could do it better live with a bit o' adren flowing through me.


EDIT: Oh, 1 minute. Ok, give me some time to prepare my arm.

BossArky

I suppose since I started this thread I should post something too. Will try later when I get home.

BossArky

Well last night/early hours of the morning I whipped out the flying v and throttled it up to 4 notes per beat at 160bpm. Tried 168 for a while but wasn't warmed up enough to keep it steady and too knackered to keep trying.

Giblet, what bpm was your soundfile at? Can you keep that up for long?

Makes me want to practice more.

Giblet

230bpm 16ths I did the same at the first boardstock for around 45 seconds and didn't feel tired, I feel the strain at home in front of a PC though.

The end part was probably faster though.

Fusion251

What do you mean 230bpm 16ths? Are you saying with the metronome running at 230bpm you can manage 4 notes per beat?



Fusion

Giblet

Yes.

BossArky

Giblet wrote:

230bpm 16ths I did the same at the first boardstock for around 45 seconds and didn't feel tired, I feel the strain at home in front of a PC though.

The end part was probably faster though.

alrighty, something to aim for.

When I was trying this last night I realised that it would be better to do some kind of chromatic up and down as well as just open palm mute picking. Anyway, thats a battle for another day.

BossArky

Giblet wrote:

230bpm 16ths I did the same at the first boardstock

What was/is boardstock? I presume its a get together of boards musicans... but when/where, etc.

Giblet

It was a boards beer with bands from boards. Doing runs helps with picking aswell. It helps relieve the tension and monotony.

Giblet

Oh and I never ever ever ever practiced speeding up, I could just always do it at that speed. My stamina is better than before though. Chalk it up to Barcelona 92 on the Megadrive

It wasn't me!

You have just incurred my intense hatred.

Giblet

All you need is love.

Oh ****, that's 260 not 230. Sorry :<

Fusion251

I tried it last night and managed a minute at 260!

All thems years in college have finally paid off hahaha

Fusion

BossArky

I'm not sure if my metronome goes to 260!

It wasn't me!

I can get 160 if I'm warmed up.

Fingers Mcginty

Jesus that's fast. Are you playin a sequence like a chromatic at that speed or just hitting an open string? When i say chromatic i mean say 1,2,3,4 pattern per string.

Giblet

Well I changed it around in my sample. Wouldn't make a different really unless it was a lot of string skipping. It tends to sound muck though as you are straining too much.

Fingers Mcginty

i think the chromatic 1234 sequence starting on the low e then onto the A string and so on up to the high E then to the next fret and so on up to the 12th fret is a more realistic representation of speed ability.

LundiMardi

i don't know and don't particularly care. But that's just me i guess.

BossArky

I got the pm'd open D to 190.

-=al=-

i dont really care either :-) but to answer the Question... Fast enough :cool:

Giblet

You just think you're too cool not to care, but you're not. Too cool not to care, or eh, care not?

Next up. How fast can you dance the macarena.

-=al=-

Exactly

Karl Hungus

Well, I've just managed to go up to 160bpm this morning without it falling apart. I attempted 168, but it got sloppy. I'm going to give it another go in a bit, I'm sure I can push myself harder. If Giblet can do 260, then at least it's humanly possible.

Interestingly though, I've always played with my pinky resting on the body of the guitar, my hand 'anchored' as it were. I've tried to stop doing that before and it just wasn't working for me, but very recently I've managed to completely break of that habit, the improvement is unreal! I used to be struggly doing anything past 120bpm, and that was only a few weeks ago. It's strange, but I even find I have a much better grip on my pick now.

Karl Hungus

I've actually managed to push myself to 184! :eek:

It can be a serious struggle to keep up, but I've managed it.

Sofaspud

Karl Hungus wrote:

Interestingly though, I've always played with my pinky resting on the body of the guitar, my hand 'anchored' as it were.

I do that too, but it doesn't really seem to get in the way of my picking. It's off the body when I strum, and when I'm picking the lower strings I usually kinda grip the high E with it. What exactly do you do with it now? I think mine would feel weird if it was just floating about . . .

Back on topic, about 160 BPM, I can do a consistent rhythm a lot faster, but there's no real accurracy because I move most of my arm for that, whereas I use just my wrist for the normal picking.

NeMiSiS

I will do this. I'd bet I can hit about 200 with just down strokes !

Giblet

Maybe at 1/8th notes :>