A rake doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sweep picking. A rake is used as a percussive sound before one note or a series of notes. Made by muting the strings being played with rather the picking or fretting hand. I think people confuse sweep picking and rakes because it has a similar motion in the picking hand. Many times sloppy sweep picking can turn into a rake, because the fretting hand is not in coordination with the picking hand.
For example:
Sweep
E:---------5--------
B:--------5---------
G:-------5----------
D:------7-----------
A:-----7------------
E:----8-------------
Rake
E:------------------
B:--------5---------
G:-------x----------
D:------x-----------
A:------------------
E:------------------
Hope that helps clear up the difference.
Ryan Buckner, Ysrafel
