Sweeping help please ^.^

I have a sweep basically down and it sounds good when i play it on my clean channel but when i add the distortion it sounds very sloppy, any techniques or just plain advice that could remedy this?? Twould be amazing thanks.

Only a rookie myself but if it sounds good clean but not with gain that would suggest it was more to do with your amp or guitar settings.

Have you tried trimming the pickup volume back or gain on your amp?

My setup can become muddy also if i dont get the settings just right.

Trial and lots of error :p

I do a lot of sweep picking in my playing, my advice is to sweep off the neck pickup, roll the gain/distortion back to about 6 or 7 on the dial on the amp and pay extra careful attention to muting the strings with your left and right hand. The only string that should not be muted is the string being picked, as soon as you 'sweep' to the next string the previous one should be muted (you also need to mute the proceding strings - that's where both hands come into play). It's the most difficult of all to master, took me about a year of trying and getting nowhere then one day the penny dropped and I 'got it'. Stick with it, it takes a while!

PS the reason it sounds good clean and muddy as hell when distorted is because you are not dampening the strings - too much ringing out that only gets picked up when you boost the gain. I'd keep the volume knob at the max setting, get it sounding good off the neck pickup then try if off the bridge - it's a lot more difficult especially if you use hot pickups. Alllof the big sweep pickers like Rusty Cooley, Michael Angelo, Jason Becker, Vinnie Moore etc do a lot of flipping between pickup ssettings - the neck is almost always employed for sweep picked sections whereas the neck is for the more gainy screaming lead parts.

Hope that helps...

Hey thanks for the advice, I'll be working on that.

Superhuman is spot on, muting the strings slightly is a very important part of sweeping yet is rarely mentioned.

Originally Posted by: Ragn4rok234 ... any techniques or just plain advice that could remedy this??

Tutorials on sweeping:

Simple - http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=286
Intermediate - http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=408
Advanced - http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorial.php?input=211

I also thought Superhuman's advice was very good!

you could do what satriani does and thats he does a little finger dance with his picking hand to mute the strings played after there struck. its a long haul to get hybrid muting going but the results are ultra smooth.

Good question Ragnarok. There is actually a fine line here from what I understand that splits very professional guitar players from amateurs. This is actually something I recently learned while experimenting with my playing with distortion turned up. A lot of excess noise / ringing from already picked strings or others that get nudged.

This article is awesome and could be of great use to you regarding your point of interest:

http://www.theshredzone.com/content/article.asp?pageid=265

Many ways of muting excess noise for the right & left hand have been developed over history. You may want to experiment with many of them and find what works best for you.

Good luck on further advancing your sweeping!


Chris

The only way to have clean sweeps is to start very slow and put a lot of care into muting (whatever muting technique you're using). Then slowly go up to speed, always using a metronome. Do not rush it, it is a long process and you can't do it in a day or a week.
If your muting is correct you can sweep cleanly no matter the amount of gain. In fact, I suggest you to practice with more gain than you use normally, so that if your muting is not perfect you'll notice it and correct it.
Using the neck pickup helps (less noise) and is the way to go when you perform, but when you're practicing use both pickups: the bridge pickup will reveal better the imperfection of your technique.