Yeah I only recently actually tried doing it. It takes some getting used to, but I imagine that with time I could get it faster and smoother than alternate picking even for scalar passages. I mean it makes sense right, more economy of motion. I'll have to practice it tho, cause it comes a lot less naturally than straight alternate picking. I'll check out your trick magnus thanks. I really suggest you guys listen to jimmy bruno, get him off napster if you want. He's not a shredder, he's a jazz player, so he's not going to be doing fast picking all the time, but when he does, he always uses economy picking, and he does it great. He's also a great guitarrist in terms of improvisation and interesting use of chords played harmonically not just arpeggiated like most shred guitarrists. (Hey it sounds crappy to play them harmonically with distortion right?)