Originally posted by u10ajf
Hmm... I've heard the "Hide behind distortion" thing before too but quite honestly playing with tons of distortion and treble can be quite hard because, as Andy 82 said, any quiet sound of a still ringing string is picked up and it might even be turned into feedback. If you're practicing harmonics (esp., pinch harmonics) start with distortion or your life will become too hard.
As for hitting strings damn hard, I guess that's good practice because you will find that as you speed up the notes get quieter, this makes it harder to get as much rhythm into your playing.

Well, you got a point and I had some thoughts about that too, but later I realized that it wouldn't bee a problem to me. A lot of sweep practicing really helped me learn how to mute the strings I wasn't playing on, which I also did automaticly when I played low gain.

For a.harmonics (I'm not sure if that's what you mentioned when you wrote pinch harmonics) I would say that it is best to begin with disortion to fast understand how to make them, just as you said. Later, when you got so far, train the artificial harmonics without disortion..

/Anders