You Guy Will Find This Interesting

[shredmonster]

From Willjay at the Michael Angelo forum:
I often get asked for an actual list of results from my NPS Clocking Project for alternate picking, so today i've typed out a list of my results from clocking over 50 of the fastest known guitarists.

I've split them into groups of speed, just to make it a bit easier to read.

As you'll see, there are several people that are around the same speed, though i have made noteable comments for a lot of them, because as is obvious to me now, they aren't all necessarily on the same level of picking skill JUST because they pick at the same speed, there are other factors involved also (eg. level of accuracy, difficulty of shapes/patterns involved).

I've also seperated the "Spasmic Arm Vibration" picking, from the normal picking. You may notice that Rusty Cooley is in both lists, that is because he changes how he picks after a certain speed (from controlled picking, to arm vibration picking).

This is the only list of it's kind i've seen anywhere on the net that is fully scientific, where i can back up every single speed claim with audio evidence in the form of 1 second clips that i have created for each artist, and clocked them myself.

Anyway.... here ya go :




- Shawn Lane - 18 nps

- Danny Joe Carter - 17 nps (not note for note accurate/coordinated at that speed)
- Todd Duane - 16.5 - 17 nps (very accurate)
- Marcus Paus - 16 -17 nps (inaccurate, tremelo picking)
- Rusty Cooley - 16 nps
- John McLaughlin - 16 nps (very accurate....on acoustic!!!!!)
- Michael Angelo Batio - 16 nps (very accurate)
- Joel Rivard - 16 nps (very accurate)
- Tony Macalpine - 16 nps (very accurate)
- Guthrie Govan - 16 nps
- Rick Graham - 16 nps
- Theodore Ziras - 16 nps (alternate picks accurate up to around 16 nps, after that he starts to cheat by missing out pickstrokes/economy picking)
- Chris Impellitteri - 16 nps (16 nps in his early years.....these days more around 14-15 nps)

- John Petrucci - 15 nps (can be very accurate when not simply "tremelo picking")
- Yngwie Malmsteen - 15 nps
- Paul Gilbert - 15 nps (very accurate)
- Al Di Meola - 15 nps (very accurate)
- Jorge Strunz - 15 nps (very accurate)
- Jason Becker - 15 nps (can be very accurate)
- Vinnie Moore - 15 nps (very accurate)
- John Norum - 15 nps
- Michael Romeo - 15 nps
- Ron Thal - 15 nps
- Jeremy Barnes - 15 nps
- John Sykes - 15 nps
- Mario Parga - 15 nps (not very accurate, mostly tremelo picking)

- Paco DeLucia - 14 -15 nps
- Conrad Simon - 14 nps (VERY accurate)
- Kee Marcello - 14 nps (very accurate)
- Milan Polak - 14 nps
- Bob Zabek - 14 nps
- Matthew Mills - 14 nps
- Nuno Bettencourt - 14 nps
- George Bellas - 14 nps
- Stephan Forte - 14 nps
- Toshi Iseda - 14 nps
- Mark Tremonti - 14 nps
- German Schauss - 14 nps (quite inaccurate)

- Buckethead - 13.5 nps
- Jeff Loomis - 13.5 nps
- Tony Smotherman - 13 nps
- Steve Vai - 13 -14 nps (mostly around 13 nps)
- Neil Zaza - 13 nps (i'm sure he can pick quicker than this... i just don't have many good quality recordings)
- Joe Stump - 13 nps (though he does gain more speed with certain runs by economy picking)
- Greg Howe - 13 nps
- Steve Morse - 13 nps
- Randy Rhoads - 13 nps
- Zakk Wylde - 13 nps
- The Great Kat - 13 nps (...of very inaccurate tremelo picking on 1 string)
- Joey Taffola - 12 nps (very accurate)





Here are some speeds i've clocked for people using `Spasmic Arm Vibration" picking :

- Odracir (Michael Angelo forum) - 27 - 28 nps (Spasmic arm vibration picking on 1 note)
- Shredmikael (John Petrucci forum) - 20 nps (Spasmic arm vibration "tremelo" picking; is 16 years old)
- Tiago Della Vega - 18 - 20 nps (picks up to this speed with spasmic arm vibrations, left and right hands never match up, and often fingers more notes than he picks)
- Francesco Fareri - 18 nps (...of uncoordinated, inaccurate, arm vibration picking on 1 string)
- Rusty Cooley - 16.5 - 17 nps (up to this speed when using the vibrating arm picking method, which loses some accuracy)



Hope this helps a bit!


You guys are free to copy/paste my list around..... just don't don't forget to include the source.

[skorb]

ha ha, that's a great list! very entertaining to read.

can someone educate me here - what exactly is tremelo picking and how does it differ from sweep picking?

[emperor_black]

tremolo is when you pick one note a lot of times.... usually in batches of 8's or 16's. Sweeping or raking is like playing an arpeggio where you pick one note on one string but very fast.

[Endrik]

man, this is the supidest thing I've seen for a long time

[emperor_black]

watch some of shawn lane's videos on youtube and then talk!

[S-man]

In the end, it's not how many nps..it's how it sounds. That is the true test.

IMHO.

[NextInLine]

In the end, it's not how many nps..it's how it sounds. That is the true test.

IMHO.

well that's just so true but this is something different, don't take this "musical"

I'm surprised by Michael Romeo's result, to me he sounds one the fastest players...

[petedz]

man, this is the supidest thing I've seen for a long time

+1

[Robert Burns]

How about that Pablo Escola guy on Youtube? Hes a maniac!
I found it interesting, that most of my favorites were 14 and under,
except for Shawn Lane. I like a bluesy shredder, like Greg Howe, or
Lynch. Most of the above 16 guys, i cant listen to for more than 2 minutes! Thanks for doing this, it was very interesting.

[VitaminG]

I could care less about people's nps, but it was interesting. I would have thought that Zakk was faster than Randy, that guys like Buckethead, Loomis & Vai would be faster than guys like Nuno or Sykes. And that after all these years (and a whole generation of shredders inspired by him), the Big Yng is still faster than a lot of his disciples.

But ultimately, all the speed in the world don't mean shit if they aren't doing something cool & musical with it.

[skorb]

and that's Sykes with 3 fingers 99% of the time. holy crap!

but yeah this is just a fun diversion. music isn't notes per second. my favorite player, Michael Schenker, isn't even on the list. and I agree, most of those guys are unlistenable after about 5 mins.

it's interesting that someone actually measured these guys. just a conversation piece really.

[skorb]

I would have thought that Zakk was faster than Randy, that guys like Buckethead, Loomis & Vai would be faster than guys like Nuno or Sykes.

I saw Nuno last year with Satellite Party and he busted out some wild sweep picking solos, very accurate, and much faster than I expected. great player when I saw him.

And that after all these years (and a whole generation of shredders inspired by him), the Big Yng is still faster than a lot of his disciples.

how about that. I noticed that too.

lots of guys shred, but there's only one Yngwie.

[VitaminG]

oh, don't get me wrong. I highly rate Nuno. But he still feels kind of old school to me, and your Loomis, Vai, Buckethead-type players, whilst of a similar generation, are supposed to be the cutting edge state-of-the-art guitarists.

I marvel at some comments I've seen about older players on other guitar boards. Guys just cutting George Lynch up like he's some two-fingered hack, all the while blowing smoke up Alexi Laiho or Jon Donais's asses.

[Brick]

how did he figure it out??

[hippietim]

...dancing about architecture...