Originally Posted by: MjrTomThanks for the advice :)

I have been practicing my rhythm in Drop-D and the tuning seems to remain pretty consistant without muddying up too much. It seems to have little effect on the trem system although the intonation needed some tweaking.

Playing on clean has helped my technique, some of my smaller mistakes were covered by the distortion so that has helped no end.

I personally have got used to using the small hard picks (1mm Dunlop stubbys) , they seem to accentuate the tone much better than others i have tried. It also seems to have improved the picking accuracy and timing.

try using jazz 3s there very small and the thickness is close to a 2mm i use them or those purple dunlop ones which are 2 mm. having a thicker pick will increase ur technique no end purpely because u have to adjust the tension of holding your pick everytime u change from ryhtym to lead or from single picking to ryhtym playing far more drastically than a normal 0.5mm or 1mm. plus u get a fat hard hitting sound definatly good for chugging. as for slipknot i dont agree with them lol. ryhtymically metal wise try googleing some metal ryhtyms. im guessing most of there work is in 16ths or 8th note patters. morelikely 16th note patterns. and the sound ur after should have the bass up high the mids scooped (right to the top i think) and the treble a bit before the bass. a really good pedal for this sound is a boss metal zone 2. they mke a 30 watt sound like a pro stack in my opnion. then maybe add a kerry king eq pedal for complete custmoisation of what u want to sound like. sorry about the spelling hope this helps.