Yes, that would be fun to watch! But wouldn't it be better to play the arpeggio using both side of the Stick? That wouldn't require you to move the hands so far and maybe therefore letting you do it with better precision.

You make some good points, Per. However, I think what leadbass is going for is the characteristic sound of a "sweeping arpeggio". While you are correct about the picking technique, that is only part of the equation.

The sweeping is usually combined with a hammer on on the first and/or last string of the sweep while ascending, and a pull off descending. Generally the arpeggio is played without skipping any chord tones, ie R35R35R etc., as opposed to R5R35 etc. (hence the need for the additional hammer on/pull off when done on the guitar).

When I play sweeping arps on the guitar, if the pattern ends on the 3 or 5 I generally tap the oct R with my right hand before descending (no doubt alot simpler once I started playing the Stick a couple years ago).

This can easily be achieved on the melody side, with both hands, in a 5 fret span without too much moving around (and using some distortion). Starting on the 5th string, you can get a 3 octave arpeggio. I've gotten down a convincing "sweep" sound while ascending, but I'm still working on descending... and so far it's just one chord (both major and minor) and not quite a progression (like in the video I linked to).

There is a french guitar player, Daniel Peroine, who taps on a guitar and he gets a pretty good sweeping / legato sound (http://www.youtube.com/user/DanielPeroine).
He also has a book about polyphonic tapping on guitar which should be of interested for this (with some adaptations). Please Bruno & Yannick feel free to correct me / extend on this.
I'm sure that with LOTS of woodshed it must be possible to achieve a more or less convincing sweeping sound with one hand, but I believe that 2 hands on the melody will do the trick much better; you can always loop the bassline or let somebody else take care of it.

Cheers, Daniel.

Hey leadbass here is a very old video form one of the pioneers of sweep/economy picking. Uli Jon Roth. He is definitely one of YJM's influnces. Thought you might get a kick out of it. 0:44 starts a prety impressive passage.

[YouTube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya5bGthIz4E&feature=fvw[/YouTube]


In fact, here's Yngwie's take on the same song.
[YouTube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffn6bMhaJe4&feature=related[/YouTube]

hmm something went wrong with links, try this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya5bGthIz4E&feature=fvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffn6bMhaJe4&feature=related

I'm amazed that i got so many responses, thanks everyone. I've been working out a way to do the arpeggios, it requires both hands on the melody side, but its worth it.