Metal technique

[bassbedlamite]

i finger pick exclusively;
if i can't do it with my primary 4 fingers,
i either tap it or do the afore mentioned 'thumb/pinky' slap..been playing around with that maneuver for about a year.
plus, consider this logic;
any experienced player knows that the fretting hand builds up forearm muscle... you need muscle on the other side too! but in my case, the muscle on the finger picking hand is so much bigger. *hits self for playing a minimum of 4 hours per night*

[metalhed141]

first, what do most of you consider fast? i've been playing bass for 6 months and i can use 4 fingers, play with a pick, and slap moderately well. i can get in about 800 notes a minute (if i have to)(gets muddy though) and im a little slower with a pick but still fast.i've been trying to learn some hard fast songs and i can play all the ones ive tried to learn.(mostly old metallica and canibal corpse). not to bash pickers but the only reason i'd ever play with a pick is to get a different sound and i believe in the long run(on bass) picks are slower but sound more accurate due to the crisper sound, (also it sounds good to do things with a lot of ghost notes mixed in) but its all really a matter of opinion i was just hoping to get some input from my fellow bassists because where i live i dont know any bass players that have been considerably better than me (cept my teacher) so here's my couple cents.