| Picking style can depend on the music style. Metallica, for years, used all down strokes. As I dig Metallica, that's the way I chose to pick. You have to be super fast, as there is no sound on your way up. Your strings will sound only on the way down. So, I hope I am explaining this right...your wrist will be doing twice as much work. But the reward is a super aggressive sound.
I was in a Rage Against the Machine/Biohazard/Korn style band in which the lead guitarist and I almost came to blows over all downstrokes. He insisted that the two guitars and bass all use up and down strokes. That way sound comes from both the down and up stroke. He believed that would result in faster picking. To a certain extent he is right, but I am firm in my conviction that the sound is less aggressive.
Actually I think that a combination of styles is probably the most effective, up and down picking in certain passages and all downstrokes in a particularly aggressive passage or the outro, for example, or an agressive bridge.
Last, I read about one guitarist who uses all upstrokes!! Well, try all methods. Take a favorite song, play all down, a combination, and all up and see what you like. When I first started to play bass I was rigid about techniques, but now I have loosened up considerably. Play what the song demands. Play inservice of the music. Jason Oldsted
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