High gain for legato technique?

[jiden]

Hey guys,
I just recently begain a structured practice routine (i.e arpeggios, alt. picking, sweep-picking, legato), and I was wondering if it's a bad thing to use gain while practicing legato exercises. The notes are hard to hear and sustain otherwise, and most guitarists i've seen have used distortion. I'm still young, and I'd like to know if thats a bad habit before I start practicing anything wrong repeatedly.

Thanks,

[Slaindude]

Honestly, i would prefer using distortion when playing legato as well as sweep picking, alt pick and arpeggios. If you normally use distortion you should use it for practice too. In my case, using distortion makes it easier to distinguish good playing from bad playing cause, for example, if you are doing a legato run and you pull off your fingers away from a string and you make it ring (unwanted noise), with distortion youll just hear a big noise, instead of using no distortion and maybe never notice it.

Finally to avoid the unwanted noise at the beginning, play everything slow and focus on your fingers. Then, speed up !

Hope that helps!

[Anubis]

I practice legato both with distorsion and totally clean.
The stronger your left hand gets the more you will be able to do legato with no distorsion at all.
The reason I practice both with a clean sound and distorted are many.
With a clean sound I have to use more strength to get a sound out of the the guitar and this makes my left hand stronger.
With distorsion I don't have to use much strength to get a sound of the guitar for obvious reasons but that also seem to make my left hand a bit weak and lazy since I don't have to work very hard.
I also find that if I have been practicing hammer-ons and pull-offs for maybe 20-30 minutes and then turn on distorsion my legato techniques seems much stronger and sounds a lot better.
One of the biggest reason for using distorsion when practicing legato is that distorsion makes it easy to get unwanted noise.
Therefore you have to learn mute the strings you are not playing.
If I do a legato sequence from the bottom strings to the top I always mute some of the string I'm not playing.

With a clean sound I find it easier to zoom in on what the left hand is doing since I don't have to worry about muting unwanted noise.
With a clean sound you can really hear exactly what the left hand is doing.

Anoher thing I do sometimes which is a good tip to anyone that feels exercises is boring is to watch a movie while practicing.
I often watch a complete movie and practice at the same time.
I also have my metronome running loud enough so I can hear it.

[perth]

practicing while doing something else is a really good way to get muscle memory. youll get better faster if you apply your mind to the task as well (in fact, sometimes i practice in my mind only, and leave the guitar in its case).

my drummer likes to practice (with sticks) while hes driving. i dont recommend trying that yourself with a guitar hanging out the window.