Cracking the Code Season 2 heats up with Yngwie’s positively volcanic combination of right-hand techniques. Episode 2, Inside the Volcano, completes Yngwie’s right-hand strategy with a critical catalyst of his picking power: sweeping. Read More
Today we’re proudly launching the second Masters in Mechanics seminar! It’s called Antigravity. And it’s all about breaking the rules. Read More
Today we’re launching an amazing new way to learn about picking technique. It’s called Masters in Mechanics, and it’s something we’re really excited to offer — in fact it builds on all the work we’ve been doing so far. Read More
Join us for our first-ever Talking the Code discussion — a live webcast where we’ll discuss the latest episode, play additional examples, and take viewer questions to help you break the cycle of the constant search for technique. Read More
Cracking the Code, Season 2
8 episodes and 2+ hours of groundbreaking technical insight. The Season Pass gets you:
Ad-free, HD downloads of all 8 episodes
Tablature from our episodes and features
Your choice of 1080p or 720p files
Special video downloads, like slow-motion footage of our new “Down Around the World” series
And to catch you up, we’ll even throw in a Season 1 Pass for free!
UPDATE: The Season Pass is now the Pickslanting Primer! Learn more here:
We’re launching Season 2 of Cracking the Code, and with it, a truly groundbreaking exploration of picking technique.
Throughout history, great players — much like great athletes — have worked their magic by feel rather than by analysis. These gifted geniuses rely on mechanical optimizations to do things with picks and strings that they themselves may not even be aware of. In Season 2 of Cracking the Code, we’ll dive deep into what those optimizations are, and how they work.
Along the way, we’ll elaborate, for the first time, a complete system for advanced picking that unites a vast roster of all-time great players. Season 2 follows the thread that connects Yngwie and Eddie Van Halen, Eric Johnson and Albert Lee, Shawn Lane, Michael Angelo Batio, John McLaughlin, Steve Vai, Rusty Cooley, Al Di Mieola, Paul Gilbert, and so many more. It’s going to be an amazing ride. Read More
The design of our smartphone camera mount has taken a quantum leap of sophistication in its most recent iteration. In fact, it has matured to such an extent that we’ve been using it in our own projects here at Cracking the Code. We recently produced a series of special features spotlighting Season 2 picking techniques in various musical styles. Read More
Word of the Code has been ricocheting around the Internet, from Facebook to forums to sites like Guitar Noize. We love reading your comments and emails, and following the discussion that’s been happening around the show. Every one of you who identifies with the project validates all the work we’ve put into this. And we’ve recently gotten some pretty awesome further validation from the web server behemoths and Internet at large: we’re now on the first page of Google results for “Cracking the Code”! Read More
2018 Update:
If you’re finding this post via search (or heroic blog-dive) please note that the Code Archives are a legacy product, no longer available in the form described below. They were, however, an important predecessor to our Masters in Mechanics interviews — of which you can find many on the Interviews page, with more coming soon!
—The Cracking the Code Team
The Cracking the Code project is the most comprehensive investigation of picking technique ever undertaken. And now, we’re making the raw materials of that investigation available for you to watch, study, and enjoy. Today we’re officially launching the Code Archive, the most unique collection of high-speed analytical guitar footage ever assembled, and a rare opportunity to study world-class technique up close and in action.
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Doesn’t it feel like just yesterday — or at least just last decade — that Cracking the Code first seeped into your consciousness, blazing riffs and whispers of picking secrets crackling across your computer screen and through your speakers? Well, with Episode 8: “Fast Forward”, we’ve hit our first big milestone and wrapped up Season 1. There’s much yet to come, but we’re proud to close the first folio of this journey and get down to business on the next steps.
The dog may not have eaten our homework, but we did have to chase him around the yard for a week to get it back! Episode 7, “Lix et Veritas”, delayed for a week, is finally ready.
To quote a band you’ll see in Episode 7, it’s a monster! Episode 7, at over 20 minutes long, is nearly a double episode. And this is after cutting a two or three scenes which would have pushed the total length closer to half an hour. It’s also perhaps the most television-esque of the series so far, featuring some of our most immersive animations, and a thrilling, edge-of-your-seat guitar contest showdown. Before you hit the play button, you’ll definitely want to hit the concession stand.
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