[Atomic_gerbil]

Well, as long as I have been playing (coming up on 2 years), I have never really tried sweeps. So, I decided to change that, and picked a song with insane sweeps for me to learn. I chose Nevermore's "This Godless Endeavor." It's several positions of very fast 3 and 5 string sweeps. I'm finding 5 string sweeps come more naturally to me, and 3's i tend to rush and I can't get down, and I need some pointers on how I should practice these to keep me sane.

thanks!

By the way, here is a video of someone nailing these sweeps:

YouTube - This godless endeavor sweeps (nevermore)

[distressed_romeo]

Careful work with a metronome is the solution I'm afraid. There's no big secret to it...you've just got to be ready to slow down and analyse exactly what aspect of your technique is preventing you from executing a part cleanly.

Here's a 'primer' lick to help you with 3 string sweeps. It's based on a m7 arpeggio, but try it with other chord-forms too, and be sure to do it one different combinations of strings.

E---------5----8----------
B------6----------6-------
G---7----------------5----
D-------------------------
A-------------------------
E-------------------------
B-------------------------

Three notes with a down-sweep, then three with an up-sweep. Pure sweep-picking pleasure!

Here's a really good sweeping lesson to give you some more stuff to practice...

iBreatheMusic.com - Sweep Picking by Mike Campese

Woodshed this stuff for a while and you should be better equipped to tackle TGE. In addition, if you don't already know them, you ought to learn your arpeggio forms all over the neck if you haven't already, as those shapes are what most sweeping licks are based on.

[SevenDeadly]

search for sweeps. Your not going to be able to play them that well at first. In fact it WILL sound like chicken scratches if you don't slow down and take it step by step

[sakeido]

Whenever you are practicing sweeps, play them on a clean channel bridge pickup. You need the most honest sound you can muster. You must start slow. When I first tried sweeping way back when, it felt like I was nailing it, but I wasn't actually playing all the notes and the neck pickup and distortion was hiding that.
You have to start them really slow. Play them in quarter notes at something like 80bpm and slowly work your up from there. You need to play them perfectly over and over again - sweeps are so demanding you need muscle memory to take effect on both your fretting and picking hand to be able to pull them off on a consistent basis.

[IBZ Addict]

Yes I agree, the metronome is the key. In addition, you should make sure there is consistency with the way that the pick "attacks" the string, most notably for the middle notes between the highest and lowest notes. The tendency when starting out is to totally garble them up. With distortion, they're usually masked, but when they're done with a clean tone, they're atrocious sounding, so make sure you give each note a good amount of attention.

If you're looking for consistent arpeggio runs that are exercise-like, I'd recommend the runs in some of Yngwie Malmsteen's tunes. Songs like "Liar","Demon Driver", "Never Die", "As Above So Below", etc. have very consistent theme-typed three string arpeggio runs in them, some of which I used as learning tools back in the day.