guitars

Chase the sound you are looking for. That's pretty much my generic advise for any music related question. Being aware of what you want to change is 90% percent of the battle. The rest is changing technique, gear, etc. subtly or drastically to get there. This may be enough for the problem to naturally fix itself.

More specifically, I find that it is all about feeling the music with your whole self. "No shit", you say. Stay with me for a second and I will get to what I mean. I'm primarily a drummer, so you'll have to adapt my advise to guitar. When I am playing something a little more chill and I want to play behind the beat, I lean back (so I am further away) just a bit. If I have time in between beats, I make exaggerated, almost showy, movements that don't let me come in early. The trick is to keep the flow regardless of whether I'm hitting the drum that beat or not. Perhaps you have to fix your posture and keep your pick hand moving bigger movements. When the big movements aren't practical, picture it in your mind instead. If you have an entrance, start the movements a few beats early.

When I want to play on the beat or ahead of it, I lean forward and pump myself up mentally. With the change in posture and mindset, I am a totally different person. Part of it could be that being just a bit closer means I hit a few milliseconds earlier with the same motions, though I think it is more mental. The trick here is that my body is relaxed either way and I keep the fluid motions.

Back to my thesis: I bet you are focusing too hard on the technical aspect of what you are playing and not feeling the vibe the song is supposed to have. I think of it as the difference between reading the lines in a script versus becoming the character. You have to feel the emotions you are trying to express with the guitar.

Also, make sure your whole body stays relaxed. I can't stress that enough. Try turning your brain off, connecting visually with band mates or listeners, try to see the forest instead of just the tree in front of you, and smell some roses. Just really feel the song.

Forgive me for all the metaphors. I hope this helps.

Might be worth checking the latency and error compensation settings in your DAW. Try a loop pedal or get a friend to critic your playing. Shouldn't blame our tools but in this case could be your playing fine but the DAW is out?

"10ms is barely acceptable" 🤣 I'm sorry, but that's the funniest thing I've read so far today. Do you realize how little of the music you hear on a daily basis meets that criteria?

Get some sticks and a practice pad if you don't have access to a drum kit and learn some rudiments.

Bare in mind that you don't always need to be playing exactly on the beat and that notes in between the main ones are often pushed or pulled a little depending on what the song needs. Looking at a computer screen isn't that helpful to me, how does it sound?

We must be fundamentally different kinds of guitar players. Timing? Metronome? 10 millisecond delay? Why are you trying to perfectly copy someone else's music when you could be arranging your own novel collections of frequencies? Why formalize your art or restrain playful acts of spontanious whimsy.

When I play the timing comes from what feels right and sounds good.

Each practice session my goal is to discover a new chord or a new way to piece the strumming and harmonic frequencies together in a way that I never have before, sometimes intentionally breaking rhythm speed just to experience a drastic shift or see how it affects the mood.

Fuck time signatures and fuck musical notation, creative musical types are better off staying far away from them lest their imagination becomes caged by formality and law.