Originally Posted by: The Black CirclThe guy in Dragon Force was clocked as being the fastest

That's bull I'm afraid (no offense intended!). A couple of things about Dragonfarce, everything they do is cut and spliced in the studio - fact. There are loads of vids on youtube showing them playing outside of a studio environment without a live band behind them and they are so sloppy you can't help but cringe. The most embarrassing thing they did was appear on 'bet you can't play this' which is now on you tube entitled 'DragonForce can't play this' - check it out, it's awful.
There are many many guitarists that are properly referenced as being faster - Rusty Cooley, Michael Angelo, Shawn Lane, Mathew Mills, Chris Impeliteri, Yngwie Malmsteen, George Bellas and even the (not so) Great Kat to name but a few. Hell, Steve Vai may not be the fastest but he annihilates most of the above as musicians who in turn annihilate Dragon Force - he only rarely unleashes his full speed potential, check out the strange instrumental on the dodgy 'Sex and Religion' cd for a rare example.
The only guy I have ever seen playing alternate picked runs at similar speeds is Shawn Lane and for the record he was a far more accomplished musician than the guy with the record in this post, Lane could literally play 'anything' including some unbelievably unorthodox and uber technical stuff with off the wall fingering and painfully huge stretches.
And still the fact remains that none of the above amazing guitarists have ever clocked anything on a live recording anywhere close to the guy on this post (with the exception of Shawn Lane). This guy’s live take has been properly documented as accurate alternate picking of 16ths at 320bpm for a relatively complex piece that utilises most of the fret board. It's a youtube post so the video quality is far from perfect but the playing is genuine. Probably the only way to assess speed now is to measure it in the context of 'Flight of the Bumblebee'. If Shawn Lane was still alive I'm sure he would play something that most top players would have serious difficulty in playing at even 200bpm (seriously).
If you could prove that either of the dudes from DragonForce could play faster I will gladly eat my entire collection of guitars and post the experience on youtube.