A fingerpicker can learn use a pick a LOT more easily than a flatpicker can learn how to fingerpick. So unless the metal player is a fingerpicker they would find it much, much tougher to learn. A classical player would struggle with all the distortion and effects, but could deal with them in less time…
I’ve had classical and folk guitarists play through my rig (not usually my guitar, since I’m a lefty). The thing I notice is that they make a lot of stray noise. They aren’t used to playing electric guitar with a ton of gain, so they don’t realize how much it amplifies every little squeak and finger sound.
As a guy who came up playing with distortion, I guess I (and most rock players) are really good at muting stray sounds - without even really trying.
Yep. One thing I tell folks who ask me for tips is that with electric, you spend 50% of your effort getting the right notes to sound and 50% of your effort getting all the other noise to not happen.
I find this to be the case with steel string acoustic as well, but I happen to play pretty aggressively, with a lot of rhythmic strumming. So I will play partial chords, and then flatten my fretting hand on the strings to mute them and “dry strum” a percussive bit in between.
Nylon string flamenco has a lot of that aggressive rhythm, so I bet there is a lot of what you hear vs. what you mute going on there as well.
With nylon string classical, though, you are really trying to keep your hands free and “hovering” over the strings, without impeding them in any way. You control the tone with how you pick (nail, nail+flesh, just flesh) and there is very little palm muting with your picking hand, or dry strumming like flamenco.