A Guitar Pick Primer -- Please Participate.

[Muddslide]

Originally Posted by AndrewG

The 'boutique' world is an interesting one; guitars, picks, capos all vying for our cash. I, being a cynical tightwad, look at the concept of diminishing returns when it comes to this stuff, and I'm not interested in chasing rabbits down holes in the search for the 'Holy Grail' of tone, because it doesn't exist except in the imagination of ad copy writers.

So true, and I agree. I have also not gone down the path of the $40 pick, though it intrigues me.

I will say that the high-end picks made of vespel or casein are justified in their pricing just due to the scarcity and expense of those materials and the difficulty of working the material.

But you are right--spending more money does not make you a better player and unfortunately many people are gullible when it comes to the "cost=quality" concept, as if a $5000 guitar is 10 times "better" than a $500 guitar, and so on.

Which is, of course, absolute nonsense, and nothing but.

[varmonter]

Originally Posted by AndrewG

For years my pick of choice was Tortex .88 for acoustics, and anything from 1.00 up for electric guitars. A few months ago I tried Ultex Sharp and like both the tone and the feel. The .90 is stiff enough to flatpick with without too much flex, and yet has enough flex for strumming patterns to sound smooth and balanced without the pick rattling over the strings. A good compromise.
I have yet to try one of the expensive miracle picks, but I won't buy one unless I'm able to try it first, and most I have seen advertised seem to only be available in thicknesses far too hefty for my taste.

I like a pick to produce a tone which is both crisp and bright, not dull and muted, and anything over 1.00 falls into the latter category where my ageing ears are concerned.

A while ago SillyMoustache sent me a few picks he had worked on (nice job by the way, Andy), to try, and while they felt good with the bevelling, I still found them too dull-sounding; again, my personal taste, not the fault of the picks.

The 'boutique' world is an interesting one; guitars, picks, capos all vying for our cash. I, being a cynical tightwad, look at the concept of diminishing returns when it comes to this stuff, and I'm not interested in chasing rabbits down holes in the search for the 'Holy Grail' of tone, because it doesn't exist except in the imagination of ad copy writers.

If I can produce a good enough sound to earn a bit of cash from it, my modestly priced stuff has earned its keep, and I see no earthly reason to spend a lot more for very little gain, if any. Trust me, I've been there and owned multiples of all the usual guitar-related suspects over many years (in particular guitars), so I do speak from experience.

This too is my thought. Again fender extra heavys the white 351 style are
My go to for guitar and mandolin. Not to say this won’t ever change but not anytime soon. 90% of the stages I play on are flat black. If I drop one it’s easy to find.

[Charmed Life Picks]

Originally Posted by AndrewG

For years my pick of choice was Tortex .88 for acoustics, and anything from 1.00 up for electric guitars. A few months ago I tried Ultex Sharp and like both the tone and the feel. The .90 is stiff enough to flatpick with without too much flex, and yet has enough flex for strumming patterns to sound smooth and balanced without the pick rattling over the strings. A good compromise.
I have yet to try one of the expensive miracle picks, but I won't buy one unless I'm able to try it first, and most I have seen advertised seem to only be available in thicknesses far too hefty for my taste.

I like a pick to produce a tone which is both crisp and bright, not dull and muted, and anything over 1.00 falls into the latter category where my ageing ears are concerned.

A while ago SillyMoustache sent me a few picks he had worked on (nice job by the way, Andy), to try, and while they felt good with the bevelling, I still found them too dull-sounding; again, my personal taste, not the fault of the picks.

The 'boutique' world is an interesting one; guitars, picks, capos all vying for our cash. I, being a cynical tightwad, look at the concept of diminishing returns when it comes to this stuff, and I'm not interested in chasing rabbits down holes in the search for the 'Holy Grail' of tone, because it doesn't exist except in the imagination of ad copy writers.

If I can produce a good enough sound to earn a bit of cash from it, my modestly priced stuff has earned its keep, and I see no earthly reason to spend a lot more for very little gain, if any. Trust me, I've been there and owned multiples of all the usual guitar-related suspects over many years (in particular guitars), so I do speak from experience.

AG, well, you could predict I would respectfully disagree, for not for the reasons you might think I would, and NOT to pitch what my company does in this thread.

Allow to explain.

I became obsessed with picks way back in the seventies (I've been playing for over 40 years). I bought my first genuine TS picks around '77-"78, right when they were becoming illegal and, coincidentally, McCabe's was getting rid of their last inventory. I must have read about them from a Tony Rice interview, or something like that. But that wasn't the beginning of my obsession.

When I was a kid, Kenner came out with this thing call the Mold Master. I swear to the sweet Lord above, this must have been the motivation for UL Labs and the beginning of the consumer protection movement, right after Nadar's book on the VW bug. This thing was one blown fuse shy of burning down your house. That and the home chemistry kit put a gleam in my eye that now, 50 years later, has yet to be extinguished. Did anyone else have one of these? It looked like this.




I won't go into the technicalities, other than to say this thing was about a millimeter away from pyromania.

My point is this: Even though I'm an English prof, I was obsessed with plastics from my formative years (although even today I am not fully formed). It must have come from my Science-teacher day. I still remember, more than half a century later, how with a Dr. Jekyll gleam in his eye he once put a glob of potassium into a beaker of water and we had right before us, there on the lab table, a mini Vesuvius. So it's his fault.

Moving ahead forty years, I'm a proud member of the Lunatic Fringe Guitar Pick Club. But I would have been anyway -- I already was more than forty years before CLP came to exist -- and I'm helplessly lost. There should be a 12-Step Program for this stuff.

Oh well, it's cheaper than GAS.

Memmer

[Silly Moustache]

Originally Posted by AndrewG

For years my pick of choice was Tortex .88 for acoustics, and anything from 1.00 up for electric guitars. A few months ago I tried Ultex Sharp and like both the tone and the feel. The .90 is stiff enough to flatpick with without too much flex, and yet has enough flex for strumming patterns to sound smooth and balanced without the pick rattling over the strings. A good compromise.
I have yet to try one of the expensive miracle picks, but I won't buy one unless I'm able to try it first, and most I have seen advertised seem to only be available in thicknesses far too hefty for my taste.

I like a pick to produce a tone which is both crisp and bright, not dull and muted, and anything over 1.00 falls into the latter category where my ageing ears are concerned.

A while ago SillyMoustache sent me a few picks he had worked on (nice job by the way, Andy), to try, and while they felt good with the bevelling, I still found them too dull-sounding; again, my personal taste, not the fault of the picks.

The 'boutique' world is an interesting one; guitars, picks, capos all vying for our cash. I, being a cynical tightwad, look at the concept of diminishing returns when it comes to this stuff, and I'm not interested in chasing rabbits down holes in the search for the 'Holy Grail' of tone, because it doesn't exist except in the imagination of ad copy writers.

If I can produce a good enough sound to earn a bit of cash from it, my modestly priced stuff has earned its keep, and I see no earthly reason to spend a lot more for very little gain, if any. Trust me, I've been there and owned multiples of all the usual guitar-related suspects over many years (in particular guitars), so I do speak from experience.

Hi folks, and AndyG, if nothing else, this thread proves that choice and preference (and playing styles and perceptions ) vary significantly, and there is no one answer for all. I'd like to address a few issues:

I have a considerable number of real tortoiseshell (hawksbill) picks bought, initially, from trays in music shops before there were laws or realisation of the damage they were doing.

Many say that it isn't worth buying expensive picks because they lose them.

My answer to that is ..."value perception" and a practical solution..by which I mean ;

If you have programmed yourself to regard picks as disposable items, knowing that you have paid a significant about for something special means you "revalue" picks.

Practical: It was getting my BC picks that made me think seriously about how I could keep control of them... which was resolved by getting my Princess Mary Boxes (see below) -these are now real antiques and quite expensive but hold a capo, tuner and picks. Too much value to discard ...as are the contents.

see:

'Course it doesn't have to be an expensive box but perhaps a tobacco or pastille tin specifically for picks and ... whatever that is always there when you use your guitar and when you put it away ... there's the place for your picks.


Pick shapes, material, thickness etc.

Shapes: There used to be loads, now there are generally just 351 (teardrops) and 346 (large triangles). Ok.... generally.

So, if you haven't tried 346s yet, you owe it to yourself to try 'em.

Thickness and material go together, for instance a 1.5 m/m Dunlop Primetone pick (that looks suspiciously like a Blue Chip) is solid, no flex, no resonance whereas the same thickness BC, whilst stiff has just a "tad" of feel.
Same with Wegen TF140s.

I believe that most start off with lighter picks for strumming, an as their technique becomes more intricate, they move to heavier picks.
For a long time I used .73 and .88 m/m teardrops, but found that as hammer-ons and pull-offs became an important part of my style ... AND, I was playing in bluegrass style bands, I took to heavier picks.

NOTE: 346 shaped picks have more mass than teardrops.

I do play expensive guitars (because they fit me, and make me happy, and so I didn't begrudge, finally admitting that BCs were best on my uncoated PB strings on my guitars. (I don't need coated strings which sound muffled to me anyway).

My modifying attempts were on D'andrea and Feder picks which I believe are celluloid which burns easily.
And mainly, Dunlop Ultex - good results but hard to work, and Tortex, which was the best result. Both are rough to the touch and n the strings "out of the box" and need polishing after being bevelled.
So Dunlop 346 1.14 m/m tortex picks properly beveled and polished make good punchy picks but, not as fast or smooth as BCs.

BTW - bevelling makes a world of difference on anything.

Last thought, the best pick, strings capo whatever won't make a poor guitar better.

That's it, it's late, going to bed now night night all.

[Charmed Life Picks]

Silly, I just want to say: You've a done a fabulous job here and a great service to our members by providing pick and beveling and other info. I know so many, including me, really appreciate it.

Bravo!
Scott Memmer