My first Blue Chip

[B. Adams]

I use (and love) TP40's. The TP40 is just the right size and thickness for me, and I love that it works no matter which way it's rotated. I tried the TD35 and TD40, and they felt too small even though they are the same size as the standard size Dunlop Tortex I'd used for years. I tried several thicknesses of TP and TAD, and a CT55. I only sent back the TD's and CT55, so I have several Blue Chips I don't use regularly, but sometimes they're nice to have in the pick jar. I keep a TP40 with every guitar and one in my pocket all the time. And I haven't lost one yet! One of these days I'll get a few more, but I'm not made of money so I'm kinda putting it off.

I'm primarily a strummer, but a couple years ago I figured out that I needed something better than my Tortex picks for flatpicking and single note runs. I found my playing limited by my picks, which is saying something because I'm not the most amazing player. I tried a lot of picks before I settled on the TP40. It took some adjustment to make the thicker picks work for strumming, but my sound is so much better with the Blue Chips, and of course they work great for all the other stuff too. I don't feel limited by my pick anymore, now it's just my ability. So at least I've solved one problem!

If there's something better than a Blue Chip, I don't know what it is. I can't imagine ever playing with anything else. That's just me though.

[Kyle76]

Im a TD35 guy. I have one for each guitar and a couple of spares. I can strum light or heavy, and the pick just glides over the strings. But, what really attracted me to the BCs is their curious grippiness. I no longer worry about losing my pick. They do sometimes accumulate oil from my fingers. I’ve found window spray like GlassPlus to be a quick and easy cleaner.

[Charmed Life Picks]

Originally Posted by B. Adams

I use (and love) TP40's. The TP40 is just the right size and thickness for me, and I love that it works no matter which way it's rotated. I tried the TD35 and TD40, and they felt too small even though they are the same size as the standard size Dunlop Tortex I'd used for years. I tried several thicknesses of TP and TAD, and a CT55. I only sent back the TD's and CT55, so I have several Blue Chips I don't use regularly, but sometimes they're nice to have in the pick jar. I keep a TP40 with every guitar and one in my pocket all the time. And I haven't lost one yet! One of these days I'll get a few more, but I'm not made of money so I'm kinda putting it off.

I'm primarily a strummer, but a couple years ago I figured out that I needed something better than my Tortex picks for flatpicking and single note runs. I found my playing limited by my picks, which is saying something because I'm not the most amazing player. I tried a lot of picks before I settled on the TP40. It took some adjustment to make the thicker picks work for strumming, but my sound is so much better with the Blue Chips, and of course they work great for all the other stuff too. I don't feel limited by my pick anymore, now it's just my ability. So at least I've solved one problem!

If there's something better than a Blue Chip, I don't know what it is. I can't imagine ever playing with anything else. That's just me though.

Hi. You may want to someday play a casein pick, for comparison. A number of vendors make them. It's a strange but wonderful material, but as a player it's my absolute fave because it comes closest to the genuine TS picks I have played and owned for more than forty years. It is truly amazing. This is to take nothing away from the superb material BC uses, but casein is a completely different material with a feel and tonality all its own.

Many members here on AGF share that opinion, and many (most?) play both materials in different situations.

my two cents,
scott memmer

[Shades of Blue]

Originally Posted by B. Adams

If there's something better than a Blue Chip, I don't know what it is. I can't imagine ever playing with anything else. That's just me though.

I feel the same way. I haven't used anything other than my TD45 for over a year now. It hasn't shown any wear, changed shape, or slipped out of my grip. Love it. I have a couple just in case I lose one, but I'm pretty careful with a pick this expensive.

[LadysSolo]

Originally Posted by big jilm

Got the bug to try one out, and it arrived Friday. Blue Chip TD 50.

My findings are based on using all picks with my Gibson J-29, a rosewood back and sides slope shoulder with a spruce top strung with a Martin Authentic Lifespan treated 12-54 set.

The picks I used in the shoot-out: Dunlop Ultex 1.14mm, Dunlop Maxgrip nylon picks 1.5mm, Dunlop Prime Tone (smooth brown) 1.3mm, and the Blue Chip TD 50 1.25mm.

BC vs Nylon: As expected, totally different. The nylons are around because when I am singing softly, they provide a muted softer tone with less harmonic content. The BC was much louder, with more going on in every area. More bass, more treble. Bigger and bolder. Again, as expected.

BC vs Ultex: I was surprised here - I like the Ultex line. The BC has less pick noise, is warmer and louder with better highs as well. The Ultex sounded anemic in comparison. Just less going on in the tone.

BC vs Primetone: I like the Primetones as well - I just dislike the ‘click’ on the strings. This battle was closer, but the BC wins on tone here. When the PT gets muddy at times, the BC has a warmer sound but retains clarity. With the PT, the lows sound great, but as you strum to the lighter strings, their tone weakens - the BC has no such issues. The highs are as strong and thick as the lows are, if that makes sense. You can hear each note in a chord better.

All of these picks stay stuck in the fingers well enough, but the BC and the Ultex do the best job on that front. The BC seems to warm up and get tacky in the hand.

Well, here’s the thing. The BC sounds and feels the best. Is it worth 35 bucks? It is to me. I am used to not losing picks, as I have been using 5 dollar Gravity picks on electric for years. I hope my system holds out! I don’t want to lose this one.

And, because of GAS, I just placed an order for a Charmed Life NF-1.15 casein pick this evening. Looking forward to comparing that with the BC.

Happy pickin’!

I also love BC picks, I use TD 35 and TD 40 because I like thinner picks. I bought (now several) Charmed Life Casein picks, they "tame down" the brightness of my Collings mandolin (sometimes I like the brightness, but sometimes I want a mellower sound.) The Casein pick gives me the "mellower" when I am looking for it. I don't "drive" my picks hard, so I am not worrying about breakage, I don't think I have ever broken a pick. I do have two Wegen picks that I use purely if I am at a jam, they can drive so I can hear myself over the banjos. Otherwise, the Wegens are not my favorites. I probably love BCs because I DETEST pick noise! LOL!!

[beninma]

I have fallen in love with the BC picks over the past 6 months too.

I have 2 TD35s... I ordered one each with the Speed Bevel and the Round Bevel...

This is weird but on my acoustic guitar there is 0 doubt in my mind I prefer the Speed Bevel. And on my Telecaster there is 0 doubt in my mind I prefer the Round Bevel. Very odd but they sound different, and the round seems to complement the Tele's thin strings whereas the Speed Bevel makes it easier to play on the thicker acoustic strings.

I think it is ridiculous for anyone to point fingers at anyone for using these picks.. they are a drop in the bucket in cost compared to owning expensive guitars.

I would actually say the right pick, whether it is the BC for me or something else for someone else, can have a tone effect that can be greater than a guitar costing a lot more that is used with a pick that isn't as good. Picks really make huge non-subtle tone differences IMO.

I have a couple TAD style BC picks too.. I need to sell those. I bought those retail and didn't like them, the TD's I ordered off the BC website. The big triangular picks don't really work well for me regardless of brand.

For the way I keep my stuff organized losing them is not a concern.

[Charmed Life Picks]

Originally Posted by LadysSolo

I also love BC picks, I use TD 35 and TD 40 because I like thinner picks. I bought (now several) Charmed Life Casein picks, they "tame down" the brightness of my Collings mandolin (sometimes I like the brightness, but sometimes I want a mellower sound.) The Casein pick gives me the "mellower" when I am looking for it. I don't "drive" my picks hard, so I am not worrying about breakage, I don't think I have ever broken a pick. I do have two Wegen picks that I use purely if I am at a jam, they can drive so I can hear myself over the banjos. Otherwise, the Wegens are not my favorites. I probably love BCs because I DETEST pick noise! LOL!!

Lady, I've also found casein to be a wonderful pick material, for a whole host of reasons. I would say to anyone who has not played casein, whether you get one from me or someone else, your pick journey is not complete.

The whole CLP thing started with me making picks only for myself. Let me tell you in all honestly, I had NO intention of starting a company. But I fell so in love with casein that that's what happened.

The other thing to know is I've been playing genuine tortoise shell for forty years. I've been a pick nerd for four decades, but I never dreamed I'd ever find something close to real thing. It's really strange but wonderful stuff, incredibly hard to work with.

If interested, the best entry-level but high quality casein picks are made by John Pearse. They sell for only about $10 each and, frankly, are priced too low. But that's to your advantage.

Check 'em out: http://www.jpstrings.com/brpicks.htm

scott memmer

[Charmed Life Picks]

Originally Posted by beninma

I have fallen in love with the BC picks over the past 6 months too.

I have 2 TD35s... I ordered one each with the Speed Bevel and the Round Bevel...

This is weird but on my acoustic guitar there is 0 doubt in my mind I prefer the Speed Bevel. And on my Telecaster there is 0 doubt in my mind I prefer the Round Bevel. Very odd but they sound different, and the round seems to complement the Tele's thin strings whereas the Speed Bevel makes it easier to play on the thicker acoustic strings.

I think it is ridiculous for anyone to point fingers at anyone for using these picks.. they are a drop in the bucket in cost compared to owning expensive guitars.

I would actually say the right pick, whether it is the BC for me or something else for someone else, can have a tone effect that can be greater than a guitar costing a lot more that is used with a pick that isn't as good. Picks really make huge non-subtle tone differences IMO.

I have a couple TAD style BC picks too.. I need to sell those. I bought those retail and didn't like them, the TD's I ordered off the BC website. The big triangular picks don't really work well for me regardless of brand.

For the way I keep my stuff organized losing them is not a concern.

Agreed, Beninma. I'm sure everyone can guess that I would agree, but let me explain briefly why I do.

I have been playing genuine tortoise shell picks since the seventies. I still play them, although I never take them out of the house. They will always be my Reference Standard.

I didn't start a pick company for ego reasons or even to make money. I bought $100 worth of several of the material(s) I'd heard about on this very forum and, because I'm cheap, decided to make my own. I'm a fully tenured English professor and had no plans to start a dang guitar pick company. None. But then I started playing these materials (particularly casein) and fell in love. I totally backed into this. I had no plans. If you'd told me five years ago that I'd be doing this, I'd ask you to pass what you're drinking (hint, hint, Mick).

I'll make a bold statement: A quality guitar pick is the single most significant investment under $50 you can make to improve the tone of your acoustic instrument.

I know this will sound like I'm blowing smoke. I was certain it was all smoke and mirrors. But then I played them. It's real, folks.

The best pick companies offer you a full money back guarantee in the first 30 days. Are these products for everybody? No, certainly not. But these high-end pick companies would not be able to sustain a five or ten or even fifteen year run on smoke and mirrors.

This post is too long. Apologies. But I did want to share my experience.

Scott Memmer

[Silly Moustache]

When I first heard about Blue Chip picks (possibly on this forum) *I decided that they were a con. Great marketing ploy - say they are made of unobtanium and charge 100 times as much as the rest .."some fools'll fall for it and the margin will be enormous (like other scams).
But folks kept talking about them and then I went to a gig where the act (extremely good British female bluegrass folk) was using them.

I started looking for them and got a used one -can't remember who/how or where, and it was a TAD40 1r.

I tried not to like it. It also taught me a lot about pick design.

346 (large triangles were definitely better than 351 (teardrops) - i) You get three points, ii) you get more mass for the same thickness, iii) you get a better grip.

I also learnt about speed bevels - these really do give you exactly what the name implies.

So, I set out to compare with every other 346 style I could get - Wegen, Tortex, Ultex, Fenders, Claytons, D'andrea, Primetones and others.

During my illness in 2017, when I could do little else between treatments, I even learnt to emulate the bevel on BCs and Wegens on unfinished ones like Ultex, Tortex, and Claytons.

I wore my ageing hands out on remodelling loads of the things and also learnt a lot about the commonly used materials - celluloid being the most wearing and difficult to bevel (it melted), and white Claytons and Primetones were just dead.

Wegen TF120/140 were the closest and Tortex could be made into a pretty good pick when bevelled and polished. Ultex as good but far harder to finish.

I gave up, and bought a Bluechip for every guitar I flatpicked. - TAD50 (1.235 m/m) for dreads, Jumbo, and National, and TAD40 for 000,00 and my WL-12, and a TAD 50-3r for mandolin. I bought a TAD 60 for 12 string but found that Wegens worked better.
I made one particularly large order from BC which was lost immediately. They did not mess me about, they just sent a new batch ... I won't forget that.

I also have a considerable collection of Tortoishell picks from "back in the day" I compared them and did some vbevelling on one or too (smelly!) - I prefer my BCs.
Whilst I've never been careless with picks , I solved the oft repeated problem of losing them and devised my pick boxes which are, inthemselves items of value and each guitar has one with a Wegen and a BC and a shubb capo and a clip on tuner).

I know that they are all there when I pick up a case, and the first job when Ive finished playing (wherever) is to ensure that all items are in the box and inside the case.

[BrunoBlack]

Blue Chip makes my favorite picks. I typically use TAD 40, TAD 50 or TPR 45. However, I have wondered why Blue Chip doesn’t offer a TAD 45. So I contacted them and asked if they could make TAD 45 picks. No Problem! Seems like a small thing, but they seem - just right.

[Shades of Blue]

Blue Chips are amazing...congrats! Mine sounds so smooth and it feels great. Plus, my wife/daughter had it engraved for me!

[zoopeda]

I too recently tried blue chip, and although they are very nice picks, I actually expected a bigger difference compared to the prime tones. Don’t get me wrong; they’re better. But not by a huge margin, I wouldn’t say. The BC still has some of that clicking pick noise and brightness I was hoping to avoid. Enter casein. Let us know what you think of the CL pick when it arrives. I tried my first casein pick recently and have been blown away by the rich tone and buttery smooth action, especially on the high two strings. Zero pick click. Have fun.

[Tnfiddler]

I recently picked up a Fast Turtle and I’m hooked! Super warm tone and no pick noise!! It’s crazy how a $10 pick changed the sound of my Bourgeois for the better! I keep a Wegen bluegrass 1.2, an Ultex 2.0 and 1.14, a primetone 1.0 in the pick case with my Fast Turtle and it quickly makes its way back to the front of the line every time I cycle through the picks for best sound! I’ll be buying a CLP casein in the near future.

[Charmed Life Picks]

Zoo and TN:

I'm so pleased you both tried casein and love it as much as I do.

Even before I got into the business, I've always loved experimenting with different pick materials. Dunlop Ultexes were my go-to default picks for many, many years.

What I've always done, what I still do, is use different pick materials, as Lady Solo noted, for different instruments. But I also find that I use not only different picks but the same material on the same guitar in different thicknesses and shapes. This provides a lot of variety in tone -- ballads vs up-tempo tunes, for example. I also go sans picks completely and play straight fingerstyle on the softest tunes, especially if playing solo.

Now here's the coolest thing most people don't know. The BC material is a class of plastics called polyimide, developed by DuPont. That class alone has more than ten other polyimides that have never been made into flatpicks by anyone on the planet. Furthermore, there are more than a hundred (100) industrial plastics that have never been made into picks by anyone. That is actually a conservative number that I'm rounding down.

What I'm saying is, we are at the very beginning of a guitar pick journey that will stretch ahead of us for decades to come. It's an exciting time to be playing an acoustic instrument, and it's only going to get better.

scott memmer

[ALBD]

I’ve been thru the pick craze. Landed unequivocally on Blue Chip. They really are beautifully designed with a prefect bevel and feel. I’ve had tortoise picks and bought and made casein picks and to me it’s not even close. Tortoise is rightfully unattainable. In my experience, casein is extremely clicky compared to just about anything. Tone-wise it is ok, but just ok. Def not worth the premium some sellers put on it. Fast turtles are the best I’ve tried and priced right!

Buy one BC and your done so long as you don’t lose it!