How Thick Is Your Pick.??

[bufflehead]

I think I'm going to win the prize here. My picks range from thin to ultra-thin. I just ordered three 12-packs of Clayton Ultem rounded triangle picks at .38mm. It tends to be a noisy pick, but the percussion adds to much of what I play. And they're a joy to use if you've got your technique down. My thickest picks are Primatone .73mm, which I use when the urge comes to revert back to flatpicking or whenever else I need to pick up the speed. In between those extremes, my all-around pick would a Clayton Acetal small teardrop .50.

Nice thing about playing with .38 triangles is that you don't spend a whole lot of time fretting about beveling. And if you watch the sales and order 12-packs, you're picking up picks at about 35 cents apiece.

[HHP]

Originally Posted by bufflehead

I think I'm going to win the prize here. My picks range from thin to ultra-thin. I just ordered three 12-packs of Clayton Ultem rounded triangle picks at .38mm. It tends to be a noisy pick, but the percussion adds to much of what I play. And they're a joy to use if you've got your technique down. My thickest picks are Primatone .73mm, which I use when the urge comes to revert back to flatpicking or whenever else I need to pick up the speed. In between those extremes, my all-around pick would a Clayton Acetal small teardrop .50.

Nice thing about playing with .38 triangles is that you don't spend a whole lot of time fretting about beveling. And if you watch the sales and order 12-packs, you're picking up picks at about 35 cents apiece.

If you were to glue 11 of them together, you'd have my usual.

[bufflehead]

Originally Posted by HHP

If you were to glue 11 of them together, you'd have my usual.

And still be saving money.

[Ed-in-Ohio]

As a result of this thread, I decided to revisit several of the picks I've accumulated over the years. So, last night I played and A/B'ed well over 20 different picks, using them on both of my main acoustics. My results were predictable to me, with one glaring surprise.

Predictable: Of all the picks I played, my current favorites were all near the top of my preference list. Here they are as I'd rank them in last night's comparison:

• Dunlop Primetone large triangle 1.4 mm with grip
• BlueChip TAD40
• Wegen TF120
• V-Picks Screamer (would rank higher if it weren't so noisy!)

The Surprise: I really, really liked the sound of the Dunlop Tortex .88 mm (green) pick I'd acquired some time ago and never really played much. I was getting these really interesting "harp-like" overtones from the pick, both when strumming and with single notes. This was happening on both guitar, and was adding a very nice, complex extra dimension to the tone. I particularly liked this when doing hybrid finger picking, and especially on the unwound strings.

I got the green Tortex Dunlop pick before I became committed to the large triangle shape (as you might guess from my favorites listed above), so it is the traditional (418) shape. However, I see that Dunlop makes this pick in the large triangle (431) shape, so I'll be ordering a dozen today. I assume (hope) I'll get the same overtone effect with the larger shape (?).



By the way, I also had the Dunlop Tortex in yellow (.73 mm) and in Blue (1.0 mm), and I was not getting the harp-like overtones with either of those, so, for me, the 'sweet spot' with this pick seems to be .88 mm.

[Charmed Life Picks]

It seems the optimum thickness is around .75-1.0 for most players.

sm

[Play]

It depends on what I'm playing but I find Heavy (.96) to be a nice middle ground for what I usually keep on me. When I'm only strumming, I like mediums but if I know I'm gonna be playing a lot of leads, an extra Heavy is nice. It also depends on the guitar and the way I'm playing. Heavy and extra heavy can get clicky to me if I'm playing softly, more pick sound than guitar sound, but that's the only way to go if I'm playing hard. Mediums are way too floppy for hard playing.

[HHP]

Originally Posted by Charmed Life Picks

It seems the optimum thickness is around .75-1.0 for most players.

sm

Probably true if you add the caveat "of what they have tried". I'm surprised how thick I ended up going with picks and I'm also surprised that, so far, 100% of the friends I've introduced to picks over 2.5mm have switched to them and stayed with them.

[Muddslide]

I play many different picks. Over the years I have gravitated towards the thicker side.

I do have some 3mm and thicker picks which I acquired primarily for bass (and I use a pick rarely on bass)...I intend to work with these thicker picks on acoustic guitar, but currently my sweet spot and favored picks run from 1.4mm to 2mm.

I'm really liking some 1.4 Clayton Ultex, Dunlop Primetone 1.5mm and Dunlop Gator 2mm.

[EMLPicks]

Originally Posted by HHP

Probably true if you add the caveat "of what they have tried". I'm surprised how thick I ended up going with picks and I'm also surprised that, so far, 100% of the friends I've introduced to picks over 2.5mm have switched to them and stayed with them.

This has been my experience as well. Before making and selling my own picks, I used a heavier pick made by Wegen, and most players seems surprised anyone would use a pick that heavy (one time a guy almost seemed offended by the prospect!). Once they tried it, most of them wanted to keep playing with it for a while. I think a lot of players who try heavier picks and dislike them only do so because they're using some of the more common, stamped out extra heavy picks that don't have any sort of bevel.

- Eric

[min7b5]

2mm Blue Chip

[Charmed Life Picks]

Originally Posted by Muddslide

I play many different picks. Over the years I have gravitated towards the thicker side.

I do have some 3mm and thicker picks which I acquired primarily for bass (and I use a pick rarely on bass)...I intend to work with these thicker picks on acoustic guitar, but currently my sweet spot and favored picks run from 1.4mm to 2mm.

I'm really liking some 1.4 Clayton Ultex, Dunlop Primetone 1.5mm and Dunlop Gator 2mm.

I understand playing picks maybe up to the 2.0 mm range. But 3.0 millimeter? I feel like I'm playing with a canoe paddle.

scott memmer