Pick your pick

  • Thread starter Thread starter WhiteStrat
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Plastic picks wear out but wooden picks actually break in and start sounding real good. The tips of my picks can be "fixed" if need be with a light swipe from an emory board or quality nail file. They can last a good long time and can be recycled and made into smaller shapes.

I used tortise shell for a while; in fact I have used just about every type of pick made except metal picks (yuk). Wood is still the best bang for the buck.

Buy one for $5 0r $6 use it for a few months then recycle it.

When you consider that a plastic picks cost $.35 each and you lose or wear out 4 or 5 of them a week the wooden picks really don't cost much at all.
 
Jim Dunlop Jazz II

The red ones with the slightly rounded tip.

Been using them for years. I like the red ones because I can find them when I drop them. Those Ibanez ones are good too.
 
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green tortex

or whatever is around that is of a similar thickness. i like the feel of the tortex but the stiffness of the pick is much more important to me.
 
WhiteStrat, I went through a maybe 2 year period where I was using the Dunlop Stubby 3.0's :lol:


These days, after an even longer bout with Dunlop Jazz 3's (which I'll still pick up on occassion) I've mostly settled on the jazz-sized Tortex "Pure Black" picks. They're basically normal Tortex picks, except the material is black with either silver or gold printing, which of course makes them way cooler. :D I go back and forth between the .88 (what would normally be green) and the .60 (um... not sure what color this would be). The lighter ones seem to work a little better for riffing, the heavier for soloing.

For acoustic, the last couple orders I've placed with www.juststrings.com they've tossed in a sample bag of their light Juststrings branded picks. When I'm just screwing around I use whatever's in my pocket, but if I'm recording I'll pull out one of these - strummed acoustic seems to sound better to me with a light pick.
 
i use the thinnest picks i can find. i find that when i start beating on my guitar in a gig i break strings too often with anything heavier. it took a while to change over and get comfortable, but now i'll never go back.

when i forget my picks i usually wind up trying to use my bass player's heavies... but inevitably give up and just use my fingers. playing a guitar with a heavy pick to me is like trying to play tennis with a cricket bat.
 
I hate the feel of tortex and nylon picks. Fender medium confetti celluloid picks are the only kind that feel right to me.

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starbuck26 said:
i use the thinnest picks i can find. i find that when i start beating on my guitar in a gig i break strings too often with anything heavier. it took a while to change over and get comfortable, but now i'll never go back.

when i forget my picks i usually wind up trying to use my bass player's heavies... but inevitably give up and just use my fingers. playing a guitar with a heavy pick to me is like trying to play tennis with a cricket bat.
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Back in the '60's when I started to study guitar seriously I used Fender light guage picks. My teacher handed me a Fender XXX heavy pick( you can't get them anymore ) and told me not to play with anything else. Once I leaned proper picking (and strumming) techniques I could not play with a light pick anymore and I still can't. I don't know if that is a blessing or a curse because I have spent as much as $80 on a single pick. On the other hand I am looking for a Casino Elitist and was in a music store trying one out. The guy demonstrated it with what ever pick he was using and then handed the axe to me which I played with my pick and the guy was floored at the difference in tone. I may give him one of new ones from the next run. I am turning into a reluctant pick factory. I really didn't want it to get out of hand. At some point I am going to say no.
 
I use Fender thin because I was given over 1000 of them 20 years ago. Today I can't even find more than 1 anywhere in the house. I have no idea as to where they are stored.
 
Customs from Steve Clayton: .73mm Took me forever to find the "perfect" fit but man when I found it....
 
I've been a Dunlop Tortex guy for a decade and a half now. I started with the orange ones for several years, then went progressively thicker over the years. Now I use the purple Tortex for electric and the yellow Tortex Sharp for acoustic (I LOVE the attack I get on an acoustic guitar with those sharp picks!).

Those plastic picks have always bugged me because they wear down too quickly and leave "pick dust" all over my guitar. I switched to the nylon picks a long time ago for their durability and never looked back.
 
Fingers!

For chords often a must, once you get beyond triads.

For solos it's the digits too: phatter tone - except when speed and percussive attack is required, then its Dunlop 88mm. Thick.

With speed though, its not the pick dust that I worry about - its the nylon melting over and muting my strings! Hot licks!

K.
 
Dunlop tortex yellow (.73) or green (.88) these days for electric and 6-string acoustic -- yellow preferred for the latter. Have yet to find a suitable pick for the acoustic 12-string so use fingers and thumb. Saw a street musician at the beach using a rubber brush kind of thing for acoustic that I plan to try when I find one.
 
MCI2424 said:
I use Fender thin because I was given over 1000 of them 20 years ago. Today I can't even find more than 1 anywhere in the house. I have no idea as to where they are stored.
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That's the real question... Every time i go to a music store I grab about 30-40 picks at a time. I live in a studio... one fekkin room. Where the hell do all the picks go? What happens to them?

I have a feeling that when I land in Purgatory and park there for about 12,000 years, I'm going to be sitting on a pile of my old picks. No guitar in sight.
 
MCI2424 said:
I use Fender thin because I was given over 1000 of them 20 years ago. Today I can't even find more than 1 anywhere in the house. I have no idea as to where they are stored.
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starbuck26 said:
That's the real question... Every time i go to a music store I grab about 30-40 picks at a time. I live in a studio... one fekkin room. Where the hell do all the picks go? What happens to them?

I have a feeling that when I land in Purgatory and park there for about 12,000 years, I'm going to be sitting on a pile of my old picks. No guitar in sight.
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Are you guys married? The picks go to the same place the elusive missing socks go. Everytime I start pissing and moaning about not being able to find a pick, my wife goes to the laundry room, opens a cabinet, and dumps out this little glass dish: a couple buttons, some pennies & nickels, but mostly...yep...my guitar picks.

The thing is, when I do my own laundry--I never find a single one. So I'm thinking I'm predisposed to be far less careful than wifey--cause she always finds 'em.
 
Dunlop nylon 60's and 73's (sometimes just fingers) for acoustic and 1 mm for electric.

and beer.... that HAS to fit in this thread somewhere...:D
 
starbuck26 said:
I have a feeling that when I land in Purgatory and park there for about 12,000 years, I'm going to be sitting on a pile of my old picks. No guitar in sight.
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Your first job will be to wander the earth as a ghost and find each one of them to throw in the pile :)

(back when I smoked (rebellious teenager) it occurred to me that I might have to the same thing with all my cigarette butts)


But yeah - since I switched to the *AMAZING ULTEX PICKS* (did I mention their amazingness?) I must have bought several hundred, when I should have only needed several dozen, since they last a lot longer than plastic ones.

WhiteStrat said:
Are you guys married?
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Oh, and I'm married, but not to MCI2424 or starbuck26 :D
 
For live playing on electric or acoustic guitars I use 1 mm black Dunlops-mainly because I can keep hold of them with the picks texture. For mandolin I use the yellow Tortex-they have just enough stiffness for my playing-often playing strictly without a sound system.
As far as recording goes, I'll use thinner picks especially for rhythm parts, but really whatever gauge gives the sound I'm after.
 
Anfontan said:
For live playing on electric or acoustic guitars I use 1 mm black Dunlops-mainly because I can keep hold of them with the picks texture. For mandolin I use the yellow Tortex-they have just enough stiffness for my playing-often playing strictly without a sound system.
As far as recording goes, I'll use thinner picks especially for rhythm parts, but really whatever gauge gives the sound I'm after.
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I can appreciate where you're coming from on switching when recording--but I have to admit, that's something I've never been able to do. My fingers have a built in expectation based on the pick they've been "trained" to use--and if I switch on the fly--I suck.
 
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