Technique, Baby, Technique!

[jumpingpound]

Here's a bizarre and novel pick I use to play bass:

Take a thicker than normal pick and superglue a layer of felt around the round end, being careful not to oversaturate the felt with glue. I find this give a good attack without any pick noise - perhaps even better than one's bare hands. There is nothing worse than bass played with a lot of pick noise, if you have to use a pick at all.

Hey, my fingers are so blistered, sometimes this is the only choice I have!

 

[GONZO-X]

WELL, since this degenerated down to a converse on picking style.........

when i was a good bit younger, my co-guitarist and myself went on a journey to discover the perfect pick (for us........)

at first, we modified store-bought picks (i still to this day cut down nylon jim dunlops to a specific shape........)

then we graduated to whatever stuff we could find, broken hi-hats and what not......

we made (this is 1979) a pair of heart shaped picks out of a paiste sound-edge hi-hat......

this metallic sound was awesome, though you'd have to re-string after every gig........

finally, after doing the hard edge thing, we went the other way, and developed the "flesh pick"..........

this was done by taking the cap off of a 35mm film container, the little gray ones, and then cutting them into a standard pick shape......

it is such a soft plastic, that you hear absolutely no pick attack, almost as if your picking with the edge of your thumb or finger, hence the "fleshpick" moniker..........

 

[vintagedrive]

Gonz, see what you created. I would rather consider it Redirected than Degenerated though. I'm sure a number of players really never consider the pick an issue including myself. But it is a major part of a players "Technique, Baby, Technique. Enjoyed the topic, thanks.

 

[Ginzoo]

I also prefer "redirected"...
guys,thanks for the new ideas to work on.I hope to get some new tones out of them.

 

[hdi]

bullet proof picking secret

Ok, I'm going to let you guys in on my secret, the bullet proof way to hold on to your pick no matter how fast you're playing or how hot the lights are.... get some rubber cement and paint your thumb and forefinger with it (i.e. the fingers you hold you're pick with) this will give you an unbelievable grip on your pick and you can just peel it off when you're done playing. Bad part is, you can't do any finger picking....
No, you don't grab your pick before the glue is dry, you aren't trying to glue your pick to your fingers.... you wait until it is dry, then you have a tacky, rubbery surface on your fingers to hold your pick with and your pick never slips....

 

[hdi]

bullet proof picking secret

Ok, I'm going to let you guys in on my secret, the bullet proof way to hold on to your pick no matter how fast you're playing or how hot the lights are.... get some rubber cement and paint your thumb and forefinger with it (i.e. the fingers you hold you're pick with) this will give you an unbelievable grip on your pick and you can just peel it off when you're done playing. Bad part is, you can't do any finger picking....
No, you don't grab your pick before the glue is dry, you aren't trying to glue your pick to your fingers.... you wait until the glue is dry, then you have a rubbery surface on you fingers and the pick never slips...

 

[Ginzoo]

hdi,I saw Junior Brown here a while back and if you know his playing style...its insane.He cut the shit out of his finger while playing this intense solo.The band kept going while he applied super glue to his finger...blew on it for a couple of seconds and resumed without missing anything...just grinned.

New one for me(as is yours).I'll have to try that one too.

 

[vintagedrive]

hdi, that secret is old as glue. Just fooling, I have to laugh because I was going to mention the rubber cement deal but I kind of figured the lot would think I zoning now. Leave it to a SoCal to use glue. Late.