Pick your Pick

[Big V]

Dunlop! The green ones!

:icon_thumright:
How can you not love those? I also use them all the time. I think I may have had about 250+ of them around before I lost at least 200 :tard:
I also prefer to point my picks slightly :icon_jokercolor:

 

[MikeW]

Dunlop Tortex: yellow or orange
Fender Medium: I like the tortise shell in white or green
Dunlop Standard Nylon: 0.50 for sturmmin on the acoustic

I also have a steel pick that I use for speed training. It's great for reinforcing the "follow through", for lack of a better term. Otherwise it gets hung up. When I go back to the regular pick after using that for a few minutes, it's cake to really get the speed up. Problem is that it tears up the strings.

 

[bagman67]

My picking style is kinda hybrid but lacks the discipline that true hybrid pickers have - I'm really pretty much all over the place.  I do a lot of playing with no pick at all - just fingernails and flesh. 

One of my standard pieces of advice to anyone who doesn't like the attack their amp and/or pickups give is to invest 75 cents in a heavy pick or start using their fingers to pluck the strings before dropping a pile of dough and headache into a new batch of electronics.

I have so many damn picks of so many shapes and sizes it is hard to say what my favorite is.  But for electric I tend to like a really thick pick with rounded edges, one of your 1.5 mm dunlop tortex guys, something like that.  For acoustic strumming and flatpicking, I like a really rigid pick, but thinner.  I also sometimes like the Jazz I, II, or III picks - I find them pretty useless for strumming because there isn't enough to hold onto, but they make for nice linear single-note and hybrid picking.  I will say this:  Anything slimmer than a Fender Heavy feels flimsy and cheap in my fingers, and it drives me a little nuts to try to get some tone out of them.

There was a while there in the early years of my guitar journey when I was enjoying metal picks on my electric, but they chewed the hell out of my strings and after a while I quit using them, although I did like the aggressive attack.

I've also had some luck with the David Grisman mandolin picks in fake tortoise shell.  They're more of an unbalanced circle with a nipple, rather than the rounded isosceles  triangle most of us are used to.

 

[B3Guy]

haha, my dad uses the "DAWG" ones too. I find them unbearable, but to each his own.

 

[Firebird211]

If I don't loose my Fender picks, they end up looking as rounded as the Dawg after some quality guitar time. :laughing7:

 

[B3Guy]

the DAWG ones are monster! incredibly thick and bigger than a Gorge Washington.

 

[back2thefutre]

warmoth should offer picks made of exotic woods.

 

[mullyman]

I've used the Ibanez Paul Gilbert signature picks for the better part of 15 years now. I can't seem to get comfortable with any others. I don't really have a preference on color though. Whatever is in the box when I go there is good for me. I'd really like to find the same pick shape and thickness and have custom picks made for myself. Can't find that style anywhere though.
MULLY

 

[Wana_make_a_guitar]

I've used the Ibanez Paul Gilbert signature picks for the better part of 15 years now. I can't seem to get comfortable with any others. I don't really have a preference on color though. Whatever is in the box when I go there is good for me. I'd really like to find the same pick shape and thickness and have custom picks made for myself. Can't find that style anywhere though.
MULLY

They just look like thin jazz III's, which just sound cool as all hell to me.

 

[mullyman]

I don't know the exact thickness of these picks but they are definitely hard. Not much flex to them. The pointy end appeals to me.
MULLY

 

[DangerousR6]

Been using these for 20+ years

Those are pretty good picks, I used to use the Dunlop .35mm, but one day by chance I happened to use one of these a friend had and loved it... :icon_thumright:

 

[clearerphish]

 

[Tonar8352]

For years I used the Pick Boy 1.5 Jazz then they stopped making them so I found Red Bear Trading Co. I have my picks custom made by them to match the Pick Boy and you can see that they did not match it perfectly but it is close. I still wish they would nail it exactly because I prefer the feel of the Pick Boy but the Red Bear are exceptional picks.  They are as close to real turtle shell as you can get with out killing a turtle, they sound killer and wear way better than any other pick I have used.

 

[bbl4ck]

For years I used the Pick Boy 1.5 Jazz then they stopped making them so I found Red Bear Trading Co. I have my picks custom made by them to match the Pick Boy and you can see that they did not match it perfectly but it is close. I still wish they would nail it exactly because I prefer the feel of the Pick Boy but the Red Bear are exceptional picks.  They are as close to real turtle shell as you can get with out killing a turtle, they sound killer and wear way better than any other pick I have used.

Hey Tonar,

I have been meaning to try those Red Bear picks for a long time, but just never get around to ordering a couple for trial.  Do you really recognize a significant difference in sound than with other standard picks?
Have you tried any Red Bear standard shapes [not custom made]?  Sounds like it might be a good stocking stuffer for me...

Have a wonderful holiday &  :rock-on:

 

[jay4321]

Dunlop Derlin .96mm mostly, but also use regular Fender-medium/hard types for just jamming

 

[dmraco]

I've tried every possible pick, and my pick of choice has varied through the years.

These days I use Jim Donlop Tortex - the orange ones.  These seem to be the best for me at the moment.

me too.  I have tried many other but keep goig back to these.

 

[Rickgrxbass]

I've been on the internets too long i think; at first glance I thought that said "Pedobear"  :icon_scratch:

And I totally forgot, my absolute favorite pick for 6-string, picked them up at a local music store in Lafayette IN and couldn't find them since, Cool Picks Juratec Jazz, 1mm:

 

[Tonar8352]

Do you really recognize a significant difference in sound than with other standard picks?
Have you tried any Red Bear standard shapes [not custom made]?

I have been using them for several years now so I don't really remember that significant of a difference in the tone over the Pick Boys on electric but I do remember a definite improvement on my acoustic guitars.  The biggest difference is how well they ware, they last a whole lot longer than the Pick Boys. On certain songs with the Pick Boys I would have to throw them away after one song; with these they last a long time. I usually lose them before I need to replace them.

I did try the stock ones out before I had custom ones made. I think one for a stocking stuffer would be a great little gift.

 

[Dan025]

anything with the jazz III shape and as i see im not the only one the prefers the smaller pointy picks. material is less important as long as its stiff and for blues i prefer the original red ones which are soft and have a different atack to the note, they sound a little more like a pick with a radiused tip but feel better to me.

i also have some metal ones made in osaka japan, the aluminum ones have the best chime to them but the soft metal doesnt glide as well as the brass and titanum ones, the metal ones are great for clean tones and acoustics if you want a bright sound. the jim dunlop ultex also have a great attack to them and are good for clean or rock tones.

 

[Firebird211]

Many moons ago an old guitar player said to me that people that play with flimsey picks weren't as experienced or skillfull as guitar players that use a firm pick.  Has anyone else heard of this?  :dontknow: Flimsey picks are not my personal choice, but I think they would be okay for quick strumming. On the other hand I couldn't possibly play arpeggios or even controlled licks with one because of the lack of feeling the strings from too much give.