Change of Guitar Pick question/poll

[Habuman]

Been using the Dunlop Pitch Black Jazz 1.0 for so long that all other picks just don't feel right. The only time I change up is for acoustic in which I use a Dava 508 Green.

 

[Geezerjohn]

I use Blue Chip TP60 or sometimes Gravity Gold. I prefer thick picks. I used V-Picks for a long time but now I prefer the Blue Chips.

 

[Bman]

I’ll use anything. I find that quarters are pretty tough on strings though

 

[electronpirate]

Interesting how many Jazz III's there are here. Good for lead work for me, but lousy at rhythm (my technique I guess sux there.)

I've done quite a bit of moving around with picks. Tried pretty much them all. My absolute favorite are Red Bear...but at $20 a pick (and generally a waiting list), I gave up and put my RB collection into olive oil to keep them healthy.

My go-to's are Fender heavy's (the purple moto ones...I know it makes no sense, but for some reason those ones feel and sound 'right' to me...I've tried the red in that same style, and they seem different.) I use Medium's for acoustic work. I'm a bit anal about it, and the 'Fender' logo has to be pointed up at me.

In the end, I can get 4 or 5 million of them for $20, and they are literally everywhere in my house.

Oh, and they sound great to me.

 

[NightWalker]

i used to use the Jazz III but right now my current favorite is the Gravity Stealth Standard 3mm and the ChickenPicks Shredder 3.5 mm.

 

[dpeterson]

Have used 2mm delrin dunlops for ages... just recently tried the new 2mm flow petrucci pick and am really digging it. Jazz III's way too small for me.

 

[TG3K]

I’ll use anything. I find that quarters are pretty tough on strings though

I played with a pick-shaped quarter for over a year after my teacher at the time convinced me to play with totally non-flexing picks. That was probably around 1975-76. I eventually switched to heavy Dunlop stainless steel picks, but I grind and polish them into my own preferred shape, which is somewhere between a regular Fender style and a smaller jazz pick.

Here's a shape comparison next to a typical pick. (I still use the typical plastic pick when playing acoustic guitars.)

I'm still using stainless steel after all these years, although recently one of my nephews made me a handful of brass picks in my custom shape. (He's a machinist with access to a good CNC milling machine.) The brass is a bit brighter than the stainless steel...both have their place.

 

[iaresee]

Anyone with a fair amount of time in ever drastically change their guitar pick types?

Yup!

I went from Dunlop Tortex 0.73 mm to a myriad of different, harder and much thicker picks. And then I was on Dunlop Gel H for a few years but was missing the "bite" with them. Played (or tried) Adamas picks for another year because my heros (Garica and Anastasio) use them and just couldn't get used to their thickness (plus they are WICKED expensive). Finally found a good compromise between hardness and thickness in Dunlop Ultex Sharps -- they get the right percussive attack and bite I like, but aren't overly thick. I quite like them and that's where I've been for almost two years now.

 

[Project Mayhem]

Tried nearly everything...always come back to the Jazz III's.

 

[spagthorpe]

JP Jazz IIIs, but they are small. I have big hands, and I think I just prefer a larger pick.

 

[shatteredsquare]

The jazz iii xl is great for surgery, but if I'm playing a lot of chug chug, the orange tortex (.60?) gives me a little 'click' that's real easy to keep track on top of whatever delinquency the gain stage is doing, and the flexibility of a softer pick makes for a kind of mechanical compression...with a jazz xl you can hit hard enough to kill a note, too hard, but with a softer pick there is kind of a mechanical ceiling where you can play fast and hard but the pick flex determines how much force makes it into the strings.