The PICK thread

:joy:

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saved for future use :slight_smile:

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Be careful what you wish for…

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There are so many inappropriate comments I could make about that :smiley_cat:

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I’m working on pick playing in earnest now, starting to fall in love with the tone. I’ve just been using a Dunlop Tortex .60mm that I had for guitar, and one gripe I have so far is the noise from the pick scraping against the roundwound strings is really loud. It doesn’t really come through on the amp, but I can hear it acoustically even if i crank the amp way up. Gonna order some thicker Ultex and see if that makes a difference. Otherwise I figure it’s either A) something I’ll get used to or B) something that will get better as picking technique improves.

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I bought a batch of 1.5 Dunlop picks a few months ago, but didn’t really get very deep into pick playing so I can’t comment with any veracity.
Now that I’m getting more into pick playing, I may experiment with those thicknesses that you mentioned @terb.

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I’ve been practicing almost exclusively on pick playing for the past couple of days. I may end up becoming a pick player on the bass afterall. I love the tone and the attack, just need to get past the awkwardness of playing with the pick instead of plucking. It’s coming along though.

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I’m kind of liking the 0.88 Ultex more than I expected. More that 1.0 Ultex is way too beefy. 1.0 is great.

The 0.88 Ultex is about the same as a 1.0 Tortex, I think. Love them both.

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I’ve been doing nothing but pick for months. My fingerstyle did degrade a bit :slight_smile:

Not too badly but it was noticeable.

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So @howard and @terb do you think I should go with thinner picks than the 1.5 I have? Just looking for suggestions.

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1.5 is on the thick side and it’s easier to learn picking on thinner picks. You may end up loving that one but starting out a bit thinner to try it out isn’t a bad idea.

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Okay, I’ll order some thinner ones from Amazon. Suggestions?

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Dunlop Tortex to start, just buy an assortment of ~0.8-1.2. The bags of picks are inexpensive.

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The nice thing about picks is you can GAS for them, and it is cheap :slight_smile:

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I mostly use the Ultex 1.14 but it’s on the heavy side already. I must say that I’m used to very heavy picks : for guitar I play with 1.38 since at least 15 years (Ultex Jazz III 427 for the exact model ; I’ll shoot a picture one day yo show you the size).

So yeah, for most bass players I’d say like @howard , Ultex 0.88 and 1.0 are probably the best choices you can make. the Ultex picks are really a big upgrade, compared to the antique Tortex range.

1.5 is very heavy. if your picks are Tortex I guess it’s similar to the 1.4 Ultex I have. I don’t have any problem playing with this thickness but, yes, it’s really stiff. The only situation where it could be really useful in my opinion would be when playing fast with heavy strings (110 or so) on a long scale.

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I am actually a little afraid of this one

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I’m revisiting this video by Mark Smith, which I had casually watched some time ago, but now I’m more serious about pick playing. It’s a pretty good tutorial.

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In my quest to quench my thirst for knowledge about pick playing, I came across this very informative Scott Devine video. As usual with his videos, there’s a lot of minutia, but the really good stuff starts at about 6:36.

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You get a free pick with the purchase of a Darkglass pedal… just sayin’ :smiling_imp:

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LOL thanks, I already ordered a batch of thinner ones from Amazon. They’ll be here tomorrow.

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