When I started learning guitar I used thin picks as recommended by Justin. Dunlop nylon white .38 & white .46. These thin picks are great when you start out of course as they’re very forgiving. But you quickly realise that their ease of use comes at a price. They sound terrible! You get a flappy, clicky sound from them.
As my playing improves I’ve worked up to thicker picks. Dunlop tortex red .50 for quite a long time and now currently tortex orange .60 for ‘strummy’ acoustic songs and tortex yellow .73 for ones that need a bit of picking. I use tortex green .88 on my electric.
(why do they come in these weird thicknesses?).
A couple of months ago I started trying my hand at lead improv on my electric and have been using a Dunlop tortex purple 1.14, which I really like for that purpose.
Today I accidentally used this thicker pick to strum my acoustic. Wow, what a lovely rich tone!
I may have to rethink all this and not be so set in my ways and experiment a bit more.
Maybe not a coin like Brian May though, I don’t want to tear my new strings to shreds!
I like the Dunlop tortex picks, too. I use the same ones you mentioned (i.e. orange, yellow, and green). I also like the red Dunlop Jazz III picks sometimes. I’ve tried thumbpicks a few times. Takes some adjustment, but they’re okay. They never caught on with me, though.
I’m currently enjoying using an Duragrip pick, which I think is .65mm. It feels good in the fingers and has a textured surface so finding it easiest of all I’ve tried to keep a grip of, without gripping too tight
Dunlop Tortex for me.
Orange .60mm Tortex for pretty much everything on acoustic
Black 1.35mm Jazz 3xl Tortex for electric.
However I did follow Justin’s recommendation yesterday when playing “Learning to Fly” and went back to the .46mm Nylon for that.
Although after using the Orange Tortex for so long the thin Nylon felt weird and hard to control.
Tortex Jazz III HEAVY - the purple one…I love it for picking and rock / metal type riffs, Tortex orange for more strummy stuff. I like the tortex tone. Tried a couple of Nylon picks for a bit and didn’t like the tone, so went back to this purple beauty.
I started with dunlop .6 and .7 something picks. After a few years a friend suggested I try a thicker pick and I went to the dunlop max grip 1.5mm. It took a short while and then I really favoured them. I was never a super loud / hard strummer but I was able to strum far more lightly with the thicker pick.
Because I’m primarily a fingestyle player, probably 70% fingerstyle, I also found it frustrating when the dunlop picked moved around on me. Now I realize for some that is a feature but in my case, because strumming is only 30% or so of what I do, I didn’t like the pick movement.
Along came bogstreet with their ergonomic picks. I use their ‘lead’ pick and love it. It doesn’t move around (bogstreet.com) and has a thick corner (1.5mm) which I use all the time, and the other 2 corners are lighter.
I also use a thumb pick now with most of my fingerstyle. My fav there by far is the recording king thumb picks.
I started with the suggested very thing picks but nowadays I use almost only Dragonheart picks which I love (I have different material ones, they glide wonderfully) and at times Jazz III with the grip improvement.
Recently I got a few of those black mountain picks in the Jazz III style but have not used them so much yet.
Like most, I started out with thin, flexible picks, and have experimented with various materials & thicknesses. Tortex is tough to beat in any thickness, and I’ve found I prefer the large triangular picks. The yellow Tortex triangle pick seems to hit such a sweet spot that I’m wearing the lettering off. Also, for a thin but rigid pick, the Ultex .60 triangle gives a crisp attack and plenty of control that’s ideal for flatpicking 12-string. I’ve also worn the lettering off my Dunlop Celluloid Extra Heavy pick, which works for me as an excellent all-arounder.
I started learning guitar using the thin picks recommended by Justin, Dunlop nylon white .38 & white .46. As @sairfingers says, I noticed the flappy, clicky sound and just got some Tortex .50 and 0.6 standard picks delivered today to start using. I also got some fender .58 mojo grip picks to try out.
Update: I preferred the sound from the Tortex picks over the fender picks. I ended up taking the fender pick out of the mojo grip and replacing it with a Tortex pick to give the mojo grip a proper test.
I dislike picks altogether. I am trying, because I think it is good to be able to use one, but I would much, much rather play finger style and strum with my fingers.
So, yet to find a pick I like. I like the feel of the Attakpik stealth, but not keen on the material.
I’m following this thread with great interest as it’s not something I’ve ever really considered. I know I like to play with a firm pick and my favourite is a little hard black pick that I managed to catch when Christie Hynde threw it into the audience at a concert! Haha. No idea what it is but i can see a very faint ‘Gibson’ scrawled across the top.
Anyway, on the strength of people’s comments, I’ve ordered myself a set of Dunlop picks and will feedback my impressions.
After ordering an assortment of Dunlop Tortex and Dunlop Flow, I’ve settled into using the latter. The lettering in the centre provides a really useful grip so the pick doesn’t slip in your fingers and I also like the feel of of quite a thick rigid pick so am using the 2mm ones at the moment.
I use gibson picks right now. They are great but lately the pick is moving in my gingers or I even let them fall, especially when the song is fast like Breakfast at Tiffanys. I don’t have a grip anymore. It can get better again but right now I can’t play the whole song through.
Those are the picks. I’m looking for picks like that but with silicon or something where my fingers are .
Hi Roland, you could buy a pack of Mojo Grip Picks and then remove the pick that comes with it and replace it with the pick that you prefer to use. You can buy them from various guitar stores and online shops including Amazon. That might help with your grip issues.
I have been using a V-Picks Red Rocker style for the last several years. I came across them and have been stuck on them. They are a thicker material and I can hold on to them. V-Picks Red Rocker And they are made in Tennessee.
