I now have over 25 picks to choose from, which include all the DunlopTortex triangles, all the Dunlop Delrin 500, all four Dunlop Celluloid, Two Dunlop Ultex triangles (.60 & 1.0), One Dunlop Primetone 1.0. My new favorites are the DâAndrea Ultraplec (1.5 & 2.0), Proplec (only comes in 1.5), and the celluloid XH (1.12) and large triangle (.96).
The ones I use most lately are the DâAndrea Ultraplec 1.5 and the celluloid large triangle, which makes it relatively easy to pluck both courses of the 12-string consistently â and a maddening amount of daily practice.
Youâd never guess that I once hated & dreaded picks.
Newbie here so first a big hello everybody. The forums have been
a pleasure to read with everyone being pretty helpful to each other.
Age 66 and I picked an acoustic about 3 months ago and joined here
due to being much impressed with Justinâs style. Anyway Iâve been using a tortex .50 but today I received the orange .60 tortex in the mail. Though just started using them I noticed that my strings are sounding very nice. Wish the pick was a bit bigger but I can deal with it.
Nightwatchman
Patrick @Nightwatchman
First of all welcome to the community
The 0.5 tortex is one of Justinâs recommendation in his just released Strumming Course.
Michael
I like the Fender thin tri corner picks. I can use the point end for more aggressive or single note picks or move the pick to the softer radius and strum for a different sound. It is also a larger pick and that may help you as well.
Digging up this old thread. Over the past couple of months Iâve tried a lot of different picks. I prefer the Tortex ones. Iâve tried Orange 0.6mm, Yellow, Green 0.88m, Blue and Purple. Along with a few other kinds.
One thing I noticed is different materials have different stiffness. 0.6mm nylon is very floppy, 0.6mm tortex is much stiffer - although still flexible.
I keep gravitating back to Tortex orange and green. Orange I seem to be able to strum and pick, green seems more accurate for riffing, but doesnât feel great strumming. Less dynamic feel. The even thicker ones seem unnecessary as green feels stiff enough.
Overall orange feels the best to me, but I was a bit concerned that itâs not firm enough for more complex playing. So I did some research on what famous people use orange Tortex. Kurt Cobain, hmmm. Dave Grohl, thatâs better. Oh, John Frusciante! JF is a top level player. Josh Klinghoffer. Tonnes of other good players as well. https://equipboard.com/c/picks-pick-holders That has a list of picks by popularity and who uses them.
Iâm going to stop trying different picks now and just stick with these two, mainly orange. I think changing too much would be detrimental.
Iâve heard a lot about Jazz 3 XLs, a lot of people rave about them. I didnât try them, but had a look at the shape, and they are very similar to the Tortex Flow that I tried, and for me, I didnât like the attack sound of the pointy end. Shows how personal this stuff is! I will have to try a proper Jazz 3 XL one day.
I agree with that in general, I was approaching it from the point of view of âwould it hold me back?â. Like playing with a really floppy beginner pick. And I determined the answer is no, it wouldnât. No excuses.
We gravitate definitely on the same plane, as I also found Tortex to be my fav ones, especially the green and orange! orange is great for strumming and picking while playing rhythm, although for lead play green is the way. At least to my taste Tried thicker ones from Tortex but they have not felt as good as the green one to me.
Obviously nothing wrong with experimenting but I personally think stick to what works for you well.
Bone and horn picks ATM, they donât have a thickness listed on the package or in the description but they are in the neighborhood of 2mm. I find that I quite like the groove milled into them for the side of your index finger as it keeps these exactly where you put them.
I mainly use Tortex orange for strumming on acoustic and electric. For picking out individual notes or playing scales, I currently like Jim Dunlop Celluloid Shell Picks medium (havenât tried the heavy ones). They are stiff and have a smooth surface.
I also like the orange, but I seem to wear tips round pretty fast with some play. Barracuda is a good example of a pick-destroyer. That galloping chug will wear the oranges down in a couple songs. I will file and polish them back into shape a few times. I prefer the smaller size anyway.
Lately, I have taken a liking to the Dunlop Gloss 2.0. They took some getting used to, but are fairly slippery and stiff for single note picking. They do not wear very fast. I do not like them for chugging style stuff tho - the individual strings are too distinct and I can get them caught up in the strings a bit too easily. I can do basic strumming ok, but it took some practice to ease up for a good sound.
