r/Guitar•
HolyCowly

Quickly found the right pick for electric but not acoustic. What do you use?

Dunlop Jazz III are alway recommended and I agree, they are great. But I still haven't found a pick that is that versatile and gives me the tone I like on my acoustic.

The local guitar center has only Dunlop Tortex and Nylon picks for stupidly high prices and online one can mostly get packs of 6 minimum so I haven't found a way of trying as many different picks as possible (like stone, wood and more exotic stuff rather than just different sizes).

So far I've tried

  • Tortex 0.6 mm (orange). My favorite so far. Mellow tone both single notes and chords but with a bit too much attack for my taste. The faster and more agressive the strumming the more clickety-clackety it get's. Up-strums already troublesome at that thickness. I think the clicking is by far the biggest problem I have with them.

  • Tortex 1.14 mm (purple). Nearly too dark for chords in general, but sounds great on some chords. Even though they are thicker they have far more treble on single notes than the orange ones which are nearly perfect in that regard. Far more click on strums than the orange ones. Have better control with the slightly thinner picks. Also even more attack.

  • Nylon 0.46 mm (cream). Crap. Could probably strum at lightspeed with them but I like slower more note accentuating strums in general. They sound so chimey, like the tone one usually associates with country and 80/20 strings. Less amount of attack which is great.

  • Jazz III's 1.38mm nylon (red). Small size is troublesome for quick strumming. More dull than mellow. Though the thickest I have less control with them than with every other pick except the nylon one.

Basically I need a pick with less attack (equals thinner right?) that isn't that bright (is nylon especially bright or does thinner equal more brightness?). If the latter is the case I'm probably out of luck.

Posted Mar 25, 2012, 1:00 AM UTC

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