View Poll Results: Picking with the pointy or rounded end.
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I use both the round and pointy end. They do different things. Why choose when you can have both.
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12-23-2020 12:02 PM
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Is anyone else surprised at the higher than expected turnout from us round edgers? I thought we'd be less than 20%... Bit disappointing actually, I thought we were special!
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I use Golden Gate 3 rounded side picks. You can get a little bag of about 20 for 12$.they are fake turtle shell and fairly thick. If your local store has some check out the tone. Its bigger than some. Sort of a poor mans Blue Chip.
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I switched to the rounded side of my pro-Plecs about 3 years ago. I was getting back into Django style jazz,, and had heard that using the rounded side of the pick got you a better tone and felt better when playing rhythm... it felt good,, so i tried it on electric too...The tone was noticeably fatter, and I had basically zero issues with accuracy versus the way I could play with the pointed end, so I stuck with it.
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This thread is my epiphany. I have always been a pointy-endian. I never thought to play the round end. Now I can play either or both. I can be bi-plectural.
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Originally Posted by Litterick
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Originally Posted by christianm77
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I just realized that I can get good jazz sounds out of the bridge pickup if I use the round side of the pick. I just need to turn the bass of the amp up a bit. I'm digging the bridge pickup sound with the round pick.
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Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
Some folks prefer one tone over all others, and that's cool, too. It's all good.
* Except the prime tones, which have their own special charms.
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Golden Gate MP12
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I continue to try others, most recently a standard medium shape with holes in it (can't recall the model), but, it turns out I can pick more accurately with the Golden Gate pick. And, it has a mellow sound to my ear.
Since I'm the furthest thing from a speed demon, this may not be good advice.
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I go a tiny bit more with point but I use the round edge a lot and have lots of picks that don't have a point at all.
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
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I gravitate towards the pointy end of a thick pick. 80% of the time, I’m playing 13’s on an archtop and I find that it depends on the tone I’m going after: ProPlec 1.5 pointy for warm tones with articulation, (Wes or Bernstein type tones) Dunlop Ultex large jazz lll’s pointy for more articulation, ala Jesse Van Ruller, or Benson tones, pointy end of a Fender medium (.70) on 13’s for classic Benson snap and articulation and medium to standard Fender or Ultex for medium gauge strings playing rock/blues/fusion.
The rounded side of a heavier pick creates too much string drag for me, and while I like the rounded tone, the loss of articulation is bothersome. I can get using the round end of a medium gauge, though, which is what Ford and Landau (who he credits) do.
Ironically, Dunlop 405’s sound brighter with a more rounded point than a standard ProPlec. But, I haven’t investigated gypsy jazz, that’s way down the list for me.
I have tons of picks, fun way to explore tone and articulation. Not really compelled to try the Blue Chips (?) at this point, though, I’d be pissed if I lost it, or became dependent on something that cost that much. I have a few Wegens and those weren’t cheap.... too unyielding for me, like playing with stone.
Anyway, exploring the world of tone variations available with picks is something I never dreamed would be so powerful when I was just starting to play - highly recommended use of your time!
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Originally Posted by yebdox
What are the stone picks worth trying?
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RE: stone picks - when I was newly big into Pat Martino, I saved up and bought some Min'd picks, which he was endorsing at the time. One in particular (they were all different) was my main pick for many years before tragically dropping it onto a tile floor, breaking the pick and my heart simultaneously.
The heft of the pick was great - it had a coolness that was nice - and the end taper was just right for me. I've gravitated to thicker picks ever since.
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Originally Posted by citizenk74
But been playing with the 2.0 mm Dunlops since either the purple tortex ones or since recently the green gator ones. Just always found that the pick having a bit of weight is helpful
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Originally Posted by Lobomov
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So this is the thread that broached the subject of using the side of the pick.
Thanks, PP!
Here is what I went to a couple of weeks ago. See how that shoulder has a small, rounded but discernable tip on this Jazz III Stiffo?
That is what I focus on using to make contact and it has really set me free. I point the tip back towards the bridge and I can spread my fat thumb all over the great surface area between those two "shoulders." This has made the pick more secure and during longer periods of playing, I don't find myself having to readjust the pick. It is so much more secure.
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Originally Posted by AlsoRan
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Originally Posted by Tal_175
If you compare the picks (I am not sure that I got the right ProPlec pick) you can see how the black pick seems to have more of a shoulder, and that shoulder is low enough to be able to use it as a pick, in my opinion. So nice to play without getting that darn pointed tip caught, and getting slowed down.
I will be in Princeplanet's debt forever.
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It’s so strange - I don’t understand how anyone can play with the rounded end:-)
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Originally Posted by AlsoRan
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Originally Posted by citizenk74
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I use Dunlop Jazz Tone 204s...they don't have a pointy end.
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I just tried turning my Fender 358 around the wrong way. Have to say I don't see the attraction. I wonder if the round-enders strike the strings with the same pick angle I do. Seemed to me it made more difference in tone if picking more or less parallel to the strings.
I'm a pointy end guy but my pick is something like a 30° to 45° angle to the strings. Sort of a reverse Metheny thing. In 3D I think that makes the pointy end rounder... or something.
Have to say I was somewhat surprised to find that playing with the round end wasn't as weird as I thought it'd be. Might even do it again some day.
RIP Nick Gravenites
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