I know we've had extensive pick threads from time to time, and everyone weighs in with hisher personal favorite.
And I'm a pick freak, a whacked-out fanatic. I have stone picks, bone picks, buffalo-horn picks, mastodon-tusk picks, every variety of plastic, celluloid, metal, and acrylic, in most every shape (excepting big triangles, which are useless to me), and gauges from Fender-heavyish up to stupid thick. (I don't get on with lights.)
My historic favorite of all these is the second of two modified teardrop tortoise-shells I smuggled from the Bahamas on a cruise years ago. Wicked me. But I wore one out, and I don't want to ruin the other, so I've put it somewhere so safe I can't find it.
It'll turn up.
MOST of the time, though, I use good ol' blue Jim Dunlop Tortexes. They wear forever, staying useful as they round off, and I have a dozen or more at any given time. I guess even out of all the exotic stuff, in the end nothing has been more comfortable, controllable, and balanced-sounding than blue Tortex.
I explain all this not to claim any particular pick expertise, just to say I've engaged in the pick odyssey for thirty years or so, and kept coming back to old Blue.
Several months ago, I visited the local music store and grabbed a suitably heavy pick from their jar of picks-to-use-in-the store-if-you-forgot-one-and-be-sure-to-put-it-back-when-you're-done.
Vaguely tortoise-looking, moderate teardrop, beveled edges, pretty heavy. I liked it. I liked it a lot. Smoooth response, fat tone, easy to hold, great control. Imagine my surprise when I found it in my pocket after getting home!
I played with it for days, weeks in practice at home. Then one fateful day I dropped it on our dark brown wood floor. I heard it hit. AND I NEVER SAW IT AGAIN.
I mean I crawled. I pulled the couch out from the wall. I moved furniture and pulled up the rug. I pulled off the register and reached down into the ductwork.
The pick was GONE, gone like socks whose mate you never find. I had read the name gold-embossed in the pick at least a couple of times, but I could NOT remember what it was.
To say I was disconsolate is going too far - it IS just a pick, after all, I have SOME sense of proportion, and my attention span is fairly short anyway.
But I did ask at the store next time I was in, confessing my crime...but they had no idea what pick it might have been. It was nothing they carried, and there were none like it in the jar.
So Tuesday evening we were cleaning the cabin, I moved the steamer trunk tighter into the corner and there it was! The chances that it would hit the 3" of bare floor between the register grate and the trunk, then slide under the trunk (whose reinforced corners provided the only elevation) seem small, but there it was.
So yeah! I'm glad to have it back, and I'm gonna get more of them.
It's a D'Andrea Pro-Plec 310. You can find it right here. (Click on Pro-Plec, partway down the page, to see pictures.)
The 352 & 346 also looks good – and all the Pro-Plecs are the same thickness, 1.5mm. Perfect for my purposes.
I'm sure this is already the favorite pick of some of you, and this will be old news.
Just saying, I really like it.
). I can't deal with the Dunlops with the raised lettering on them. The letters catch the strings (with me, anyway). I realize this is a "flatpick" forum, but I've got to give a shout to the Dunlop red thumbpicks. I've tried the Fred Kelly's, the Nationals, Zookies, and everything I've come across. Blow a dollar and try the Dunlop red thumbpick for a couple of days if you think you can't get along with thumbpicks. You can always file them down to your own specs.....
