Whats the most flexible but also snappiest pick you know of?
I’ve got some ultex 60 and 88 mm picks and they are the fastest to return to their basic shape that I’ve found, allowing sweeping and pinch harmonics and speed easily.
Do you guys have any experience with even snappier picks? Any advice?
I’ve tried a Pickboy Ceramic pick. It’s 0.50 mm but extremely rigid. Feels unusual but it might be what you’re looking for.
I also like medium/low gauge picks, but use Tortex material almsot all the time.
I found that 0.60, 0.73 and 0.88 are very usable for shreddy things (but again I’m not the fastest by any measure, in my usual playing we’re talking 190, maybe 200bpm 16th notes at the very max). I like to dig in so I definitely need the pick to snap back into place relatively fast.
0.50 Tortex I found a little trickier to use for this stuff. Again this may be because I like to dig in, so my pickstrokes are bending the pick quite a lot.
PS: if you use a lot of edge picking, the picks will bend less.
Are they flexible? When I hear ceramic I think of a dinner plates, is it the same stuff?
I have some tortex 60mm and the are nice, the red ones right? I do enjoy hard picks too, but there is something fun about snappy picks. It’s like picking, but with a bit extra energy and character. Less digital.
The more snap I can get the better, it gets addictive slaping the strings.
Like Zakk Wylde
What I like best about the tortex is it doesn’t warp, like nylon does. Same with ultex they don’t warp over time.
Dunlop tortex flow .88 mm
They aren’t that flexible despite being light, but they give quite a bright sound.
I’ve generally been using the Tortex Flow picks, but I know the original Ultex material comes as thin as a 0.73, so if you want a pick with a lot of snap and brightness but still fairly flexible, that might be worth a shot
I actually bought them out of curiosity, because I thought they’d be like dinner plates, but they aren’t. They’re some kind of ceramic-reinforced nylon. They’re flexible but much less than you’d expect from such a thin pick. Imagine a 0.5mm pick that has the stiffness of a 1.5mm.
Tortex is still my favorite but I like to try other materials. Variety is a life of spice or whatever.
I’ve never tried the flow picks, are they different besides shape compared to a normal tortex?
“ceramic-reinforced nylon”
How is that even possible ? What pick would you say they feel like? or are they unique?
I find they sound a lot brighter
IMO, they split the difference between a Jazz pick and a regular teardrop - a little shorter than a teardrop but much more prointed, a little longer than a Jazz III but with a similar point. The Ultex ones are textered and have a nicely beveled tip, as well, which is supposed to help them “flow” over the strings, hence the name. Picks are cheap, they’re worth giving a shot - I switched over because I found some things were easier to do on a full sized pick than a Jazz III just because they had a little more extension beyond the tip of your fingers while holding them, and you can sort of compensate with grip but this was easier, I thought.
Yes. The flow are ultex, and have a different sound. I would call it glassier. Ultex in general is more ridged than the typical tortex, so even the thinner gauges are fairly ridged and don’t have as much give as the tortex. They also tend to last longer. They are of course beveled as mentioned which can be a gift or a curse depending on how you play.