Does stylus pick really help you be able to pick faster? Any thoughts?
I have one and the way the string keeps snagging on the lip, because youāre using too much tip, is incredibly annoying.
I have seen Troy picking with lots of tip showing so I honestly donāt think using minimal amounts of tip is the answer.
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I had one when I was a kid and had the same issue. The top get caught under the string.
Not for me.
I used to have one many years ago, but now I think itās a remnant of pre-CtC thinking where the way to go fast was āchoke up on the pick.ā Indeed, the designers probably think itās beneficial for the pick to abruptly stop if one exposes too much tip.
If I recall, it came with exercises, and those might be good, but I forgot them.
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Looks like a nightmare to me 
(I like to dig in)
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Waste of time.
it only works if you avoid pickslant almost completely.
So, it contradicts almost everything CtC stands for.
I tried to progress with it for a while years ago but with the informations given here i really would suggest the trash bin for these picks.
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Itās unbelievably annoying - the way the string keeps getting stuck on the pick. I know thatās how it is designed and that is what the pick is supposed to train you to avoid. If anyone wants to learn to pick with just the tip I would advise them against using a Stylus pick because itās so frustrating to use. Maybe if you stuck with it for a couple of weeks you would get used to it, but you would have to have the patience of a saint to be able to stick with it for the aforementioned reason IMO.
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It did intentionally ācatchā in the strings if you exceeded a certain threshhold of pick attack depth. I agree that neither āchoking upā on the pick grip nor keeping pick attack depth especially shallow are necessary for fast alternate picking. Though that comes with the caveat that for double-escaped picking, once you exceed some extreme depth of pick attack, it will start to undermine the ease of getting pickstrokes to escape in both directions. Even in the single-escaped case, beyond a certain pick attack depth, the pick would start to strike the adjacent string (though this would be beyond the normal range of pick attack depths that I think most people would intuitively employ).
But the idea of maintaining a consistent pick attack depth is helpful. While I never put in significant hours with the Stylus pick, it did a good job of illustrating how you can lock in a feeling of smoothness in fast alternate picking by limiting variation in pick attack depth. You can achieve a similar effect by doing exercises where the pick barely touches the string. Again, not to teach yourself to always pick that shallow, but to get used to the idea of being able to dial in a picking motion that consistently applies a particular pick attack depth, whatever you want that depth to be.
I havenāt looked at the Stylus Pick exercises in forever, but offhand I suspect some of them included string changes that require double-escaped pickstrokes, though ātrappedā and āescapedā concepts in the CTC sense are never addressed. In that sense itās probably sort of like Stetinaās Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar: exercises that could be a source of frustration when viewed naively, but that can take on a new dimension when viewed through a CTC lens.
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Sorry to dig up an old thread but I recently purchased these picks again after having last used them 10+ years ago and wanted other peopleās feedback since this thread died.
I disagree with the above quote, you absolutely can use pick slant with a stylus, in fact, I find it helps me keep the amount of slant within an optimal range so I donāt exaggerate the slant needed for the desired motion. Does anyone else have any feedback on their experience using the Stylus picks?
I probably wrote this somewhere up the thread, but if the concept is to teach you to use āminimal pickā on the string, then Iād say it works for that. Thatās how I always interpreted their use. But I think you can see right in the freeze frame of this video here that something like a Stylus pick design simply will not work for all playing styles:
Gypsy style rest strokes involve putting quite a bit of pick on the string youāre resting on, and then gradually sliding over the string. The Stylus pick is specifically designed to prevent this. So I would say that itās a pick design that might work for shallow escape angles like an Andy Wood wrist-based style of playing. But even then, if he digs in at all, which he does, for various reasons, the pick will grab the string and get in the way.
Ultimately, I think the Stylus pick is a relic of at time when any problem with picking motion was boiled down to āuse less pickā or āuse smaller motionsā, and when not much was actually known about what different motions actually looked like and how they work. So it may coincidentally work for certain very specific picking motions where a small amount of pick on the string is feasible, and not work for lots of others where you might want more flexibility in your attack.
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Hey all, I actually have had these guys for a while. The snagging is exactly the point of what its suppose to help with. For me, it definitely helped me relax which is worth its weight in gold, I find if I manage my expectation to be just that, its actually pretty useful. IMHO
Brian
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I was thinking that if one cuts two notches into the edges of their pick, nearly anything could be turned into a Stylus-like pickā¦ this would seem like a minutes work for a thin pick, using scissors.
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that is a fantastic point
Unless Iām mistaken, this pick design started life in the late 80s/90s as the Tekpick (or something like that). I didnāt find value in it - but some certainly might.
Their website isā¦retro.
4 YouTube videos with the most recent from 11 years ago. That was during Obamaās first term. 
HAHAHA!!!
The āStylus Pickāā¦talk about a flashbackā¦
I bought a pack (and the bookletā¦still have it) wayyyy back in 1989/90.
Still have 1 or 2 of the originals when they were translucent blue!
Iāve got a little pack of the black ones.
The exercises were pretty decent from what I recall.
(I should dig-out that booklet and reacquaint myself with themā¦)
Pros:
Yeahā¦it will def help train your hand re: pick depth.
I got so comfortable with them that I found myself using them at gigs.
(3 songs in: āHoly sh*t! I didnāt realize I was using this thingā¦ā)
Cons:
Not very suitable for any serious pickslanting.
The materialā¦inexpensive plasticā¦
They wear-out pretty fastā¦a few hours of serious practice at best.
Those &%#$@! pointy corners!!! I always lightly filed them away.
I remember them too, my shop sold them. I found them completely useless for anything except leads, for rhythm, metal, thrash, funk, punk etc they immediately got thrown away.
My experience is the same as anyone who uses expression in their playing, the stylus is the same as the Floyd speed guide or run bar. Itās the same concept as bumpers in bowling.
It does help if youāre incompetent, or new, but if you acually want control you want a negative result from your inaccuracies. You want a large range of pick stroke, you want controlā¦ No one who rides a bike wants stabilizers to help them, it will acually cause them to crash. Thats for babies. Semi jokin ā¦
Guides are for babies, when you grow up you have to take control.
When youāre growing up you literally need proper nutrition, milk protein etcā¦ But after that you are able, due to your solid foundation (hopefully) to reach to the stars and have psychedelic substances, alcohol is one of those. Arnold is jokingā¦ but not really. A joke is hinting at something thats true, making it a jokeā¦
And this is this thing, people think heās joking, he isā¦ but hes notā¦ Take your pick.
Most bodybuilders use alcohol to pop, They use it to look tight and full before a contest. It raises your sugar level and is a contrast to your sugar depletion before a show, You are in a water and sugar depletion state before a show. And if you ingest carbs/sugar/alcohol before a show, Your veins pop. Your muscles look more contrasted. Alcohol also gives your muscles more contractual efficiency and allow more water depletion. It allows you to lift more weight or even play faster. Tho doing this depletes various vitamins you need to live, and why many bodybuilders are not healthy or even collapse on stage.
Many bodybuilders use diuretics to look shredded, alcohol is one of them.
Reading my posts backā¦ I wish i had a subtitle next to my name, local nutter or something.
I was just thinking about the stylus pick thing again. I think I gave my booklet and stylus pick kit to a charity shop a while ago or lost it somehow. Anyway, I was wondering if it might at least be useful for working on better DBX technique. I guess that fits in with Troyās post about it possibly working for shallow escape angles like an Andy Wood style of playing? Although the post suggests it is too limiting even for that,
William
I think the consensus here (and, I think if you think about the pick design, it DOES seem pretty clear that this was the idea behind the design) is that the Stylus pick is designed to teach you to pick with just the very tip of the pick, consistently, and to force you to use a light just-the-tip attack and not dig in, because itās designed to catch on the string (regardless of pickstroke escape) if you go beyond a certain point of the tip.
If this is a problem youāre having in your technique, I suppose it could helpā¦ but, I donāt think that most people struggle with alternate picking because theyāre digging in too much with the pick. Itās a solution to a problem thatās pretty incidental for most players.