When to swap worn out picks

Wondering how worn you guys let your picks get before you grab a new one. I know yngwie grabs 4 or 5 picks per song. Ha.

I use big stubby’s so they basically never get worn out. I do have to buff them a little every once in a while so they don’t catch the string.

Depending on the part and the pick. Do you prefer a certain attack for different parts?

I’m not sure I’m capable of dissecting my picking into different parts for different attacks

I’m sure you are! Do you like to tone chase?

I like brand new picks for rhythm playing, ideally more worn picks for leads, thin snappy picks for acoustic, and a different pick for bass for trailing-edge picking.

Bro I have right now 9 different tubes on my table that I’m re arranging into my amp. I love tone chasing. :rofl:

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Well if that’s the case, pick choice is huge for tone chasing (IMO)! Also cheaper than tubes lol

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What amp, which tubes ? :slight_smile:

Pick lifecycle management?! Best not to over think it maybe :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

With the purples, new picks are brighter, probably why Yngwie keeps going through them like he does. One hack is to rub the tips on paper with a rolling action so that you don’t flat spot them. That way they will last the whole race… wait what are we talking about :roll_eyes: :rofl:

A dsl20. I got all kinds of tubes. Pre amp and power amp. Trying to find subtle differences.

I basically use a pick for about 2 weeks. I play about 3 hours a day maybe. But when a pick gets worn I really notice and the new pick is so good

Depends how it wears out. With a three finger grip mine wear nicely with that sweep either side. But with just index grip the pick can start to get worn in an akward way making it catch the strings.

Though I think if you’ve been playing guitar awhile, you can adapt easy, so the pick is less important. Unless you want a certain sound like you guys have mentioned.

I did some tube rolling for the preamp on my amp earlier this year. Takes a while, but I think it got better, brighter with more overtones when pushed in this case.

I have picks I use for ever, total miser with strings and pick, as far as the picks go I have too many in various states of use and a ton of new ones, I have one of those large packs of dunlop purples.

Still have the ones I used to slash with a blade on the sides for grip, don’t do that any more, early days of volcano had me rather insecure about them slipping out of place.

I even use strings forever, but my YJM strat is bright and the plexi I use being a 1959 clone is bright as well, I use my OD to smoothen things out so it’s a mix of components that work well together for me.

As @WhammyStarScream says, it really won’t matter after a while.

Where I do think it matters is recording clean tones, but that’s got more to do with diffent bevels, thicknesses and materials of the picks.

I’ve only ever played rhythm and used regular old rounded picks so I used to never swap picks. I notice now an immediate difference if I go 2 weeks the. Get a new pick. It’s so much more accurate. Just wondering if 2 weeks seems long to anyone else

I think a better way to look at it, over say two weeks is the amount of wear in mm and texture degradation.

When I’m practicing hard, if I continue to use an old pick and the wear goes beyond 2 mm roughly, I find I get used to it and when I switch to a new pick it can feel awkward for a few mins as the length of the pick feels larger and I have to adjust a bit. Less so now but it can be a thing sometimes.

The other thing is texture, if your pick is highly polished when new, you will find less resistance with a new pick besides a slightly brighter tone.

Initially every little thing seems to matter, as you progress most of these initial worries become second nature and as others have said you don’t even think about it.

I suppose you can ask your self what your current trajectory looks like, gear and type of music you are aspiring towards, and what have you been playing so far?

Do you have any specific artist’s peculiarities you are interested in achieving? Sometimes this can help focus your efforts and gear choices. The ultimate goal I guess should always be to find your own thing eventually.

I’m pretty sure I lose them before I ever need to replace them.

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Yngwie uses Dunlop 1.5 mm Ha ha. Pretty thick but you will find to play like him, or at least for accurate picked notes, those thick picks help. I have used Mediums most of my playing career,and sometimes Heavy picks, and I replace them when they “round off” on a medium you can see it fairly quickly, and I would suspect if you use a 1.5 mm Dunlop long enough it would round off also…:slight_smile:

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I use Dunlop 1.4 actually. And I have an yngwie pick from when I saw him live last year and I can’t use it at all I don’t know how in earth he is so accurate with it and it’s so slippery smooth.

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He mostly USX, so that might be why? You can use loads of akward picks with usx unlike alternate. The accuracy needed is way less. Do you have a pic of it?

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It’s not that round but it’s also very thick. Makes sense for his tone, but now that I use pointys, this pick just slips around and I don’t really feel it hitting the strings

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They’re custom Dunlop purple 1.5 picks. Would love to have one of these Malmsteen picks, I hope they do a commercial run, though I have a feeling he’ll release a new pick with fender.

I used to slash them with blades initially, but then I found the mirror like slick surface to actually be quite grippy.

You get used to it, I like the tone, what it does is it tames some of the top end. It’s kind of a strange formula, bright guitar and amps, no tone pots and then this little thing called a pick that tames it a bit, it’s the kind of change you can’t get with an eq, also the attack is really nice for his kind of high gain tones. Almost like some recipe, spice with sweetener to balance things out, happy accidents I’m sure most them are. Not to forget the cheapest possible cable from amp to cab to cut more highs :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I think it’s the bevel I don’t like mostly. I think Dunlop is selling these right now actuslly.