FEATURE > HOW TO PICK YOUR PICK
Generalizations about the tonal
characteristics of pick materials are
hard to make, because everyone uses them a
bit differently. But if you’ve ever been caught
without a pick and had to resort to fishing
a quarter out of your pocket, you know just
how harsh and unforgiving the wrong mate-
rial can be. (Although, even a quarter may
be a fitting plectrum in some circumstances!)
By and large, most electric guitarists
today use some form of plastic or nylon
pick, but the types of plastic have changed
considerably over the years. Luigi D’Andrea
first began making guitar picks from cel-
lulose acetate plastic back in 1922, and it
has remained one of the standard materials
for guitar picks ever since, as with Ernie
Ball’s standard line of Cellulose Acetate
Nitrate picks ( ernieball.com). Some pick
purists swear by “tortoiseshell,” which is
actually made from the shell of the Atlantic
Hawksbill Turtle—an endangered species
that is, incidentally, not a tor-
toise at all. When real turtle
shell was banned from
trade back in 1973, pick
makers turned to plastics
to emulate its combination
of flexibility and durability.
In the process, they discovered
The Tortex pick’s distinctive powdery
texture—which applies friction to the
strings and helps make for a surer grip—
comes from a proprietary polishing process
that’s part of Dunlop’s own version of the
basic “punch-and-tumble” pick-making
technique. (The other frequently used pro-
cess is injection molding.) “For the longest
time, our nylon picks were No. 1 for us in
the US,” says Jimmy Dunlop, “and they’re
still huge in the UK. But, starting in the
early ’90s with the grunge guys, Tortex
really started to take over: All those guys
used Tortex—Kurt Cobain, Jerry Cantrell,
Pearl Jam, Soundgarden … .”
While Delrin aims to emulate the prop-
erties of turtle shell, newer plastics like
The
Material
World
Alternative Picks
Not everyone is content to use a pick made from cellulose, nylon, or even stone, and
even the most diehard tortoiseshell user may want to change things up now and again.
Fortunately, offbeat pick variations and other unusual string-strokers abound.
JELLIFISH PLECTRUM EFFECT
Looking a bit like Sigmund the Sea Monster, the
Jellifish pick is not really a pick at all, but a series of
18 small pieces of guitar-string-like wire arranged
on a slight grade and held together by a plastic,
pick-like fob. You can produce a chorus effect by
grazing it over the strings laterally, or arc it back
and forth over the strings for a sound not unlike a
cello or a viola.
jellifish.com
THE WIRETHING GUITAR PICK
This little oddity comes in models that use a nylon,
acrylic, or plastic injection-molded body with a small
metal wire made of steel or copper alloy for striking the strings. Jerry Donahue and Gene Bertoncini
sing its praises, which isn’t bad company to keep.
wirething.com
FRED KELLY BUMBLEBEE JAZZ
This interesting hybrid is basically a yellow thumb-pick attached to a small, black flatpick, giving you
the best of both worlds.
fredkellypicks.com
HEET SOUND EBOW
While not a pick in the usual sense, the EBow
has been cool for so long and through so many
phases of musical fashion, that its actual method
of actuating strings—by focusing “a sympathetic
oscillating magnetic field” on them—is almost
secondary. Used liberally by everyone from Robert
Fripp and Adrian Belew to Radiohead, Bloc Party,
and Opeth, it’s almost certainly the most popular
device for coaxing sounds from a guitar outside of
a traditional guitar pick. With a sound somewhere
between a guitar synth and an angry cello, it’s simply a must-have for every recording player.
ebow.com/home.php
Ultem (polyetherimide) are also being used,
including in Dunlop’s Ultex line and Steve
Clayton’s Ultem picks ( steveclayton.com).
Many tortoiseshell enthusiasts—especially
bluegrass and Gypsy-jazz players—are also
singing the praises of Red Bear Trading
Company ( redbeartrading.com), whose
Red Bear Original and Tortis picks are made
of a polymerized animal pro-
tein that Red Bear’s Michael
Skowron likes to call “cultured
turtle shell.” Companies like
Wegen ( wegenpicks.com), Golden
Gate, and BlueChip (bluechippick.
net) are also making tortoiseshell-style picks
from various materials.
122 PREMIER GUITAR JUNE 2012
premierguitar.com
