3P

It's pick-hopping day featuring the trio seen above (L-R):

• DAW Man - Shred Line glitter edition (limited run) 2.5mm
• Gravity - 003 Custom 2mm
• V-Picks - Mummy special edition 3mm 

When I play guitar, it's my ritual to have more than one pick out. I'd switch between picks during play out of necessity; some playing styles are better done with a certain pick & that's a fact, yes? You can't do grinding black metal with a 0.5mm nylon pick. It's madness. Anyway, these 3 have been giving me the best results based on the intentions. The DW is my most efficient shredder. It's not acrylic & gives off the least clicking sound making individual notes sound true. However it's the least effective when it comes to grip & won't be ideal for fast & intense riffing. The Gravity 003 is the in between-er. I usually have it done in 3mm but this time it's a 2mm. Gravity uses acrylic & the picking tones are sharp & to my ears, riffs could sound super crunchy at times instead of being deep & doom-laden. Despite this quirky response, I love it for single coil tones. Finally, the V-Picks Mummy is a special edition 3mm version (factory default - 2.75mm) & has 2 grip lines as opposed to the usual 3. This is my preferred pick form, outline & feature. I'm too used to this one after quitting the Dunlop Stubby. Despite being equally acrylic, the Mummy has a less sharp response & it gives off a balanced tone for both solos & riffs. It's my go-to pick. 

Folks, if you think guitar picks do not contribute to tone then you need to re-think this belief. A simple but extreme reference is to hear your guitar tones using a rubber & acrylic pick; it's a day & night difference. It's about the material more than the thickness but the latter does play a part as I have discovered after customizing different pick thickness of the same model (thank you, Gavity custom shop). My take on this is to try as many different picks as possible & note the ones you like.

Picking Morgan

Bought these at Davis GMC today- Morgan picks. There were a few designs to choose from & I ended up with these two on grounds of being the least excessive in terms of looks/ design & preferred thickness.

These are definitely not acrylic picks; light as celluloid but tough as delrin. That left one is actually a signature model by a Danish player named Binzer. It reminded my of the Howling Monkey pistol grip feature but feels nothing like it. The right one is basically a standard selection with a fusion twist; the grip area is thick while the pointed tip sports a thinner affair. 

In use both were slippery against the strings so if you fancy this kind of reaction which inevitably manifests some speed, good for you. The pointed tip is also a popular spec for speed freaks. The grip factor here is nothing less than excellent. For those of us who dislike grip-inducing indentations, be assured that these textured surfaces are doing their job very well.

However, they are not my kind of picks. Acrylic pick surfaces rubbing against metal has that wicked friction only metal/ angry players could appreciate so there lies my loyalty. Riffing with these slippery picks don't really manifest definition. Nothing too repulsive here, just personal preference. 

Boutique picking

Nothing like spending the holiday with personal engagements (especially when nobody's home); nothing extensive, just evaluating the 'boutique' picks I have lying around here: Chicken Pick, Gravity & V-Pick. All 3 picks aren't for the sentimental, especially the strummers among us. They have a certain degree of retaliation that inevitably singles them out for specialist applications- speed & precision.

As mentioned above, these picks are distasteful when it comes to strumming; there is no flexibility whatsoever so be warned. Due to their rigid pedigree, there is an element of absorption here so they're not too kind to acoustic applications because they make themselves heard. The clicking/clunking contact noises might drive some of us nuts. 

The Gravity & V-Pick are cold-hearted assassins; they are similar in such a way that they make their inorganic presence felt all the time. In use, we can hardly tell them apart in terms of tone. Feel-wise, that's where the difference sinks in, the Gravity has a harsh, very abrasive contact against your strings, while the V-Pick manifests a more gliding performance. The Chicken Pick did well in differentiating itself in this aspect. There is a certain degree of contact pleasure to such an extent that you need to convince yourselves it's not plastic. In fact, it feels & sounds like a bone composite but the manufacturer specified it to be plastic with a dash of personal formula & I must say it's definitely a winning one. It's also the smoothest amongst the trio with a very exclusive presence to boot.

Where I come from, wimpy picks are out of the question. I hit my notes hard (as opposed to fretting them hard) & need my picks to stay put with every attack. Majority of the picks which are less than 1mm thick have a high tendency to die a quick & terrible death as they break & snap under pressure. Investing in the trio you see here is a matter of personal embrace, simply put, I can't play anything else. If you are new to such thick picks, it is definitely an immediate put off because it takes a different handling approach to get one going unlike your preferred thinner picks. Do keep an open mind, we need different tools to get the different jobs done & these picks require you to embrace them objectively. If you don't have the urge to speed up or pulverize every single note you play, you probably won't need them. Despite treading on the hard pick turf, I still have thinner picks within reach just to give some perspective to my playing every now & then. 

Seen above:

• Chicken Pick: Tritone III
• Gravity: Stealth Standard
• V-Pick: Pearly Gates

Chicken pickin'

This here is my current pick (forgive the pun); the Chicken Pick. This is known as The Shredder, a 3.5mm pick with an attitude for fast attacks, not to mention its ability to withstand all my bottom end grinding. The inscription on the pick acts as a grip enhancer. This particular model has a trimmed overall outline (there are other broader models to choose from), a beveled & pointed tip for focused picking. The material in use here is a thermo-plastic variant so it doesn't annoy you with all those clicking sounds like its harder counterparts.

My take- it's robust & would likely appeal to fast-picking players across music genres. The jazz chaps might like it as well because in clean mode, the pick helps manifest a very smooth tone. I hope the manufacturer considers other colours instead of just this off-white finish across the range (red, blue, green maybe). I almost lost it when it was placed on a white seat, had to tilt the entire seat over to let the pick drop to the floor before locating it. Grip-wise, it gets my thumbs up. Never an awkward moment in trying to make it stay put while in use & I am a very aggressive player, mind you. 

Chicken Picks are now available at Davis GMC.

Fender: Modern Player Jazzmaster (2)

This is in response to an e-mail pertaining to my pickup covers; it's absolutely plastic & it's not costly. It fits the standard humbucker & requires no mods. Just insert the humbucker into the cover & it's good to go, no wax potting or rear sealing necessary. It somehow deceives others from a distance because it looks like an active unit but that's strictly a novelty. This cover protects your pickup from the elements, especially your sweat. Say you are selling it away for other replacements, you'd then have a working & good-looking pickup to offer.

DiMarzio- differentiated

Yesterday was just a bad day Monday, the day of the week which I am not agreeable with. So I engaged some guitar therapy by lowering the action of my Ibanez SIR27F which entailed into the lowering of the pickup height. The guitar in question was equipped with a pair of DiMarzio PAF7 as default pickups. The picture above is how a PAF7 looks like as depicted at www.dimarzio.com...

But I noticed the PAF7 in the SIR27F looks like this; it has the DiMarzio logo there which was absent in the picture over at the manufacturer's website. I rubbed some talcum powder over it so it would be more visible in this pic.

So I was thinking, what else could be different & decided to unscrew it out of the guitar cavity. The arrowed portion refers to the pickup's chassis & it's not metal; it's made from a synthetic material, plastic if you will.

I am not trying to expose piracy at work but it proves that there might be some cost cutting involved & the fact that some product features are differentiated from the manufacturer's standard issues.

A case in point

Having bought a new ESP guitar recently, I noticed the label difference between the current (background) & earlier (foreground) hard cases. Also, the current hard cases are plastic, the earlier batches are synthetic leather.