Ryan Mooney of The Wool Hats String Band - A Connecticut based bluegrass/jamgrass group - takes another look at our #hringpoki guitar picks. He put version one through the ringer in January.Since then we have made some changes - based in large part on his feedback . We shipped him some new picks and he put some thoughts to paper. Enjoy.
Words by Ryan Mooney
First Impressions of version two of "The Most Interesting Guitar Pick In The World"
First off, I’d say they are much more comfortable to grip than the prior picks. Having removed the ridge that the old ones had and adding a little concavity makes them fit very well with how I hold a pick.
Second, the circle pack design provides a certain amount of grip that you don’t get on a solid pick. Overall, they have a very nice feel to them.
Poly-Brass-Poly
For the brass vs the plastic, the bronze one is much more stiff, even stiffer than the Blue Chip pick that I tend to play with. It has very little (or no) flex, likely because of the metal design. Surprisingly, the tone out of it isn’t as bright as I would have expected from a metal pick. This may be due to the smooth edge that it has. I found this to be a pleasant surprise and the pick that is most similar to what i currently use.
That said, it is a little brighter than my Blue Chip pick. The plastic ones are much lighter than I tend to use on an acoustic. They also provide a bit of bite, which I think comes from the textured edge on them. They seem to produce a pretty bright and immediate tone off of the acoustic strings. This may be due to the amount of flex that happens when they hit a heavy string. The black one was played for a while by my bandmate (Matt) and you can see the texture smoothing out.
Overall
In summary, I would say these are a good design and playable picks. They’d make a nice addition to a pick collection of someone who likes to explore the different tonal characteristics of various materials.
The Music
Angeline The Baker
As for pick comparisons, here's some picking I did of an old fiddle tune called Angeline the Baker. This will give you some idea of how single note stuff sounds.
Here are some chords from my song The Devil That You Know. This will give you a feel for how they sound strummed. As I’m typing this, I’m realizing how odd it is that I basically picked the Angel and Devil as my samples.
Recommendations and Possible Next Steps for Version Three
Lastly, if you want some feedback for other styles, if it is possible to produce the plastic pick without the texture on the edges, it may produce a mellower tone out of the gates. A thicker plastic pick might be interesting to try, too. Lastly, maybe make the tip of the pick solid with the circle pack more in the center of the pick where the thumb grips it. This may maximize the grip aspects while minimizing the flex.
I posted some photos of “The Most Unique Guitar Pick In The World,” and an old grade school buddy of mine, Ryan Mooney of The Wool Hats String Band - A Connecticut based bluegrass/jamgrass group - reached out to tell me that he thought they looked cool. I offered to send him some to test out, thinking it’d be nice to see how they work from the perspective of a real musician. I just strum a few chords here and there and fall in and out of practice with my guitar. If anyone could tell me if the picks played as good as they looked, an acoustic guitar player in a bluegrass band who put them through the paces definitely could.
“I’d be willing to give them a try and give you some feedback. I’m pretty picky about my picks (if that’s a pun, it was totally intended), but always enjoy trying something new.”
Ryan Mooney
I sent him a bronze pick and one of the “pro-plastic” ones made on the fancy new HP Multi Jet Fusion 3D printer. I was especially interested in how the plastic pick would hold up since it’s a new type of plastic formulation I hadn’t worked with before. I was also interested to see if the bronze would come back all beat up and full of character.
When they arrived back both picks materially were in great shape. The bronze pick looked basically the same - oh well - and the pro-plastic was ever so slightly worn a bit smooth.
Now the most important bit. Sound-wise, the verdict was that there were pretty OK!
For a first experiment designing a pick that looked good and felt good, “OK,” was a good result. I was especially happy because I modeled the envelope of my pick after a standard Fender electric guitar pick! Ryan plays acoustic exclusively so, the strings are pretty unforgiving. To get an "OK" from an acoustic player using an electric biased pick isn’t too shabby.
"I use what many acoustic players consider the Cadillac of picks. It’s by a company called Blue Chip." According to Ryan, "the material hardly wears and produces a nice tone, but they come at $35 a pick." The pro-plastic pick is right along that price point (though I off two picks for that price).
The picks weren’t perfect but they were surprising in some ways. You can have a listen to some recordings he made using his Collings D1 guitar.
This first sample are the chords to a song he wrote for The Wool Hats. It’s called Old Silo.
This second sample is of Whiskey Before Breakfast similar to Norman Blake’s version.
Even my unpracticed ear can hear the variation in sound. With the bronze I think the strings sound more muted. But it’s interesting to be able to make out the pick rubbing up and down the grooves on the E and A strings. You can really hear texture from metal zipping along metal. And the pro-plastic pick sounds much livelier and very bright. But what about opinion of the actual musician?
Here’s what Ryan had to say:
Regarding feel: The thicker part in the middle is right where I normally grip it. It felt okay on the plastic one but was impacting my grip on the bronze one. For someone who holds a pick further back than I do, it may give some added control. The design with all the open circles does seem to enhance grip and might do well on a pick that is the same width throughout.
Regarding tone: The plastic pick is definitely quite a bit brighter than what I use now. That is probably in large part due to the thickness of the pick. I use a pretty heavy gauge (1.5 mm) so there’s not a lot of flex in it. Your plastic pick is similar to a light gauge pick so it gives quite a bit when it hits an acoustic string. But it does give a nice, bright sound. The bronze one has some similarities to the picks I use in that it feels like a heavier gauge pick. Being metal, it has virtually no give when it hits the string. Surprising to me, it’s tone isn’t that different than the pick I use, but there’s definitely an edge to the tone when it strikes the string that’s unique to the material.
Black and Gray pro-plastic picks
Regarding Flexibility: The main reason I focus on how much it flexes when it hits the string is around volume. I find when playing with a mandolin and fiddle who are both louder than a guitar, you want as much energy transferring to the string as possible for volume. A pick that flexes too much doesn’t transfer as much energy. But, that’s most definitely a personal preference that is influenced by what instruments you are playing with.
Why put this much thought into a guitar pick?
Ryan notes that the pick he uses now, by Blue Chip, “is quite a marvel. Whatever space age shit it’s made out of, it barely wares down. I’ve been using the same two for five or more years.”
Blue Chip has a reprinted article by Steven Stone that appeared in Vintage Guitar Magazine that goes over the natural versus synthetic pick debate. It seems the gold standard in many steel string acoustic guitar circles is the tone received (or perhaps perceived) using tortoise shell picks. But given the cruelty involved in acquiring them, an opportunity exists for pick makers to find a material that replicates that tone and feel made from a synthetic cruelty free source.
The new materials and the design possibilities only achievable via additive processes mean that there is ample opportunity for innovation in designing a pick that looks great, feels great, lasts a long time and doesn’t involve killing an animal to produce.
For that reason, and because the picks look so darn cool is why we’re putting so much thought into our design. Thanks to Ryan’s (hopefully continuing) input, this is only the start.
The Most Interesting Guitar Pick in the World is available on ETSY
