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.

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.