Thin or thick pick for high gain & pinch harmonics?

buller

buller

Member
I was watching this Gear Masters vid with Mychal Soto of PeelingFlesh (great fun low IQ slam band), and in the part below he explains why they use thin picks:



His reasoning about wanting to play through the strings and have the pick bend to the will of the strings rather than the other way around makes sense.

Do you prefer thinner or thicker picks for high gain and why? I switched to V-Picks Screamers a few months ago but maybe I should try some good thin picks too to see how I like that. What are thin picks would you all recommend?
 
i use .53 and .60 snarling dogs picks for 20 years, i like the "bounce" off the strings i call it for consistency and the "chung" when really shredding, anything thicker and i kind of pull the string along with the pick and its not good
 
speaking of peelingflesh who i love, i watched this the other day and was entertained. im honestly not really familiar with rob scallon and hes got 2.5M subs lol

 
Snarling Dogs only for me. I use 0.60, 0.73, and 0.88

Can’t use anything else.
 
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Thin picks are for people who haven't learned to play guitar yet.
 
Hmm, I actually moved up in thickness for the opposite reason and he’s the first dude I’ve heard bring up the whole concept of pushing through the string, which is why I went to the thicker picks. I used to use .88 Jazz III’s, eventually got onto the Petrucci’s that I fell in love with due to the sloped tip then this weekend I grabbed a pack of these out of curiosity-

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Just slightly smaller than the Petrucci’s (there’s a Petrucci pick under the middle one). They’re 1.0’s.

I get more definition/attack by playing through the string, I only let a small amount of the tip stick out of my fingers and will push the string until the pressure causes the string to slide off that bevel and the pick ‘pops’ through the other side. When applying this with less gain/Plexi territory it’s even more pronounced. Pinch harmonics are never an issue (well, the amount I overuse them might be) due to keeping such a small amount of the pick exposed, my thumb is right there at all times and I barely have to do anything different to go for a pinch.

Just another example of how things can work completely opposite for different players.
 
My feeling with picking technique is that it's less about the pick itself and more about the control you have, given the style of music. Pinch harmonics on an acoustic with a thin pick require a totally different type of control than on a Superstrat with 9s and a thick pick
 
On bass (when I use a pick, it’s a thin one - Fender thin-ish)
Acoustic guitar - thin pick.
Jazz guitaring - thicker pick. .88
Rock guitaring - med to thick.
 
As expected, it seems like thicker picks are slightly more popular but I'm gonna grab some thinner Jazz IIIs, Snarling Dogs, and one of the Ultra Lite V-Picks to experiment a bit
 
Detroit1973 said:
In the clip above he mentions using an .80 i'm assuming he means .88mm or possibly .73. i don't consider .88 to be thin.
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In the 70's it was whatever was in the house including plastic bread ties. Music supplies for me as a youngster was way scarce.
In 1982 a roomate in a different band than mine had tons of wafer thin picks. I looked up to him and he was a fast but sloppy player. I thought surely he cant be wrong so i use the wafers but note for note accuracy was thrown out the window.
Then another player i knew turned me onto a green Tortex [.88mm] and i found God. Used the purple ones too and Fender heavy picks.
Over the years ive gone heavier & heavier as my hand strength increased.
In the 80's i use stainless steel & copper picks but they eat the outer wrap on the "D" string but killer riffs & p. scrapes.
Used Gator Grips for a while. The Petrucci flows are where i live. Love the points on those and they last forever.
 
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