V-Picks Part Two: I got chills, they’re multiplying!

Alright, I’ve had the 4.1mm ones in for a few days now. Vinni really takes care of his customers. He surprised me with an unbuffed Dimension as part of the delivery (which would normally be another $10; regardless of what you think of the economics being justifiable or not, the fact is he gave me something I’d otherwise have had to pay a tenner for, which is pretty cool of him I think). I am very glad he did, because there’s something really cool about the sound of the unbuffed versus the buffed.

I think that the unbuffed variety might actually be the ticket for anyone who thinks they have too much pick noise, or that they have a too mild sound or feel. The tone with them is way more aggressive because they have more going on in their interaction with the string. Rather than sliding over it as you dig in, they momentarily vibrate it. Vinni refers to it as a “violin bow” sound. I don’t think I’d call it that exactly, or a vowel sound or anything like that… but it is an extremely different attack sound, and it digs in harder too. You’d have to be deaf not to hear the difference. I fully intend to put my money where my mouth is on that one, so to speak, by recording some demos, more on that in a sec.

The 4.1mm picks are definitely the sweet spot ones for me. They’re super comfortable to grip while not being so wide that they compromise the space between strings (even on narrower necks), and they make moving the string very precisely out of the way pretty much effortless.

Right now, I have the Medium Rounded, the Medium Pointed, the Snake Pointed, the Dimension Unbuffed, and the Dimension Buffed. Based on a few days playing with them and my total inability to pick a favorite but clearly preferring any one of them to my old standby picks, I decided to order some more. Hey, its my money, take it easy 😉

Coming my way, I’ve got a Diamond Pointed and a Snake Unbuffed, and Vinni added in a Diamond Pointed Unbuffed (which isn’t a listed product, just something he wants me to try out given my positive reaction to the unbuffed Dimension). I think there’s something very cool about the unbuffed picks, so I’m really looking forward to trying that one. You’ll be surprised at the difference between the buffed and unbuffed versions of the same pick, I think.

As far as the demo goes, here’s what I plan to do: a clip where I play the same rhythm and then lead thing with each pick in turn, first clean, then with distortion. Simple enough, yeah? I figure this’ll prove you don’t have to have some kind of magic golden ears to hear the differences in the picks, they are really prominently different based on the shape, bevel, and whether they’re buffed or unbuffed. The clips will speak for themselves with regard to that, and people can make up their own minds as to whether the difference is worth $4 for the two Medium (2.75mm picks) or $10 for the 4.1mm picks.

Not sure how the winter weather will affect the delivery of the newcomers, but I’m quite interested to get them in and try them out. When the ones I have coming do get in, I’ll record the demos and this time diverge from my usual audio-only or audio with narration demo to put together a quick video to upload to Youtube so I can display the information visually and use that time for playing. With 8 picks to demo and a few things to go through with each, I’ll need the time.

It’ll be fun to demo some stuff again. I do miss that. And this one’s going to be pretty easy, too, the concept isn’t exactly tough to get nor do the differences require a connoisseur’s ears to discern. Frankly I’d be pretty disappointed if I had got these in and they all sounded the same. Beneath the marketing phrases, there are very real distinctions and I intend to demonstrate them. There aren’t many comparison clips of them around. I am going to try to show that the “chirp” sound some people talk about can be more or less prominent with your picking technique as well, just as part of the demo playing. Lotta stuff to try to fit into less than 1 minute per pick to make it in Youtube’s time limit without being boring, but it should be neat.