How does a guitar pick affect your guitar sound

Does a guitar pick affect your guitar sound?

Everyone has noticed it at some point; your guitar doesn’t sound as full and loud as you wanted.
On the one hand, your amplifier and pedals and of course, their settings have a major influence,

As a guitarist, you know that many things influence your sound; It is a whole chain of components that matter.
First of all, you yourself and the way you strike your strings have a major influence on your sound.

Why are “you” the most important cause of your sound?

Let’s assume for a moment that your strings are relatively new and don’t sound “dead.”
In principle, all strings (brands) are fine to work with.
After that, it comes down to how you strike the strings and, therefore, how you hold your pick.

How should you hold your guitar pick?

There is actually no wrong way how to hold your guitar pick. Every method and every person creates their own personal style/sound. There are many famous guitarists who hold their picks in the most diverse ways.

Eddie van Halen’s guitar pick

Eddie van Halen for instance, used extremely thin guitar picks (0.6mm).
And he sometimes held his pick in a peculiar way; if he played with a pick at all.
And we can’t say that his sound wasn’t good! On the contrary, Eddie always sounded great!

But perhaps you yourself are not yet satisfied with your sound.

Take a look at the blogs below, that we previously posted about guitar picks and other guitar related items as well.
All information provided are just basic guidelines and take anything to you that you need.
But above all, have fun playing guitar; that’s all that matters.

Fatter tone with thicker picks

The thickness of your pick definitely influences the tone that strikes your guitar.
Many guitarists use a fairly thin pick with a thickness somewhere between 0.73 – 1.0 mm.

This is because many guitar stores actually do not provide information about the differences in picks.
They also don’t think these picks will sell, but they’re wrong.
In contrast, “regular” picks that are thicker than, for example, 2.0mm lack a certain balance that ensures comfort.
Many people therefore do not like thicker picks.

Most guitar stores don’t sell quality picks

At least 90% of all guitar stores don’t sell thicker quality “boutique” picks, so part of their customers only know about the top selling thin plastic picks as well.
Although a boutique pick may cost more than a cheap Dunlop pick, it’s still affordable and lasts a long time.

That said, improving your guitar sound with a good guitar pick may offer you a more than reasonable return on investment.
So just try different picks and judge for yourself.

Flexible picks do not provide that massive tone

We already said it; many people use thin picks gauged somewhere between 0.73 – 1.0mm and even thinner.
The flexibility causes a delay in your playing.
Of course, it’s a minor delay of several milliseconds, but it’s definitely there.
Besides the delay, a thin pick causes some sort of thinner tone as well.

Thick picks deliver more low-end and mid-frequencies to your tone than thin picks do.

Boutique picks are the solution.

As far as I’m concerned, the name “boutique” isn’t entirely accurate for most thicker picks.
In my opinion these are simply thicker picks, often made of plastic, but also other materials are used by different brands.
And besides being thicker, the edges are often rounded differently for more precision picking.

Beveled edges definitely matter

ChickenPicks guitar picks

On our “about” page, you can read how I tried to find a solution to the “thick pick problem” during my teenage years.
This was around 1986, and to this day, I play on picks I designed myself.
We launched the picks in 2010, and we sell tens of thousands of them annually in over 100+ countries worldwide.

Below are various blogs that you might also find interesting.

1. How to avoid pick noise
2. Guitar pick size chart
3. These picks are easy to play with
4. Guitar picks flexible
5. Thick guitar picks
6. Boutique guitar picks
7. Beveled guitar picks
8. Small guitar picks
9. Best guitar picks for acoustic
10. Bass guitar picks
11. How to hold a guitar pick
12. Mandolin picks
13. Best guitar picks for beginners
14. Max pick grip with Gripperzz

What others say about ChickenPicks guitar picks

Musikhaus Thomann
Chicago Music Exchange
Guitarpickreviews.com
Anatomy of guitar tone

Guitar essentials:

In guitar essentials we write about interesting things every guitarist should know a bit of, especially when you’re new to (electric) guitar.
We definitely don’t dig deep into theories or technical aspects.
You will find many scientific documents about anything somewhere on the internet.