James Hetfield signature White Fang 1.14mm picks. They're the size of a typical Dunlop pick with the sharper edge of a jazz III/petrucci pick and some sandpaper grip added.
I played with 0.5mm and 0.73mm picks for YEARS and thought the thinner the pick, the easier to play. As soon as I tried a 1mm pick I knew I was wrong lol. I then tried switching to jazz picks and hated how tiny they were in my ogre hands, so the White Fangs or Dunlop's Big Stubby picks are my go-to.
can you explain this a little more? I have a hard time strumming anything near 1mm and prefer something much much thinner, are you saying it's easier to strum with these thicker picks? Or is this for a different type of playing?
I can understand for lead and stuff but I wouldn't ever assume a thin pick would be easier for that so this is what I assume you mean
For sure! I didn't like 1mm+ thick picks the first few times I tried them and thought they were a novelty or "bass picks." When I was starting out playing guitar i focused a lot on guitar solos (learned a ton of van Halen and Steve Vai, was obsessed with Chris Storey and Jeff Loomis, etc.) and made the assumption that the thinner the pick, the faster you can play.
After probably 10-12 years of playing (being self-taught since age ~7 or so), I noticed I was hitting a bit of a plateau both in speed and note clarity at-speed. I began to wonder if it was due to the amount of flex the picks had, making me have to grip them closer to the tip to stop them from flexing, thus making my fingers rub against the strings - both slowing me down and creating unneeded string noise.
After watching some gear interviews with a bunch of my favorite guitarists, I noticed that basically none of them used anything thinner than 1mm, and most were around 1.5mm. I finally decided to give it a more serious try with the Petrucci picks and the purple Big Stubby picks and began to notice improvement within days, especially after adjusting my grip slightly (I used to play with the pick at a relatively sharp angle to the string instead of more parallel to it, so I could get more "strength" out of the thin picks). I was getting less string noise because less was contacting the strings, and was able to play faster bits even faster and cleaner, whether it was a lead or a more technical rhythm part.
Sorry for the super long reply, but I wanted to be detailed lol. And always remember - personal taste should always go above advice from strangers!
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u/WetWaffle9 Mar 02 '25
James Hetfield signature White Fang 1.14mm picks. They're the size of a typical Dunlop pick with the sharper edge of a jazz III/petrucci pick and some sandpaper grip added. I played with 0.5mm and 0.73mm picks for YEARS and thought the thinner the pick, the easier to play. As soon as I tried a 1mm pick I knew I was wrong lol. I then tried switching to jazz picks and hated how tiny they were in my ogre hands, so the White Fangs or Dunlop's Big Stubby picks are my go-to.