The Steel Guitar Forum

As we all know, plastic thumb picks tend to wear thinner and thinner the longer one use it. For shure much quicker than a metal thumb pick. I wonder why the metal pick is not standard for steel players. What speaks against it? Sound? Feeling? Not comfortable to wear?
Thnx for any coments
Sigi

Maybe it's just my technique, but all the metal thumbpicks I've tried sound too harsh and bright, and the tone is very different than the metal fingerpicks, whereas I can get basically the same tone with a plastic thumbpick as with metal fingerpicks. Don't know why.

Haven't tried filing the thumbpick though...good idea. Your fingerpicks do look unusual...what are they?

I prefer a thumbpick made of metal wrap & plastic tip. To each his own.

I use a Dunlop metal thumb pick. I find it's more comfortable.

I've been using a metal Dunlop thumbpick on PSG for years. They never lose their shape or fall off, and after a little getting-used-to, the tone was about the same as what I was getting with a plastic pick.

I liked the all-metal ProPik (thnx Easley) much better than the Dunlop, trimmed down to proper length natch -
http://elderly.com/accessories/items/PK43-L.htm

But then a few years back I got in deep with the Sonny Landreth "whole-guitar" slide style, and started doing a lot of alternate picking with the thumbpick.... the cross-contamination had me doing upstrokes on the steel with the ProPik, ack. I'm back to a standard or "Heavies" Dunlop, with the point trimmed to a sharkfin angle so it'll do ups and downs at equal volume. I tried the Dunlop thumb/flat pick and the Kelly Bumblebee, but the Dunlops work just as well for me. One thumbpick, four instruments, keeps the crazies & scrapies down.

I've been using a metal thumbpick for many years and find them to be a much better tone than the plastic ones.
When I was using the plastic ones, I always placed a few ridges with the pointed end of a sharp knife inside/across the flat area to eliminate them sliding off when playing.
The metal ones have the holes placed in them which helps them to stay on.
I also keep it in place for the ol' five string.

All Z.B.est

Bob Mainwaring

I forgot to mention Sigi.....to make it easier to figure which finger pick goes where, I borrow the wife's nail polish and paint the 1st finger pick around the top, it's way easier than trying each one wondering which goes where.

All Z.B.est.

Bob Mainwaring