Ok first my background. I'm a guitar player who upgraded to mandolin. My preferred pick are the orange tortex .60mm. So basically I just kept using those without thinking. I was at huck finn yesterday and visited the Sorensen booth and was given a pick by Sorensen himself. Not sure the size but it's thicker tortoise shell looking plastic (kinda like the old fender picks I used to play guitar with). It's one of those triangular picks similar to a bass pick but smaller.
I get a lot of free picks and usually they go in a case but is had an answer to a question from Sam Bush at his workshop in my mind. Someone asked what kind of pick he used and is answer was, paraphrasing a little, "I like plastic ones, tortoise shell color" everyone laughed. But Sam went on that the point was every player is different. What's funny is the guy asking the question had one of those $35 picks and asked sam if he ever tried those and he basically said he liked the ones he was using.
So my experiment I tried this new pick. Shockingly it was noticible different. It cut a lot of the ringing highs and my chunk gets a tone more base but my volume is a lot lower. It's much easier to grip because of the larger surface area. I had my wife listen to be sure I wasn't crazy she said the same things.
I'll admit two things now. 1) I don't like the loss of volume. To make up fr that I can attack the strings Harder but that seems unnatural. 2) I also am unsure I like loss of highs in a trade off with the better chunk. But I'm curious if for bluegrass that more mellow sounds might be a more authentic sound. Mom gonna go back and listen closer to some records and see what I hear.
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