Golden Gate picks

[Charles E.]

I have been using the Golden Gate mandolin picks (I modify them quite a bit) and am pleased with them. However I noticed that the Golden Gate (mock turtle) guitar picks cost two to three times as much. What is the difference? Is it a totally different material? Do players here use them? Any thoughts?

[Leigh Coates]

I don't know, but I just ordered some from eBay. I can let you know,... :>)

Leigh

[mandroid]

Dawg picks are so similar to Saga/Golden-Gate, i wonder if they are like sourced,
and just branded different?

David may have gone to Saga, had them mass produced for him ,
then some time later,
they sold the same pick, relabeled, thru different distributorship pathways..

been OK with Dawg ones since the 80's, GG seem familiar..
I can walk-in to the local guy and get more GG, here.
need to have the DG version mailed.

[Folkmusician.com]

The Golden Gate MP-12 pick is your standard tortoise style. The MP-22 Mock Turtle picks are meant to emulate Turtle shell. These are extremely rigid and give a bright tone. It is more like playing with a rock, or um... a turtle shell.

Both the MP-12 and MP-22 are still made in Japan.

Memory may be failing me, but I thought the Golden Gate MP-12 was supposed to be the Dawg pick and the deal fell through or something like that. I am not sure who told me that, but it made sense being Saga was making a Dawg model Kentucky mandolin.

[Jim Broyles]

Those mock turtle things are cow horn if I'm not mistaken. Very bright and clacky on the strings, in my experience.

[Ivan Kelsall]

When i think of how many pick makers have stated that their picks replicate the tone of 'tortoiseshell',i shudder. I have 2 'legal' T.shell picks & they are without a doubt a sonic disaster. Guaranteed to make the finest mandolin on the planet sound, thin, sharp, & shrill & to confer on it a sound that would shatter glass !!.Thank goodness for all the modern pick materials that we have,
Ivan

[Ivan Kelsall]

Woops ! - Just had a glitch on here.I 'saved' my post & was asked if i wished to 'leave the page',
Ivan

[Polecat]

I couldn't resist, and bought 3 on Ebay; they arrived yesterday - huge, very thick triangular monstrosities, by no means entirely flat (this, aparently, is deliberate, though I can't work out why), and with sharp edges. Completely unusable as they were delivered. I took one, sanded it to my favourite Jim Dunlop shape, rounded the edges and tapered the business end down to about 1mm. From the smell whilst sanding, it seems likely to me that the material is horn, but good quality, very dense horn (poor quality horn has a tendency to flake, and this seemed very homogenous). In practice, it is certainly an acceptable plectrum (I generally use Jim Dunlop Tortex picks, and am of the unshakable opinion that it matters far more how you use a pick than what it is made of) - by no means too sharp in attack, but with enough edge to make it possible to vary the tone using the pick angle (something I like to do). Apart from the business end (is there a better expression for this?), which I polished, I left the main surface rough ened with 180 sandpaper, which seems to give a better grip, and I have the impression that it will be less likely to fly out of sweaty fingers.
Certainly an interesting experiment, which I shall probably repeat with the other 2 picks, although I will try to flatten them between two heated metal plates first. Would I buy them again? probably not, though I will persevere with them for a while - it can't do any harm.

[Buck]

...I have 2 'legal' T.shell picks & they are without a doubt a sonic disaster. Guaranteed to make the finest mandolin on the planet sound, thin, sharp, & shrill & to confer on it a sound that would shatter glass !!...

I'm pretty sure you're just doing it wrong.

Seriously, I have several and they sound marvelous. Of course, being a natural material quality varies and most of mine are very high quality and thick, about 0.075" give or take a little.

[Gerry Hastie]

When i think of how many pick makers have stated that their picks replicate the tone of 'tortoiseshell',i shudder. I have 2 'legal' T.shell picks & they are without a doubt a sonic disaster. Guaranteed to make the finest mandolin on the planet sound, thin, sharp, & shrill & to confer on it a sound that would shatter glass !!.Thank goodness for all the modern pick materials that we have,
Ivan

Sage words Ivan. I have 2 similar picks that I keep for posterity. One is actually okay but feels brittle as hell.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Hi Buck - Neither of mine is as thick as that. In fact one is transparently thin,but as Gerry says,they feel very brittle indeed. Real T/shell is very hard stuff,totally unlike most man made pick materials that i've come across,& even playing with the more rounded 'point' of the thickest one that i have,sounds scratchy & thin.It's certainly not rough around the edges,as the stuff's hard enough to take on a glass-like polish. Having said that,the Golden gate & Dawg picks,confer the polar opposite tone on both my mandolions. They sound as though they've had a 'treblectomy' if i use either of them. It's no great wonder then that we have the urger to search for a 'better pick' all the time,
Ivan

[Charles E.]

Ivan, I also have a pick made from "unobtainium", I even have one I made from an Ivory piano key (worst pick ever) and I agree with you about the brightness of tone. Like I said in my op, I am pretty happy with the Golden Gate picks (after I reshape them) but after reading about the John Pearce FT picks on another thread, I got a couple. I am really liking the "thin" (1.2mm) pick. It does not produce a lot of pick noise and the tone so far is better then the GG, and much better then the natural material.

[dfalkiewicz]

Interesting, didn't even know Golden Gate had these other picks. I have been using this pic for flatpicking and for the mandolin. I love this pic, and like that the sides are the same, so if the pic rotates while your playing you don't notice. And a lot cheaper option then those other rascals that are $30 and up.

$1.25 each at Elderly.

SAGA GOLDEN GATE FLATPICK
http://www.elderly.com/accessories/n...ck--PK20-S.htm

[Willie Poole]

I have found that nylon picks donot have that "pick-clack" that you refer to....I have one Golden Gate pick that was given to me by a seller to try and I like it very much, don`t know what thickness it is or what number...It doesn`t have as much loudness as some other picks but does get rid of the shrillness that Ivan mentioned...

FWIT...I have never found a perfect pick myself....

[greg_tsam]

When i think of how many pick makers have stated that their picks replicate the tone of 'tortoiseshell',i shudder. I have 2 'legal' T.shell picks & they are without a doubt a sonic disaster. Guaranteed to make the finest mandolin on the planet sound, thin, sharp, & shrill & to confer on it a sound that would shatter glass !!.Thank goodness for all the modern pick materials that we have,
Ivan

I had a fella trade me my BC CT55 for his tortoise shell pick for the evening. After 3 hours I had to hunt the guy down and corner him to get my pick back.

[Astro]

I began with a fender heavy triangle guitar pick. Then I started using a Golden Gate(mp12) pick for a couple of weeks. I liked the mellowness of it but had trouble adjusting to the lack of a point.

I made an order to Elderly for a paige mando capo and decided to throw in some picks and a wall hanger to qualify for free shipping.

So for picks I chose the Wegen wf-TF-140, the Wegen wf-TF 120, and a set of the Dawg picks. I like these better than the GG. They have just enough more of a point to help with leads. They all louder than the GG.

My favorites are the Wegen 140 and the DAWG. The Dawg has great tone and is mellow and woody but a bit quieter and the Wegen 140 is louder and a tad brighter. They are both great, just different. At home for folk I'd pick the Dawg and for playing with the band having to do some leads, cut through the mix and needing volume, I'd choose the Wegen 140.

Interestingly, I have a parlor guitar that I like the Wegen 120 for because it helps bring out some bass which is lacking in this parlor.

Picks are fun to experiment with and have a good deal of impact on mando.

[MandoSquirrel]

I love the Golden Gate Mock tortoise picks. I use the big triangle on guitar, & the "standard" MP-24 is my preferred mandopick, with ProPlec 1.5mm's coming in second.

[Leigh Coates]

I received my Golden Gate Mock Turtle picks, and they're ok. I had to sand them, and then polish the edges, and I agree that the fact that they're not flat takes some getting used to. But they're ok, some days I like them and some days I don't. I can't make up my mind. I've certainly had worse.

[lukmanohnz]

My favorite GG-shaped picks are made with clown barf. I bought three of them used from a seller here on the cafe classifieds. I am slightly embarrassed to mention how much I paid for them (I think it was $25 for the three) but they are really great, and have a much better tone for my playing style than the mock tortoise shell GGs. (This is an entirely objective truth, and has absolutely, positively NOTHING to do with the fact that I spent $25 on these picks as compared to the $0.50 a piece I paid for the mock tortoise ones .) But in all seriousness, I have read elsewhere that clown barf GGs were available years ago. I have searched in vain for a source for CB picks in other than the standard Fender tear-drop shape. If you like the shape of a GG and want to try something different, check out Dunlop Americanas (the smaller ones are nearly identical in shape to a GG but are much stiffer).

[artilleryo]

I have a Dawg and a GG pick. The Dawg pick is a little larger and thicker. I prefer the Dawg to the GG because it gives a warmer, more mellow sound.

[Pete Counter]

Every so often I'll get fidgety and experiment with something different, a red bear triangle, one of the new dawgs with the point, the mock turtle....but after a week or so I always go back to my TS. If the TS is the right thickness and shape, I dont think many people wouldnt like one.

[mandroid]

adding

David may have gone to Saga, had them mass produced for him

It is just a short drive , from David's house, in Marin, across the GG bridge and the City,
to the Saga importers warehouses and offices south of San Francisco.

I have Dawg and similar GG pick , I use interchangeably..