For all guitarists...what plectrum do you use??

I have used Dunlop .60 mm for decades. I like a little flexibility in my pick.
Anything thicker I feel like I'm going to break something.

I used to use Dunlop Tortex for years, but recently switched to Dava Grip Tip Gels for both electric and acoustic.
Noticeably less resistant on the strings and less clicky pick noise on the acoustics.
 

Much depends on attack choice, but after pleking my main I have been using the pick it came home with which is very light and pointed. The point has been more useful than expected and I had it pleked with 10s, so very little force is required to play it.

Flip side is hard/bright attack on heavy strings. I have gone all the way to using Thai 1 baht coins (same reason as Brian May for the serrated edges). Not used often anymore as they are too bright on my pups.

It really comes down to choice. I have taken a shine to thumbpicks recently and been looking into these more. I want to try out the Fred Kelly Slick Picks but not ordered any yet (elderly.com does custum orders which is nice for odd quantities). The ones I have hurt for prolonged use, so need some real ones.

Depends on the style of music I'm playing.
 
Most of the time, .88mm tortex. Work well for most of the hard rock, metal stuff I play. I also love them for bass.

 
If I'm trying to do sweep picking and such, the thicker the merrier. Usually, 2mm works fine.
 
For things that swing and groove, yellow, .73 mm.
 
For SRV-type of thing, I'd use those yellow ones but play with the large end, holding the narrower side. It just sounds more SRV-ish that way to me.
 
These (used in the same fashion) used to be my weapon of choice for that.
 

Rain
 
 

I use the .73 version of the Jim Dunlop above... I sweat a lot so I like the grippy nature of the JD nylon pics...

jamesg1213
.... and I can get pinched harmonics using my index fingernail.

Witch!!
 
Burn him

 
GUITAR

• My go-to pick is a 2.94mm V-Picks 'Screamer'. Although it's both very thick and completely solid, it's incredibly comfortable to play with and, for me anyway, much more 'accurate' than a pick that has some give in it. I was put on to these by a guy who used to frequent the Guitar Tracks forum - CJ Linus (you remember him don't you James?) so I bought a 5 pick sample pack to try them out. Of all of them, the Screamer just seemed to 'fit', and I've stuck with them ever since.

 

• My next favourite, and the pick I used for years before discovering the V-Pick was the good old Dunlop Tortex 1.0mm. I still use these fairly often when I do need that little bit of 'give' in the attack.

 

• I also have a few of these Peavey 'Dreamer' 1.0mm picks, which are slightly more flexible than the Dunlop.

 

• For acoustic-style open chord strumming, my long time favourite is the 50mm Dunlop Tortex.

 
BASS

• Although I'm still trying to master playing bass with my fingers, my go-to pick for playing bass is a 70mm Planet Waves 'Duralin'. These just feel perfect to me, and nothing else I've tried comes close. The only problem with these is that they wear down really quickly.

I usually use the green Tortex M3, which is pretty stiff.
For acoustic strumming stuff I´ve found that a really soft pick like the Tortex 0.5 mm. works well - almost like a natural compressor.
 
My son, who´s kind of a Django Reinhart-addict, made a bunch of his own picks from birch & pine, triangular, really thick & about 2" from corner to corner - took a while to get control over, but sounds pretty good - especially in his hands, in mine - not so good.

BobF
 
Theses are prickly on the grip and don't slip at all even with a light grasp.

Bob, I'll have to try these, the superb grip of the V-Pick is one of the reasons I started using them in preference to 'traditional' pick.
 
Worst offender for me are those Planet Waves 70mm I use on bass. They are so shiny and smooth that I find it hard to play for more than a couple of minutes or so without the bloody thing spinning round to the thick end

Currently I like V-Picks 'Screamer'. They are very expensive though. I like them for both electric and acoustic guitars.

I've been using Dunlop Tortex triangles (or as I like to call them... pizza slices) for almost 20 years. I use the yellow ones for acoustic and electric guitar because they have a bit of flex but are still stiff enough to really dig in (perfect for shredding out metal/punk riffs) but sometimes I'll use the green ones which are a tad stiffer which makes really fast single note soloing a bit easier/more accurate (but the yellow ones are better for general soloing I find because I like to "rake" and screw around with picking dynamics). I use the green or purple ones for bass (green for a softer and more dynamic attack/purple for faster/precise/harder/even dynamics).
 
I use the ones with the slightly more rounded tips... not the ones with the ultra sharp points. That allows the pick to slide off the string more smoothly (the sharper ones tend to slow down playing, break strings and are just awkward all around... they're okay for bass though I guess).
 
I switched to Tortex IMMEDIATELY after I first discovered them for a whole pile of reasons.
 
1) They don't "explode" on me. Seriously. Those plasticky "Fender" type picks crumble between my fingers in no time. Just shatter into a bunch of pieces because I guess I play so fast/hard on the wound strings and dig into the sharper unwound strings so much. I'll be playing then realize I lots all my attack and/or feel something weird going on and sure enough the tip of the pick will be gone and the rest of the pick split in two. Terrible. The Ernie Ball "plasticky" ones hold up a LITTLE better (I used to use the pink ones which seemed to have a better chemical composition than the Fender ones) but eventually the same thing happens. Off brand picks? Fuggedaboutit. Toast almost immediately.
 
2) They wear down much more smoothly/evenly. All the other picks (when they survive) get burrs that catch the strings or they widdle down in bizarre ways that make them annoying to use very quickly. They also stand up to pick scrapes a lot better. I can get one pick scrape out a Fender pick and it's toast. Nylon picks deal with scrapes a little better but the grooves (and burrs) caused by scraping snag the strings a lot more. Like the burrs are more "tacky" and I start breaking strings/can't get proper pick dynamics going. Nylon picks generally become useless to me very quickly due to that burring and tackiness even without pick scrapes. They just get all rough and grabby on the strings instead of sliding off them smoothly like the Tortex ones or a fresh Fender/Ernie Ball pick.
 
3) Tortex doesn't get all slippery when your fingers sweat. They don't have the same grip as the nylon picks with little bumps but pretty close to it without the bumps (which feel weird to me anyway... get's in the way of my pick dynamics). The Fender/plasticky ones have zero grip when wet and harder any even when dry they get all slippy. This causes a situation where you have to grip them harder (which screws up picking dynamics) or play softer (suxxorama).
 
So that's just the Tortex material itself. For the pizza slice shape I think they are superior because...
 
1) More much more grip area. I have "big" hands (they are skinny but long... just like me... please no wiener jokes, lulz) so regular sized pics are very fiddly to me. The extra length and grip allows me to choke up and back off the pick much more (thus providing much more dynamics). I can get a really good strum going without that extra space and if I need to get into pinch harmonic territory I just choke up. That choke up/ease back handling of the pick also becomes way easier do to the extra handling room and I'm much less likely to drop the pick because of it.
 
2) Instead of one tip I've got three. So essentially I'm getting three times the useable pick life out of the pizza slice style because as one tip wears down I can just use one of the other two tips. Also it means I don't have to worry about which direction the pick is facing like I would with a standard pick. We've all had that moment where we've realized we're using the blunt end of a pick and had to reposition it on the fly... I freaking hate that. It also makes it so when you drop a pick live you don't lose that microsecond of time/brain power making sure you have the pick pointing in the right direction.
 
3) Due to the angles (which are wider than a regular shaped pick) it contacts the strings in a way that is a little smoother/more desirable to me. It's not as staccatto as a sharper angle pick so strums and trem picking stuff isn't as ridgid. You control that instead by decreasing the angle of the flat dimension of the pick in relation to the string. So it does have a style altering effect that takes some getting used to. It also does sometimes cause undesirable scenarios which is why I have, partially, started sometimes using regular shaped Tortex picks to record certain things with... which I'll blather about before wandering off again.
 
I have been having a much harder time getting a hold of my beloved Tortex pizza slices. I haven't set foot in a music store in years due to my disablities and poverty. I've been relying on internet stores (and ordering online from music stores) when I get a chance to actually buy stuff and always try to get stocked up on picks when I do. They seem to ALWAYS screw up my pick orders though. I used to just snag them whenever I was picking up strings in person if I saw they were in stock. Now it's up to the counter staff at these places to know WTF I'm talking about and they ALWAYS screw it up. I have tons of the normal shaped Tortex picks now due to these screw ups and limited supply of the pizza slices. The last time I made an order and they actually had the pizza slices in stock I told them to send me a mountain of yellow ones and a bunch of the green and purple ones. Instead I got THREE yellow ones then a bunch of all the other colors of the rainbow... most of which are WAY too thin to use (I cannot play with those sh*tty paper thin picks... at that point you might as well just use your damned thumb because that's pretty much what you're doing anyway).
 
So I started playing with the normal sized ones again and for some types of soloing they are actually better/more precise. Since I don't play live anymore a lot of my needs for the triangles aren't a factor (I'm not sweating and if I drop a pick it's no big deal). Still it really is only some specific tasks where they are better and a lot of the time if I switch over to the triangles the parts flow and record WAY better.
 
I'm just trying not to wear down the slices I do currently have into nubs before I can stock up again which will hopefull be soon. And this time I probably will drag my sorry gimp ass down to the local music store who just got taken over by one of the big Canadian chains and, if they stay true to their franchise, with have them in stock or order them for me.
 
Now how's THAT for being a persnickety spazz about picks? lol... It, to me, is a massively important issue for guitar players though that doesn't get nearly the attention it deserves.
 
PS: Before Tortex I used to use Big Stubbies (yes the big ass cough drop looking ones) because they were the only ones that allowed me to dig in without shattering. They are pretty ridiculous though and I can't even believe I recorded an entire studio album with those buggers.

michaelhanson
.....and if you want more variety of tone, besides changing picks, try playing off the non pointed edge. SRV used to play from one of the rounder edges instead of the pointed edge.

...and didn't Duane Allman play with the pick turned somewhat sideways?

That's another nice thing about the Tortex pizza slices. They "age" well with wear. I prefer a fresher/sharper tip for electric work and a more dulled tip for acoustic work (strumming). So once one loses all three of it's more defined tips (which can take a while compared to other types of picks) it gets relegated to acoustic duty. Once they get worn down beyond my liking they get tossed into the "emergency" stash so I can raid them when I get stuck without any fresh ones.
 
Man... typing that up makes realize I'm completely insane but I've been doing things this way for years. Works for me.
 
lulz

 
@Beep
 
Which pick shape do you mean when you say 'pizza slice'?
 
Is it this one:

 
Or:

 
Cheers
 

Here's a link to the PrimeTones
 
http://www.jimdunlop.com/products/guitar-picks#primetone