Pick or Fingers … ongoing dilemma!!

[Rib13Bass]

Im not a pick guy nor am I a P-bass guy but I LOVE the sound of a P-Bass with fresh roundwounds played with a pick...If I were primarily a pick player, I would probably use a P-Bass often

[BassAdder60]

I’ve found so many of our setlist is really calling for a picked played PBass that’s what I do ! 
 

Adding the Keeley Bassist and DK Omicron really add something to the overall band sound 

[Baloney Balderdash]

6 hours ago, BassAdder60 said:

I’ve found so many of our setlist is really calling for a picked played PBass that’s what I do ! 

Maybe I am too tired to decipher this, genuinely not trying to be snarky, but what exactly is this supposed to mean, I fail to make any sense of that sentence whatsoever? 

 

It's like some words are missing, possibly also some commas, and possibly it really should have been divided into 2 sentences as well, not entirely sure.

 

 

Edited March 9 by Baloney Balderdash

[BassAdder60]

6 hours ago, Baloney Balderdash said:

Maybe I am too tired to decipher this, genuinely not trying to be snarky, but what exactly is this supposed to mean, I fail to make any sense of that sentence whatsoever? 

 

It's like some words are missing, possibly also some commas, and possibly it really should have been divided into 2 sentences as well, not entirely sure.

 

 

Translation … the bands setlist songs sound best with a PBass played with a pick ! 

[bnt]

I’ve been almost militantly fingers-only for decades, despite being a fan of some great pick players such as Tony Butler and Chris Squire. A change is being forced upon me for medical reasons, though. I was never the strongest fingerstyle player as it was, no ‘Arry, but I did OK with some Rush songs, for example. MS has affected my plucking fingers and I can’t rely on them to play quickly and consistently any more. 
 

So I’ve decided to try more pick playing, and getting a Bass VI is part of that. I’ve lowered the action to borderline “too low”, and am starting to develop more speed. I kind-of shocked myself today by playing Hysteria (Muse) on it with a pick, through the Crunch Cab preset in Apple MainStage, and it sounded decent. On my main bass it’s a struggle. 
 

Re. Picks, so far I’m liking the Harley Benton light ones (0.6-0.9 mm), which have a kind of parchment finish that helps me with grip. I’m dropping them much less than standard picks. I read that players such as Carol Kaye used felt picks, the stuff hats are made of - sounds interesting: 

Edited March 17 by bnt

[BassAdder60]

I’ve found I make more mistakes playing with a pick than playing finger style !

 

Less physical connection I think is playing a part 

 

Over the duration of a 3hr gig I notice more errors creeping in using a pick !

Edited March 19 by BassAdder60

[ezbass]

Coming from guitar (I know - burn the witch!), I was determined to play with my fingers because I wanted to make a complete break from the skinny stringed beast. Decades later, I still predominantly use my fingers, but i have been known to play gigs with a pick just for poops and giggles and always use one if the song demands that tone (anything by The Jam or Yes for instance). I like the attack you get with a pick and in a dense mix it can really help focus the sound. I know a really good sound engineer who prefers a pick played bass for that very reason. Having played guitar (🔥🧙) for so long with a pick, I already had good pick technique, so it’s not a chore on bass at all, the only difference being the type of pick used (I prefer thick on guitar, thinner on bass).

[BassAdder60]

13 minutes ago, ezbass said:

Coming from guitar (I know - burn the witch!), I was determined to play with my fingers because I wanted to make a complete break from the skinny stringed beast. Decades later, I still predominantly use my fingers, but i have been known to play gigs with a pick just for poops and giggles and always use one if the song demands that tone (anything by The Jam or Yes for instance). I like the attack you get with a pick and in a dense mix it can really help focus the sound. I know a really good sound engineer who prefers a pick played bass for that very reason. Having played guitar (🔥🧙) for so long with a pick, I already had good pick technique, so it’s not a chore on bass at all, the only difference being the type of pick used (I prefer thick on guitar, thinner on bass).

I’m also a guitar player and use a thinner standard teardrop size pick.

 

For bass it’s a thicker pick and mostly a triangle shape larger pick so I don’t drop it 

[alexa3020]

Resurrecting this thread and just changing subject slightly. I know that some of the tracks I play would be better with a pick. I've always played finger style and my technique is decent, but I really feel I've hit my limit with speed - I can play through c major scale in 16ths comfortably till about 95bpm - above that is doable but not as clean as I would like. I know with a pick I could go faster. But I just don't sound as good playing bass lines with a pick. Also with finger style I'm usually muting with my right hand, but you can't do that with a pick (unless your palm muting). How long does it take to master playing with a pick and does anyone have any decent exercises they can recommend?

[ahpook]

23 minutes ago, alexa3020 said:

Resurrecting this thread and just changing subject slightly. I know that some of the tracks I play would be better with a pick. I've always played finger style and my technique is decent, but I really feel I've hit my limit with speed - I can play through c major scale in 16ths comfortably till about 95bpm - above that is doable but not as clean as I would like. I know with a pick I could go faster. But I just don't sound as good playing bass lines with a pick. Also with finger style I'm usually muting with my right hand, but you can't do that with a pick (unless your palm muting). How long does it take to master playing with a pick and does anyone have any decent exercises they can recommend?

 

I'm having to put a lot of time at the moment into getting faster at picking as my band's songs run at about 140bpm with flurries of 8th and 16th notes. Ouch. The only way I can do is to cane practicing. Increase the bpm a bit at a time until I get faster....sorry not to be able to offer anything more insightful than that !

 

I have started using a stiffer, but not thicker, plectrum (first change in 30 years) and that seems to have given me more control.

 

As for muting - try getting the unused fingers on your plectrum hand in on the act - it's something I only noticed recently that I do, but the tips of the spare fingers can be worked in to mute strings when moving from string to string.

Edited May 10 by ahpook

[alexa3020]

24 minutes ago, ahpook said:

 

I'm having to put a lot of time at the moment into getting faster at picking as my band's songs run at about 140bpm with flurries of 8th and 16th notes. Ouch. The only way I can do is to cane practicing. Increase the bpm a bit at a time until I get faster....sorry not to be able to offer anything more insightful than that !

 

140bm - ouch indeed! Sounds like I'm on the right lines with what I'm doing at the moment. Set my metronome to increase every few bars and play a line/scale in 16ths over the top of it. Hopefully if i focus on doing a little bit of that everyday the pick playing will naturally improve. Thanks for the advice

[ahpook]

2 minutes ago, alexa3020 said:

140bm - ouch indeed! Sounds like I'm on the right lines with what I'm doing at the moment. Set my metronome to increase every few bars and play a line/scale in 16ths over the top of it. Hopefully if i focus on doing a little bit of that everyday the pick playing will natadvice

 

Getting some practice in every day is the way...it is working for me. Three weeks to the gig and I need to coax ~ 8% increase in speed out of myself. Doable, but time needs to be put in.

 

I hope the drummer doesn't speed up at the gig 😯

[itu]

6 hours ago, ahpook said:

I hope the drummer doesn't speed up at the gig 😯

Don't worry, he will.

 

I bought a metronome to our drummer. He even wrote the bpms to a paper. Life is now a lot easier.

[Greg Edwards69]

I went down this rabbit hole of matching tone and volume (or thereabouts) as I was never happy with the perceived volume increase and low end loss when switching to pick. Marketing had led me to believe that bassists should use thick picks, until I researched my heroes (such as Duff and John Deacon and discovered they used light more flexible picks.

 

I bought a couple of Dunlop mixed bags and tried some of them out at a band rehearsal. I ended up settling with Tortex Flex 0.60mm. They have the snappy attack that for is the magic of pick playing, and is that happy medium of being flexible enough that it doesn't jump in volume or and thick enough to retain the low end.

 

Compression helps, but I like to have always on 'global compression'. If there's a volume mismatch between pick and finger it will change how the compressor reacts. I prefer to fix this issue 'at source' with the right pick.

 

The alternative is to use multiband compression to hone in and clamp down on the highly accentuated frequencies.

Edited May 10 by Greg Edwards69

[BassAdder60]

I’m using Toretex Blue 1.0mm triangles 

 

Perfect pick for rock tone with a PBass and then lose some mids as it’s too harsh if not 

Edited May 10 by BassAdder60

[BillyBass]

I had to nail my pick technique when I joined my previous (punk) band.  Now I'm comfortable with both pick and fingers but with a slight preference for pick.  I will admit, if the song requires speed, I default to pick.

 

I think you have to use the pick you feel most comfortable with.  I went through countless shapes and sizes before settling on Dunlop Gator Grip 1.5mm.  

[kwmlondon]

On 13/09/2023 at 07:52, BassAdder60 said:

Thanks .. I have found a lighter touch works better and helps to play faster too.  I’m getting there I think 

Also, it really gives you somwhere to go, dynamically. I tend to play on the lighter side but sometimes I really get excited when playing live towards the end of a song or something and it is kind of fun to have a "next level of intensity" to go to!

[tauzero]

A broken metacarpal which healed with the knuckle of my index finger somewhat lower than it should be means that alternating first and second fingers consistently at speed doesn't work. Most of the time I can cope, but there's a couple of songs that I need to use a plectrum for. At least it's the same one as I use on guitar.

[fretmeister]

8 hours ago, tauzero said:

A broken metacarpal which healed with the knuckle of my index finger somewhat lower than it should be means that alternating first and second fingers consistently at speed doesn't work. Most of the time I can cope, but there's a couple of songs that I need to use a plectrum for. At least it's the same one as I use on guitar.

 

I ruptured a tendon in my right middle finger and while it was in a split for a year I learned how to play bass with a pick.

I'm still not a massive fan but now I'm competent. I can sing and play much better when I'm using a pick. Probably because it is so similar to when I was playing guitar and fronting a band.

 

I really don't like the raspy noise of pick against roundwound strings though.

[Baloney Balderdash]

14 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

 

I ruptured a tendon in my right middle finger and while it was in a split for a year I learned how to play bass with a pick.

I'm still not a massive fan but now I'm competent. I can sing and play much better when I'm using a pick. Probably because it is so similar to when I was playing guitar and fronting a band.

 

I really don't like the raspy noise of pick against roundwound strings though.

Perhaps you would appreciate a Wedgie rubber pick.

 

They come in two gauge, 3.1mm and 5mm, and three hardness grades, Soft, Medium and Hard:

 

On 25/10/2023 at 11:25, Baloney Balderdash said:

... Finally there's also something like the Wedgie rubber picks, which while advertised to give you a tone identically to finger plucking doesn't really, but it does produce a warmer, rounder and somewhat softer tone, something that falls somewhat between regular finger plucking and a regular pick.

 

Personally I prefer the 3.1mm Soft Wedgie pick, but they come in 3 grades of flexibility, Soft, Medium and Hard, and two gauges, 3.1mm and 5mm, and while perhaps sounding like awfully thick being made of rubber they don't really feel and respond like it.

 

And this comes from a guy who otherwise prefer using relative thin picks.

 

My favorite, beside the Wedgie Soft 3.1mm rubber pick, is a Dunlop Tortex .60mm, and it used to be the Dunlop USA Nylon .73mm, which despite being thicker, is actually slightly more flexible than the .60mm Tortex one, nylon being a softer more flexible material than Tortex, the latter as far as I gathered really being an altered Delrin formular/variant.

 

The Tortex used for when I want a pronounced archetypical pick tone, with that prominent snappy emphasis of the attack that only a pick can give you, the Wedgie rubber pick when I want a softer warmer tone, cause while finger picking, the way I play (stroking, rather than plucking or striking, the strings relatively lightly with the outmost tip of my fingers/nails, in a slightly inward slapping motion, often combined with double thumbing and flamenco guitar style index and/or middle finger flicking technique), does produce a fuller tone (fuller in the sense of a more complex tone with more harmonic content, making the individual notes spanning over a fuller frequency spectrum), the Wedgie actually sounds softer/rounder and warmer than my fingers. 

 

 

 

Edited July 3 by Baloney Balderdash

[BassAdder60]

1 hour ago, fretmeister said:

 

I ruptured a tendon in my right middle finger and while it was in a split for a year I learned how to play bass with a pick.

I'm still not a massive fan but now I'm competent. I can sing and play much better when I'm using a pick. Probably because it is so similar to when I was playing guitar and fronting a band.

 

I really don't like the raspy noise of pick against roundwound strings though.

Or try the Dunlop Flex triangles as they are softer sounding 

I often just back off the tone pot on my bass if too “ raspy”