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i can't be the only one

I don't use a thumbpick but I often play hybrid style with a flatpick and fingers.

I do for more spaghetti western and ambient oriented stuff. I can't get used to it for heavier riffing. I love the expressive qualities of playing with fingers.

80% of what I play is heavy riffing, playing upstrokes helped me get used to the thumbpick.

I generally play Bass VI with a pick, but bass without

Edit: I just re-read the thread title and saw "thumbpick". I've never considered using a thumbpick on anything other than banjo. I'll give it a try

Someone send me a thumbpick (and a Bass VI) and I'll give it a shot.

When I first started playing guitar, I went out and bought a thumbpick. "If you don't have to hold onto it, it will be LESS WORK," said my 10-year-old brain to me. It didn't work out as well as I thought for Metallica riffs or whatever, and I haven't used one since.

This bass thought is intriguing though. Will give it a try.

I try fingerpicking on certain parts but hate the scrapey sounds I get with these thick round wound strings when my fingernails are too long, so I pretty much have to keep em short and really dig in and pull with my finger flesh. Is the scrape less with a thumbpick? Or do you use flats?

I use roundwounds, flats are too dark for my liking. As for the scrapey sounds (do you mean pick attack?), it's a matter of technique. You can definitely play a full-scale four-banger in a way that produces less pick attack than you'd get with a normal pick, but I just don't bother, I like my pick attack and all that percussive, scrapey mess I'm not sure if it's possible to reduce the pick attack on a VI due to the tighter string spacing.

I don't mean pick attack. Pick attack when you hit the string with your plectrum coming from an angle that pretty much places the flat side of the pick parallel to the string, is the main reason I use a pick because it adds a nice transient to your notes. The scrape is when your nail gets stuck between ridges on thick roundwounds because of a diagonal angle of your nail when you pluck the string. You dont usually get this on regular guitar because of the lighter gauges, but on bass vi (my main instrument) this happens pretty much everytime you pluck and it actually decreases note definition.

oscillofuzz wrote:I don't mean pick attack. Pick attack when you hit the string with your plectrum coming from an angle that pretty much places the flat side of the pick parallel to the string, is the main reason I use a pick because it adds a nice transient to your notes. The scrape is when your nail gets stuck between ridges on thick roundwounds because of a diagonal angle of your nail when you pluck the string. You dont usually get this on regular guitar because of the lighter gauges, but on bass vi (my main instrument) this happens pretty much everytime you pluck and it actually decreases note definition.

That doesn't happen with a thumb pick, no.

Then I'll give a thumb pick a try!

I often play with my thumb when I'm trying to get a fatter bass response (it works extremely well), but not with a thumb pick. That seems like it may be awkward to me. Then again, I've almost given up picks all together.