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Only discovered these recently - the 'thinness belies' the feel/sound/tone. Like them.
B.Katt.
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01-15-2025 06:59 AM
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I used to use the 1.14, now I use the 2.0, have for years. Love them. The 2.0s have a thicker tone than the 1.14s do.
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I've been using the John Petrucci jazz III made of Ultek 1.5mm
I have no idea who he is, but the pick is nice.
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Yes, and the .9 (I think) but really love the large jazz lll in ultex,one of my all time faves. Ultex is probably my favorite pick material overall.
My 3 go-to picks at the moment are the large Ultex jazz lll, the Pro Plec 1.5 and the pink Dunlop 500 Delrin 0.96 ( martijn van iterson choice). But fender mediums are great for Benson tones. I have lots of others, including a couple of Blue chips, but keep going back to those 3 for now. Inexpensive way to have fun with tone!
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I have played for decades with d’Andrea Pro Plecs. Celluloid I guess?
1,5 mm 358 jazz and 1,5 mm 351 rock.
How does Ultex material differ from those?
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I'm no materials engineer, but there's something about the responsiveness of Ultex vs Celluloid. Ultex has a stiffness that still imparts a warmth and evenness of tone that does not create the sharp overtones of heavier nylon material. To my ear, Pro Plecs are the warmest, but sometimes loses higher frequencies, depending on the guitar. Ultex doesn't have as much snap as nylon, and maybe slightly less than celluloid. The stiffness of different materials seems to be somewhat independent of the thickness with respect to the tone elicited.
Originally Posted by Herbie
Over the years, I've enjoyed learning to use picks as tone controls: need brightness, and shelving of lower frequencies, choose a medium to light gauge nylon; bright tone with moderate lower end, choose medium gauge celluloid; more volume and slightly reduced higher frequencies, choose Ultex or heavier gauge celluloid; warmth and full tonal range, choose Pro Plec; volume with full range, but higher overtones, heavy delrin with rounded tip (Dunlop 207).
I have a big library of so many interesting picks, it's such an inexpensive method of tonal exploration. Can't encourage it enough!
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I went on a small pick journey a few years ago, and landed on Ultex as my favorite material. (I haven't tried any of the expensive ones like Bluechip, though.)
I don't think I would like the 1.14 due to the thickness. The 1.38 in a Jazz III shape is the one I usually grab for playing jazz, although like ruger9 says, the 2.0 have a bit thicker tone and I was just using one the other night. The 1.38 is a bit more comfortable for me to hold onto, though.
If I'm playing acoustic or something less jazz-oriented on my Tele, the Jazz III doesn't give me quite enough to grab and I move up to a Jazz III XL, which I think is what yebdox is referring to. I may have to try the Petrucci that skiboyny mentioned since it's 1.5 mm. I didn't realize those were made of Ultex.
Whichever way, back to the OP question, I think Ultex is quite good in feel and tone and it doesn't break the bank.
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I use the Ultex Jazz iii XL. I'll be staying with it.
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Same for me. I use it on my es175 to give a little shimmer to the notes. For my Eastman t484 I use dunlop tortex 1.35 jazz to taken some shimmer off. Both picks have the right balance to me of sharpness for accurate picking and enough smoothnesss to solo through the strings and for comping. I have used d'andrea pro plec also but they were too slippery for me. No control. Originally Posted by Old Nick
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That is an interesting point. I find that some guitars prefer one pick over another.
I mess around with picks frequently for the reasons noted by others, as a way to shape tone and sound. I always seem to go back to the D'Andrea Pro Plex 358 size pick as my baseline, but I also like the 651 (Jazz III-ish) shape.
Sometimes I find myself liking the Adamas 2.0 mm carbon pick. I don't know why. And for the last year or so I've been focusing on using a thumbpick and fingers, trying to be able to do full finger style but also alternate pick easily.
The past few days, deciding I need to make sure I keep my flatpick and flatpick and fingers technique together, I've been playing with a Fred Kelly "heavy" Delrin flatpick. Very nice feel, light but stiff, but the blade is fairly thin almost like a Fender heavy compared to the other picks I use which are 1.5 mm to 2 mm.
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I see that many of you are using ProPlec. I used to use ProPlecs for everything on every guitar. But about 4 years ago, something changed in their material or production, and they started to warp. As we went through our stock and replenished, I and many others gave up on them because the newest ones turned into Pringles after an hour or two of playing. Here's just one of the many threads about this. It contains this response that Jack Zucker got from D'Andrea about the problem:
The specific issue with this material happens to be that it is hygroscopic, (sensitivity to moisture). When it get prolonged exposure to moisture or even high humidity it can sometimes cause the pick to warp or curve slightly. Please bear with us as we continue to develop and improve on an already very popular and amazing product. I have just recently produced a new batch of these picks which came out beautiful. Additionally we are experimenting with improved packaging and storage for this material.
Since the warping was never a problem until about 2020, I didn't believe it when I first read it and thought it must have been a bad batch. But I finally ran out of my original stock in 2023 and ordered fresh ones, only to discover that they did indeed warp badly and quickly. I still have almost all of a large bag of them that I haven't used since '23 because of this. The relative humidity has had absolutely no effect on this problem - they warp year 'round, and do so whether I store them in ziplocks with silica gel packs or leave them in an open dish on my shelf.
Are those of you using ProPlecs finding them to be stable now? No warping? I went through many picks before settling on the Dunlop Jazztone 204, which I've been using for over a year now. But if the ProPlecs are once again fine, I'd go back to them.
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I like Ultex but I have some that have chipped instead of wearing. It's about the best I've found in terms of attack sound.
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I have used the Ultex 1.14 , 1.0, and fender medium, but lately I like these :
I'm not keen on the smaller size, I ordered in 351 size (D'addario Acrylux in 1.5mm) but it has a nice clear sound and more defined although thicker than the ultex .96 (pink). It sounds nice , 2.mm might be nice too.
The pink one is a dunlop "pink" .96 mm.
I do find Ultex and Dunlops I've used recently a bit muffled but a tad louder than the Acrylux.
Strings are usually TI jazz 113/elixir 013 or chromes/elixir 013 ... flats...
Update: D'addario sent me some 351 sized acrylux nitra replacements, but, in the few days since ordering them I totally got used to the smaller sized Acrylux. Compared to the Jazz II and III , the Nitra glides better and sounds nicer to me, It's a tad larger and more comfortable to hold. I won't be using the 351 size after all.....
SLast edited by SOLR; 01-30-2025 at 04:21 PM. Reason: update
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Maybe I'm weird, but I will use the same pick for years at a time. So it is possible that all of my Pro Plec pics pre-date the onset of material problems resulting in warping, although I think I bought some a couple years ago. I mostly use the 358 size picks which might be small enough to not warp (and have enough of those to see me through the next 35 years until I'm 100, thanks to the generosity of a forum member sending me about 25 of them that he wasn't going to use).
I also use the 651 Jazz III size picks, there might be a very slight warp to some of those. A little subtle cupping might be a better description; I face the convexity towards my thumb and all is fine.
I do have some 351 size Pro Plecs but those are quite old and I think from before the onset of this trouble. Those have never warped on me.
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