Nails, flesh or finger picks?

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  • TanninTannin Frets: 5275
    ^ Sorry, that is incorrect. The proof is that my nails are in fine shape after long-term acrylic use. 
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  • KeefyKeefy Frets: 2272
    I’ve recently realised that, contrary to my earlier post, my fingernails do contact the strings when I’m hybrid picking. I do keep them short though.
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  • LewyLewy Frets: 4127
    Right now I’m gravitating towards thumb pick and flesh for fingers because I like the feel and tone. I’ve switched down from 13s to 12s to make it a little easier on my picking hand fingertips.

    When I mostly played old Nationals with 16s I went to the effort of getting comfortable with fingerpicks. It only takes a couple of weeks of focused practice. I still keep my hand in with them (no pun intended) because it’s very useful to have the ability to double your acoustic volume at will.
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  • GassageGassage Frets: 30826
    Ironically, after really loving Steuart Smith recently, I've been trying to work with a thumb pick- but my thumb must be enormous as they're all to small...

    Where's the biggest ones found?

    *An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.

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  • artiebearartiebear Frets: 810
    Tannin said:
    ^ Sorry, that is incorrect. The proof is that my nails are in fine shape after long-term acrylic use. 
    Agreed, been using acrylics for approx 15 years with very few breaks ( usually taking a holiday from playing ) and my nails are fine ( even though they were never strong enough to stand up to daily/nightly acoustic playing without a little help )
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  • Breaking news: scholarly discussion regarding 'nails vs flesh' results in violence!

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  • BillDLBillDL Frets: 7042
    edited October 2021
    My fingernails seem to go through stages of being strong and weak.  It's probably diet or health related, but it's hard to back-track to realise what affected their strength because of the differing growth rate.  When they are stronger they grow a lot faster and I find myself having to file them back down to an optimum length more than once a week.  I cannot use fingerpicks or acrylic coatings because I can't feel the strings as well as I can using my natural nails.  To me it's like I would imagine it must be for somebody trying to locate a fish bone in their mouth while wearing dentures or with crowns fitted, as opposed to somebody will all their own teeth.

    The best fingerpicks I used when my nails were going through an unhealthy and brittle stage were the plastic Alaska Pik thingies: https://alaskapik.com/ ; You still need a little bit of nail to go on top of the last section of artificial nail.  They come in various sizes so, if you're lucky, you can get ones that fit fairly tightly without cutting off the circulation.  Actually, in one of the photos on that site the model's thumb is showing signs of blood constriction, which isn't good.

    I find it very difficult to get a consistent plucking intensity on electric or acoustic strings with my bare fingertips.  I know it is a technique I could work on, but I simply don't have the time or inclination to retrain myself like this.  Old dog vs new tricks?

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  • CHRISB50CHRISB50 Frets: 4290
    I found the best combo was flesh and nail. I tapered my nails from short on the bass side to longer on the treble side so you get an combo of both, or you can angle your fingertip to get just one or the other. 

    I think I first saw that in a @michaelwatts YT video. 

    Definitely produced the best tone for me. 

    I personally could never get the hang of using fingerpicks. 

    I can't help about the shape I'm in, I can't sing I ain't pretty and my legs are thin

    But don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to

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  • BigPaulieBigPaulie Frets: 1037
    Late to the party, but in my personal experience I have found that the best tone comes from nails, but the maintenance of them can be problematic for many reasons.

    Thumb/finger picks sound almost as good, but I have never managed to get used to them. If you can play with them, they would be a good compromise.

    Lastly, flesh sounds crap by comparison in my opinion. But playing mostly flatpick on acoustic these days flesh is what I resort to using in my brief forays into fingerpicking for the reasons above.
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  • bertiebertie Frets: 13564
    edited November 2021
    nails all the way,  even play 90% of electric with my fingers (as in not a pic )  

    like some of you, not the strongest (diet really makes a difference)  but I keep them filed,  regularly,  like a couple of times a week - helps smooth the edges and avoid those "snags" that can lead to total "tear off"

    wellsyboy said:
    Acrylic nails will destroy your natural nails - don’t do it - bad advice
    QED
    just because you don't, doesn't mean you can't
     just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
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  • ToneControlToneControl Frets: 11791
    I used to play with longer nails, now I cut them to exactly the right length that I play with a bit of nail and flesh
    I hold my hand out, palm towards face, and tilt the fingers a tiny bit towards me, and the nails should just about show

    that works for me, the third finger nail has 3 times the thickness of the other to reach that point, so it's a good way to judge it.
    Find out what works for you

    Personally I think fingerpicks sound awful on a good acoustic, unless it's amplified anyway and you can EQ it all OK again

    I do use a flatpick plectrum on an Adirondack top dread, that sounds amazing 
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  • I enjoyed learning to play with finger picks. Don’t use them all the time, but a fun little challenge. 
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  • TanninTannin Frets: 5275
    BigPaulie said:
    in my personal experience I have found that the best tone comes from nails

    Thumb/finger picks sound almost as good

    Lastly, flesh sounds crap by comparison in my opinion.

    I Imagine that we all have our different views on tone quality. It is most common to regard nails as the best, but fingerpicks and flesh both get wide support as well. There are many great players who use flesh and get fantastic tone. Examples  that come straight to mind are Mark Knopfler, Tommy Emmanuel, Lloyd Spiegel, and George Thorogood, but there are many, many others. Michael Watts, who posts here now and then, gets wonderful tone with flesh. 

    Obviously there are different skills at work (different players are good at extracting good tone with different methods) but I think there is another factor at work: We select and set up our instruments to sound right with the techniques we ourselves use.

    When, for example, I look at guitars in a shop, I don't strum them with a plectrum or pluck them with fingerpicks, I play with my fingers - and I only consider buying guitars that sound good played that way. Later on, when a guitar comes home, it gets tweaked with setup adjustments and especially with different strings. I keep on tweaking until I have it sounding the way I want it. And all of that process, from instrument selection in the shop right through to the brand of strings I use, is informed by my preferred technique. If I was a fingerpicker, I'd probably buy a different guitar, and almost certainly use a different type of string.

    I used my own example just now, but we all do much the same. Electric players have an even larger set of tweaks to make - all the choices that an acoustic player makes, plus all the things you can do with amps and speakers and pedals and electronics. 

    My point here is that in the quest for tone, we naturally adjust many other things and eventually tend to paint ourselves into corners. Once you get a technique that works for you, and have adjusted fully to it, it is very difficult to change.

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  • bertiebertie Frets: 13564
    Gassage said:
    Ironically, after really loving Steuart Smith recently, I've been trying to work with a thumb pick- but my thumb must be enormous as they're all to small...

    Where's the biggest ones found?
    try heating them in  hot water let em cool a bit -  it should make em a tad malleable (bit like the old cheap and cheerful gum-shields) 
    just because you don't, doesn't mean you can't
     just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
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