I’m liking my Blue Pick more and more. It doesn’t slip out of my fingers. My question is, it it ok to play a mandolin so hard with the pick? It seems that I need to, as compared to my guitars. The heavier strings seem ok, bit I think I lose volume at the 5th fret or so. Is it just me?
That mandolin can take anything you dish out as far as hard playing. To get a real idea of loudness you really need to record yourself or have someone else play it. I haven’t experienced loss of volume up the fretboard but anything is possible. Pick wise, I’ve settled on Wegens as my favorites, either TF140 or TF120.
I can't speak to the volume loss, but pick-wise, I'd pretty much settled on a Wegen TF140 until I took Matt Flinner's Old Time 101 class last winter and he was using a more rounded pick. I tried using the rounded edge of a Primetone teardrop shaped 1.3 that someone had given me; when I lost that I bought the Primetone 1.3 semiround style and am mostly using that now, especially with my F2. Sometimes I still use the Wegen with the SOL. Someone gave me a David Grisman rounded pick, and I kind of like that too, but maybe its a little on the smooth slippery side.
Thanks. I’m thinking it needs to strum the strings hard, especially with a thicker pick. I just didn’t want to do damage to this precious thing.
