Super Blacks Guitar Picks!

Fast and Ugly. You NEED these picks! (click to enlarge)

Tonight I’ve been designing postcards for NAMM.

The postcard above is for our new Super Blacks guitar picks. I am very proud of these picks. When it comes to picks I am notoriously fickle. I’ll find one that I like quite a lot however 2 or 3 weeks later I invariably find something about them that bothers me. But not these guys…They are exactly what I have been looking for in a guitar pick! They fit my fingers, are easy to hold on to, are faster than any pick I’ve played with and sound terrific.Sound like sales talk? Well I’m sure it appears that way as I am indeed selling them but all of the above is no less true.

Up until now, the picks I’ve stuck with the most have been V-Picks from Vinni Smith. If you haven’t tried them I do recommend them. They’re not cheap but they’re quite unique in both the materials they use and for their especially FAT picks. I always liked how fast they played and I have good control with them. But two things always sort of left me sort of wanting. One was the grip. V-Picks are completely rigid which I really like (don’t like them floppy picks), however I always found the hard/flat surface made the grip a little difficult when playing rhythm. They’re great for lead playing though. The other issue was the sound. I have found, to varying degrees, V-Picks give a noticeable “tick” – “tick” – “tick”-ing sound when they hit the strings. Rather pronounced to my ear. All things considered however, V-Picks have been my usual pick for a few years now. Ever since Vinni gave me my first V-Pick at NAMM some years back. Really nice picks and a very good fellow, that Vinni.

A few months ago, I ran into a pick manufacturer at a trade show who manufactures mostly your run of the mill type picks. But they did have a series of picks that I found interesting. They were made of textured Delrin and came in thicknesses from 1mm to 5mm. They wouldn’t give or sell me just one but told me I could buy a box of 300 picks. Now I only wanted to try one out to see how it played but I had a good feeling about them so I actually wound up buying 2 boxes. When I got them home I generally liked how they played although the texture posed some problems. Also the grip wasn’t quite right either. Anyway, I started playing around with the picks. I polished them smooth and re-shaped them a bit until I came up with what are, for me, the Ugliest, Fastest and Best Sounding Guitar Picks I have EVER played. This is completely straight. If they sucked or were “ok” I would have given them out to customers as an extra and not tried to market them. But these picks are AMAZING! I spent a bit developing them making special molds and opting for hand polishing which really has a terrific feel.

Anyway, this post has gotten long. In summary, Super Blacks are ugly and fantastic. They will be available from our website after the NAMM show. I’ll be sending out some samples to those of you out there (that would be most of you, I think) who are Hell Guitar owners. When I get back I’ll put up a post asking Hell owners to send their mailing address to my email so I can get some out to you. I see it as kind of like a drug pusher giving prospective customers their first hit for free. Of course picks are a very personal thing but I’m pretty confident that these will make a splash. So stay tuned…