Golden Gate MP-14 Deluxe Tortoise Style Flat Pick Pick - Sideman - Dozen

Good tone and feel

I always used fender thin picks for years till I started playing mandolin then I found these picks and realised that the thin picks were slowing me down. When you pick a string with a thin pick it bends making your stroke longer with golden gate picks the attack is very short and you are on to the next note much faster. they just feel right.

Great picks for mandolin or guitar, and I'm sure bass as well. There is a hint of tackyness for grip. Neutral tone. A bit warmer and less aggressive and less click than primetone, but nearly as loud. Good attack. Also not quite as fast feeling as the primetone or ultex, but feels more controlled and with a fatter sound. I use these with fresh strings and switch to primetone or ultex when my strings are dead.The closest I've found to real tortoise shell, which I've been able to try on several occasions, coveted by older pickers I've met.I've tried Wegen and Blue Chip picks and they are fine, but I prefer the slightly more mellow attack and tone of these.

Nice

Definitely good quality, but I have trouble gripping them compared to other picks.

Perfect for mandolin. If you like the Dawg picks, you will like these.

I have used all sorts of picks in the year or so that I have been playing the mandolin, some of which cost a fortune and some of which are dirt cheap. And right now, this is the pick that is creating the sound I love. I am lucky enough to have a Gibson F-9 so it sounds good more or less whatever I do, but this pick really brings out its deep, warm tones, and my mandolin teacher, who has a Gibson F-5 says this pick seems to have opened up the sweet spot on his mandolin. Also I have noticed that this pick helps the mandolin warm up very quickly. However, as my instructor showed me, you need to experiment with slight changes of angle on the unwound strings to get the warmth and volume. He taught me to pick a string while changing the angle forward to back until I get the sound I want.So because things like this are personal, these are my thoughts on other nice picks I have:V-Pick Tremelo: light, really fast and a great beginner's pick. It creates a light, bright sound and is great for learning tremolo as the name suggests. I am still trying to develop my tremolo, but I do feel the V-Pick Tremelo has helped. It has also helped me play faster. Comparatively the Golden Gate pick is louder, stronger, bolder and warmer but not as fast or as sweet in the unwound strings.Wegen TF 120: the pick I started on. It is easy to hold, solid and a good all rounder - the V-Pick Tremelo is not as good on the wound strings but much better on the unwound strings and the Golden Gate is richer on both.BlueChip TAD 1R 50: yes, I splashed out a fortune on the cream of picks, and guess what, I prefer my Golden Gate at the moment! The BlueChip is fast and strong and a good all rounder but doesn't have the woodiness or warmth of the Golden Gate and the sound just isn't as rich for what I am doing (intermediate bluegrass). Maybe if I had been playing longer I would feel differently, and I am not going to give up on the BlueChip, but right now it is sitting at the back of my pick box.

Right off the bat, let me say that these are very well-made picks and that they helped me significantly improve my mandolin technique.Now, if you want to read on, I'll give you more details. First, I started playing mandolin over 40 years ago. Back then, there was no internet of course, and as a kid in suburban NJ, I knew of no one else who played mandolin so my only sources of information were Mel Bay chord books and Oak Publication collections of fiddle tunes. Since I played guitar, I just naturally used guitar picks for mandolin with no thought as to whether they were the best choice or not. People thought I played pretty well, but after a few years I dropped mandolin to concentrate on my guitar work.Fast forward 30 years and I decided to get back into the mandolin. After going through a few cheapo models, I finally bought myself a Godin A8 which I like very much. And again, I used guitar picks for my mando work as well.However, in the meantime, this wonderful thing called the internet had come along and suddenly I had all kinds of new info about mandolins, and specifically, mandolin picks. Lo and behold, I learned that what I liked in a guitar pick was exactly the opposite of what most good mando players looked for in a pick. I use Dunlop tortex .88 picks for playing electric guitar and regularly replace them as they grow rounded. But I read that a good mando pick is thick and very rounded. This facilitates rapid tremelo picking.So I looked around and found you can spend a lot more for a single "good" mando pick than what I pay for a dozen guitar picks. Then I came across these picks and, while they cost more than guitar picks, they seemed pretty reasonable, so I bought them.Right off the bat I noticed that it was much easier to tremelo pick on demand, and the rounded tips did not prohibit me from accurately hitting single notes. And after a month or so of playing pretty much daily, I see no discernable wear on the first pick, so I'm guessing this dozen picks are gonna last me a long time.Bottomline: if you're learning to play mandolin AND you're using a guitar pick THEN immediately throw away that guitar pick and treat yourself to a dozen of these picks. Like me, you'll be glad you did.