• Pickin' an' Ah-Grinnin'

  
  As reviewed by Django on 4/3/2008

  The picks are great; however, they can become uncomfortable after playing for a while. It could be a size issue as I had to guess on the size. The sound is soft like a real finger without the necessity of growing out long gnarly nails.

  12 of 12 people found this review helpful.
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• Great for slide players!

  
  As reviewed by Bob on 2/9/2011

  I've been a guitarist for more than fifty years. All of my playing is fingerstyle. I never liked the sound or the feel of old-style fingerpicks -- they are uncomfortable, and they cover the soft part of your fingertips so completely that you lose all "feel" for the strings. Those "old style" fingerpicks can really limit your options if you play slide guitar. Whether you are playing Duane-style slide, lap-slide (including regular acoustic guitar, dobro, Weissenborn-style, or you're using a tone-bar on your Strat), damping the sound of unused strings is absolutely essential to getting a the best sound with your slide. Conventional "old style" fingerpicks -- whether metal or plastic -- cover the soft-pad of your fingertips, making fast, delicate individual string-damping nearly impossible with your right hand. I personally love the tonal range and "touch" of bare fingers and fingernails. Unfortunately, my natural fingernails are very brittle. They're thick and they grow fast, but my nail ends fray, split, and break very easily -- especially in the winter season. The best "fix" for this problem came along in the '90's, when fingerstyle guitarists began using the KrazyGlue/acrylic-powder method of nail reinforcement. If you're a gigging musician, though, and you also use your hands for real-life activities like athletics, working on your motorcycle, raking leaves, whatever, you are going to break fingernails. When your melody-line disappears behind a no-nail picking finger, your Saturday night audience just isn't going to buy your Saturday afternoon riff that "the dog ate my fingernail." Alaska Piks are a real gig-saver. It doesn't take long to get used to them, and once you trim and file a set to match your personal finger-ends, the feel and sound is very close to that of your natural nails. Best of all, since Alaska Piks leave the meaty tips of your fingers (and a good bit of your soft fingerprint) exposed, string-damping while you play slide-guitar is exactly the same with Alaska Piks as it is with bare fingers. I personally prefer the "harder" sound of a conventional plastic thumb-pick when I use my Alaska Piks on my fingers. Other players prefer an Alaska Pik on their thumb, too -- it's a close call, either way. A set of Alaska Piks is really inexpensive. If you are a fingerpicker or a slide-guitar player, give them a try. I keep a spare set on hand in case I lose or break one (hard to do: they're tough little rascals!) Can't say I always use them -- but I certainly "... don't leave home without them."

  4 of 4 people found this review helpful.
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• Worth every cent

  
  As reviewed by Shawn M on 3/31/2011

  Local shops here in Houston don't have them. I bought one set of the plastics and a set of the brass and use a dunlop L thumb pick as well. I play fingerstyle and honestly loved using my natural nail but two things that make this difficult is that your nails tend to wear down quicker than you can grow them in most cases, and that you have to be ridiculously careful at your normal 9 to 5 not to bang your right handing into anything and break/chip your nail. My friend went the acrylic route and had a nasty infection on all his fingers so that sort of put me off. On to the picks themselves. The sizing guide is a tad vague, but most people will figure it out well enough. The over-the-finger, under-the-nail works brilliantly. Most fingerpicks tend to slip off from pull-up strumming because of their design, but these work brilliantly. My only real issue was the tone at first. The plastic ones tend to make a sound similar to plucking harp strings, which is a muted version of using your natural nail. Some of the brightness sort of vanishes, but you can get a lot of it back if you work on your finger posture a bit. The brass ones sound closer to the natural nail but your finger to string relation has to be dead on perfect or you'll get a scratching sound on the top 4 strings that may drive you batty. You still need "some" nail to do the under the nail bit, so for those leary of trying them, don't worry. You can always slip them off and have enough nail left to play without them (I do). These are a great alternative to natural nail use, or as a substitute until your nail grows back to a usable length. Already ordering my 3rd set.

  1 of 1 people found this review helpful.
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