Fingerstyle sounds terrible after playing with a pick!

[mdogs]

If it is good enough for Entwhistle, Squire, JPJ, Berry Oakley, Oteil Burbridge, Bobby Vega, Anthony Jackson (how much further should I go?), then I say, "IF YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH A PICK, THEN DAMMIT, PLAY WITH A FREAKIN' PICK AND SCREW WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I spent 25 years playing almost exclusively with a pick, then I just decided one day that I was going to learn how to play with my fingers, so I did. Now I play with whatever I damn well feel like and whatever fits the song. Thank God that the pioneers of this instrument weren't as hung up on how they were playing as they were with how it sounded and how they were pushing the envelope!

 

[MegaSwing]

'Terrible' is a pretty strong word there. Perhaps you're more comfortable with a pick and it suits your ear better. I know playing with a pick is excruciating for me, but there are some players who use them very effectively.

 

[Real Soon]

All in your head, my man and/or woman.

You've gotten used to the bright profile of the pick sound, and the fingerstyle tone is mellow in comparison, seemingly dark due to not having the same kind of snap up front.

I bet if you go back to fingerstyle for a week, you'll re-acclimate to the sound, and once again hear the character that is indeed in there.

 

[Mystic Michael]

Bleh, everyone says the same thing.

Do what sounds best to you! I play with every tool in the bag. Personal preference. Yadda yadda blah blah.

Part of me doesn't mind encouraging other bass players to continue picking and only picking, but another part of me wants to help them.

Let's be honest. Picking the bass is limiting your sound possibilities, plain and simple. The pick restricts your tone and sounds primitive, like a harpsichord. Sure, you can pluck the strings hard or softly unlike a harpsichord, but in the end, that's pretty much the only tone options you'll have. It's a keyboard bass harpsichord sound in my ears.

Can't play simultaneous double stops with a pick either without strumming.

In the end, it really is about personal choice and what you want your tone to be, that's the beauty of the idividualism of music, but the individualist contrarian in me had to say that much.

While I certainly have my own strongly-held opinions about music, the pickstyle vs. fingerstyle "debate" isn't one of them. Frankly, I find it hard to understand how anyone could prefer just the one technique so much as to essentially discredit or invalidate the other.

No doubt that fingerstyle affords you a certain flexibility of approach - and a type of tone - that simply isn't possible by using plckstyle. But you conveniently neglect to mention the things that using pickstyle can do that fingerstyle cannot - most likely because your personal preference doesn't value it, so you don't acknowledge it.

I personally am only minimally proficient with using slap and tap. I can respect the skill that it takes to execute it well and to make it musically effective, and to an extent I can even enjoy the ultimate musical product as well. But only to a certain point. Fundamentally, it's not my kind of thing and so I don't spend a lot of time or attention listening to it or attempting to execute it. But at the end of the day, it's every bit as valid and respectable as any other technique, and my personal taste and preference has nothing to do with it.

MM

 

[KevInDaBassment]

With the most serious and absolute tone I can get across via internet diction...it really doesn't freakin matter. I will say that you have more techniques available when using fingerstyle, but plenty of cats get great tone using a pick. For me it depends on the bass I'm using or what technique the song calls for. When I was doing grunge music, the pick just plain worked great. If the tone is what you like and you can nail the song with a pick, then go for it. Believe me, you will have naysayers no matter what you do in the musical world. Too typical, too out-there, tone's not right (which is totally subjective), or seems like an amateur....it's a beat to death sentiment, but just do what works for you. I personally love the sound of a pick on multiple types of basses, even on my 50's P copy with flats. Sometimes a song calls for fingerstyle and sometimes a pick does the job better, I happen to think fuzz sounds better with a pick. Harmonics, overdrive, and my digitech bass whammy all sound better with pick as well. Just rock it, man

 

[Capt.Obvious]

While I certainly have my own strongly-held opinions about music, the pickstyle vs. fingerstyle "debate" isn't one of them. Frankly, I find it hard to understand how anyone could prefer just the one technique so much as to essentially discredit or invalidate the other.

No doubt that fingerstyle affords you a certain flexibility of approach - and a type of tone - that simply isn't possible by using plckstyle. But you conveniently neglect to mention the things that using pickstyle can do that fingerstyle cannot - most likely because your personal preference doesn't value it, so you don't acknowledge it.

I personally am only minimally proficient with using slap and tap. I can respect the skill that it takes to execute it well and to make it musically effective, and to an extent I can even enjoy the ultimate musical product as well. But only to a certain point. Fundamentally, it's not my kind of thing and so I don't spend a lot of time or attention listening to it or attempting to execute it. But at the end of the day, it's every bit as valid and respectable as any other technique, and my personal taste and preference has nothing to do with it.

MM

Fair enough, I'll conceed if I hurt anyones feelings and you're right. I'm pretty biased surely. I also loathe thug rap and they need to pull up their damn pants!

I just don't see, from a scientific perspective even, how the pick is not limiting tone possibilities. Your replacing an entremely versatile appendage with a thin peice of plastic. It's like the evolution from the harpsichord to the piano tonally to me.

In the end, I agree with you, it's another tool in the bag, but I'm just explaining why I personally was never attracted to playing with a pick.

 

[MikeBass]

I'm primarily a finger style player, but use a pick very often.
One of the best tones I've heard was on Steely Dans Everything Must Go disc.
All pick style on that disc.

 

[gjohnson441496]

I've been forcing myself to learn to play with a pick the last few weeks and have really come to like the tone and attack of the pick sound. Sounds great with overdrive as well. Problem is that going back to fingerstyle sounds lifeless and dull. Fortunately, I have set up my pedals and preamp such that my attack is just sharp enough on my Precision basses with the tone rolled down halfway leaving me to crank the tone knob all the way up for playing with my fingers. Anyone else come across this? Am I the only one? And I used to be one of those snobs who looked down on pick players!

YEP! Honest to god same thing JUST happened to me about a month ago. I was having problems with my upper right arm. Doing way too many push ups at one time gave me tendinitis. Playing finger-style was not helping the situation get better. However, I was interested in purchasing the new Rickenbacker 4003w so I started checking out You Tube vids and there was this British guy playing the heck out of his recently purchased Ric4003w, so much so that I was like "yeah, I dig that sound". So I wind up purchasing an AmStd Jazz bass. Knowing my favorite bass player Paul McCartney used a Jazz and a pick, I decided to try it... AND I LOVE IT!

After my arm began to heal (it's still somewhat sore, but at least I can lift it over my head now) I tried playing with my fingers, and the tone is not there, and to be honest, it's way too much work. I can do so much more using a pick. I must admit that playing with a pick takes some getting use to as there are songs that I played with my fingers that I have to reajust for the pick. For example, there's a song by the Beatles that I play called The Word which took some time figuring out how to play with a pick, as well as Here Comes The Sun, and The Walrus. I'm still working on getting some James Jamerson to work with a pick (Baby Love by the Supremes believe it or not). Deep Purples Machine Head is much more fun to play now that I'm using a pick.

Anyway, the dynamic range IMO is wider with a pick, and I just like the way it sounds. I'm using D'Addario Flat Wound Chromes 45 - 100.

 

[Mr Gaston]

The first time I took a bass lesson, I was a complete beginner and had decided that i wanted to play with a pick. Anyway, I go meet my new bass teacher, stringy hair half way down his back and a lot of attitude. He sees the pick in my hand and says "dude, you don't play a bass with a pick". He said it with the exact same tone as if he were saying "dude, stop picking your nose". Never went back and ended up putting the bass in the closet for 15 years before picking it back up with more determination.

 

[MikeBass]

Who's the chick singer???....whew! Hot!

 

[Spirit of Ox]

The trick is to play fingerstyle but make it sound like you're using a pick. Steve Harris, John Entwistle, and Geddy Lee have all done it. One way is hammer your fingers light and fast against the strings like Harris. Another way is to use Geddy's flamenco approach that he adapted in the late 90's. Geddy used to grow his nails long in the 70's since he wanted a Chris Squire's sound but without a pick.

 

[Whousedtoplay]

Who's the chick singer???....whew! Hot!

Her name is Kasia Stanek.
I'll post some of her recordings in the recording forum.

 

[Mystic Michael]

I also loathe thug rap and they need to pull up their damn pants!

OK, I'm with you on that one!

MM

 

[gjohnson441496]

The trick is to play fingerstyle but make it sound like you're using a pick. Steve Harris, John Entwistle, and Geddy Lee have all done it. One way is hammer your fingers light and fast against the strings like Harris. Another way is to use Geddy's flamenco approach that he adapted in the late 90's. Geddy used to grow his nails long in the 70's since he wanted a Chris Squire's sound but without a pick.

I was really surprised when I viewed an interview with Geddy Lee and he described his technique, and it wasn't playing with a pick.

 

[Mystic Michael]

Deep Purples Machine Head is much more fun to play now that I'm using a pick.

I don't see how it's possible to play Highway Star - properly - with anything other than a pick.

MM

 

[gjohnson441496]

I don't see how it's possible to play Highway Star - properly - with anything other than a pick.

MM

It takes a lot of freaking work man. and the sweat it produces is unnatural. But if you really want to improve your finger-style it's the ticket... hammer it out!

 

[FretNoMore]

I'm not that into pick playing, I frankly suck at it, but I'm still interested in the technique. I've practiced a little, on and off, but it's not a sound I enjoy so far. So, I recently bought a couple of Wedgie rubber picks and maybe that's another possibility; pick playing but with a rounder sound more like fingerstyle. The opposite of what the OP wants, but anyway, another tool in the toolbox.

 

[DavidEdenAria]

You can always 'grow a nail out a bit using fingers' to get more of that same attack of a pick.

I often use the exact same index finger/thumb held together for fingerstyle as I do for a pick, but I use the index only to strike the string.

Otoh, there are WAY too many options with different picks as well...all picks do not sound and respond the same!!

 

[Spirit of Ox]

I was really surprised when I viewed an interview with Geddy Lee and he described his technique, and it wasn't playing with a pick.

Yeah he just uses his index finger back and forth like a pick. Also, there was an injury to his finger at one time and when it healed it was toughened. John Wetton uses a similar technique in King Crimson. He called it the flipper.

 

[taylor16]

Damn. Didn't expect to turn this into a pick vs finger style war. Curiously, after waking up this morning and plugging in and playing with my fingers, everything sounded "normal" again to me. Then I picked up the pick and I was floored with the punch and attack. I just think that after playing last night for a couple of hours with a pick, my ear just became used to the tone abe the alternative just appeared dull to me. Just a matter of perspective, I guess.