Wanted to start a thread for the pick players out there. I'm pretty curious to know how many among us prefer the plectrum and why.
I transitioned from guitar to bass, so I used a pick at the beginning due to familiarity. However, since I was learning bass I thought I'd do it the "right" way and I was almost exclusively fingers for a while. Heck, I looked down on pick playing and thought it wasn't "right." As such, I got a good foundation in fingerstyle playing and I can do it when I need to or when a song calls for it. But as I kept learning more songs on bass, I started to notice that the bass in a good 80% of the music I like is played with a pick.
I've since come to find that except for a pretty narrow range of genres, I hate fingerstyle tone for most things. What most players call "fat and round" tone just sounds dull and bland to me. It seems that fingerstyle gets buried in a really busy mix way worse and it just doesn't sound as clear.
I like pickstyle because it's fluid, and you get a lot more of the overall tonal character of the bass with it. Thunderbirds and P-basses, especially, absolutely come to life when you use a pick with them. It seems to make distortion and fuzz sound fuller. Also, I think it looks a lot cooler. You pop out a little bit more in the mix. You don't really lose that much bass, and most of the frequencies that you do lose are the same frequencies that end up getting cut out of a mix anyways to make room for the kick drum. And heck, if you feel like you're losing too much you can crank up the bass on your amp a little bit and you're good.
I don't play pickstyle because I "can't play with my fingers," I play pickstyle because I think it sounds and looks better in most cases.
