Why a guitar pick variety pack is a great choice for beginner and advanced guitar players
1- What is a Guitar Pick Variety Pack
A Guitar Pick Variety Pack is a set of at least three different guitar picks aimed to contain different shapes, sizes, materials, or thicknesses of plectrums.
There are other common names for this type of guitar pick set, like “Try out Mix,” “Guitar Pick Mix Set,” or “Guitar Pick Box.” Some variety packs are focused on specific guitar areas like a “Heavy Gauge Variety Pack,” thought to be used by advanced players or “Beginner’s Variety Pack” containing medium and thin guitar picks.
On guitar picks, qualities like thickness, shape, size, and material play a pivotal role in the guitar tone, sustain, grip, or pick noise.
Therefore, it is not only about the personal preferences of the player but also about the techniques you want to develop. Your hands do an arduous job, give them the proper tools they need.
2- Reasons why a Variety Pack is a good idea
REASON ONE - It is the fastest and cheapest way of changing your guitar tone
Think about it: The guitar, strings, amp, cable, and effects pedals are all pieces of the guitar gear that play a role in tone. Surprise: guitar picks too!
Use a rounded thick nylon pick and you’ll get mellower, darker, and thicker tones. Use a pointy medium Tortex guitar pick and your tone will be as bright as you can imagine.
It only takes two seconds and the cost of a coffee to change your pick and increase your tone spectrum. Larger tone repertoire means larger versatility.
Music is about staying dynamic, and monotony kills dynamics. Therefore, your most logical step as a guitarist is to find ways of expanding your repertoire of tones and techniques. This happens with practice and the right guitar gear.
REASON TWO - The joy of exploration
Music theory, speed exercises, precision exercises, and warm-ups all have one thing in common: They focus on improvement, repetition, and perfection.
However, performance is not everything and sometimes we should focus on the joy of exploration.
The greatest ideas happen when we achieve a “flow” state, also known as the “zone.” This applies to guitar too! So, why not relax for a day, test some new pieces of gear, spark some creativity by playing around some guitar phrases, and then see what happens without planning too much and having the pressure of achieving one specific performance milestone?
Chose 4-5 different picks, turn on the amp, and give yourself a two hours break by enjoying the music you are playing now.
PS: Don’t forget to turn off your phone!
REASON THREE - Develop specific skills
Try to perform your speed exercise with a large, worn-out, thin guitar pick. Let’s say 0.35 mm.
You will face one of these three scenarios:
- You are slower than usual.
- You are as fast as usual but your technique is bad.
- You are slower and your technique is bad.
As in every discipline, using the right tools is the key to success.
“Modern Guitars” are attributed to Spanish musician, Antonio de Torres Jurado. He was a luthier, and in the mid-1800s, he began creating the style of guitar that would rise to all modern guitars.
Imagine then how immense the number of available guitar techniques that had more than a dozen decades to be developed is. From strumming to hybrid picking, palm mute, sweep picking, or down picking, all these techniques have different requirements, and different requirements can be fulfilled with different tools.
In our article, “7 essential guitar pick techniques,” we have summarized some of the most common techniques.
REASON FOUR - Different instruments
Sure, the average guitar player owns a red Stratocaster with 09 strings and plays classic rock.
But what about the rest of us? The 7 strings shredders, the acoustic unplugged fans, the indie effect experts, the experimental music lovers, the metal-heads, the bassists using picks, and the jazz/bossa relaxed musicians out there?
We all deserve to have a choice according to our requirements.
Personally, I like to play bass with a medium pick (Rombo Prisma), and I love the warm tones of Rombo Horizon for guitar reverb phrases on my telecaster. However, when I feel like using the thickest metal distortion ever, I choose Rombo Diamond.
Different guitar pick shapes, sizes, materials, and thicknesses create a widely broad tonality and usability ranges that I need to keep my motivation up!
REASON FIVE - A fresh input kills routine!
Did you use the same guitar pick for the last 20 years? Well, it’s never too late to get a little bit of fresh air and try something new.
Even the riff you have played 1000 times will sound different and you might notice that there are some nuances on “pick feedback” that can make your sound more fun and interesting.
What is the worst that can happen? In the worst case, you will discover a guitar pick that you prefer more than your usual! Go take that risk :-)
REASON SIX - A Guitar Pick Variety Pack is a great gift
Guitar players have a lot of things going on in their heads: the next gig, one unfinished song composition they started some weeks ago, the speed rates of their last practice, and more.
A Guitar Pick Variety Pack is a great gift for beginners, intermediate, or advanced players. Guitarists love trying new gear because it is a way to spark some creativity and explore tonalities.
A variety pack is a super affordable option for a small, but elegant gift to make a guitarist smile and feel excited for the next practice day.
There are many different gift options from Rombo:
If only one of the guitar picks is chosen as the new favorite one, your friend will be thankful for life!
REASON SEVEN - Reflecting on your guitar tone and level
Even if you don’t like the picks included in the variety pack, they will have a positive effect on your playing.
You will reflect and confirm why you had chosen your current pick in the past and what the advantages of it are. You will reflect on your guitar tone and the nuances of guitar pick feedback and pick noise.
These experiences accumulate, and after years of exploration, you start having a sixth sense of “feeling” your instrument, your preferences, and music in general.
What do you do with your new picks? Well, if you don’t like them, give them to a friend that could need inspiration!
3- Who can profit from Guitar Pick Variety Packs (Spoiler: Everyone)
From the reasons above, we can take away a clear lesson: It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or an advanced player, the advantages of trying a Guitar Pick Variety Pack are always there.
Why beginners profit from Guitar Pick Variety Packs:
- Develop new skills.
- Develop a sense of exploration and identify tone nuances.
- Understand that different techniques need different requirements.
- Understand that the guitar path is a long one and that not everything is performance.
Why intermediate and advanced players profit from guitar pick variety packs:
- Expand the spectrum of techniques.
- Discover an unexpected tonality change.
- Focus on one specific technique.
- Joy of exploration.
4- Examples of a guitar pick variety pack
One example is our own guitar pick variety pack containing:
- 1 Rombo Classic | 0.45 mm
- 1 Rombo Origami | 0.75 mm
- 1 Rombo Prisma | 0.8 mm
- 1 Rombo Crisp | 1 mm
- 1 Rombo Waves | 1.25 mm
- 1 Rombo Horizon | 1.4 mm
- 1 Rombo Diamond | 2 mm
- 1 Rombo Jade | 2.3 mm
It is not only thickness that is everything. In order to make these picks more understandable for you, we have created four metrics: Attack, Flexibility, Tone, and Techniques. Here an example:
With this information, and in combination with the description of the pick and the technical drawing, we give you a very precise picture of the qualities of our guitar picks.
We also have a specific set for beginners with the “Beginners Guitar Pick Gift Box”:
And a specific set for intermediate/advanced players.
5- Conclusion
A Variety Pack is not only an excellent gift for your musician friends, but also for yourself if you are looking to explore tones, develop specific skills, or just need fresh air and try new guitar gear.
Different qualities like shape, thickness, or material, make guitar picks very different tools for different requirements. You will learn a lot in the process of testing them and every fresh input can help keep your motivation at the highest level.
The worst case: You will discover your new favorite pick!
Guitar Picks Online - 9 main Advantages of ordering Guitar Picks Online
But, why do guitar players order guitar picks online? What are the advantages of ordering picks online?
We have thought about this recently and have summarized the main 9 advantages of ordering guitar picks online.
1 - There is a huge variety of guitar picks available online
1 - There is a huge variety of guitar picks available online
There are lots of guitar pick makers (like us) using their knowledge to create guitar picks that differ a lot from common guitar picks or mass production guitar picks.
The aim of these guitar pick makers is to create something unique with a specific purpose and to show their work to the world. Where can you find these people?
2 - More information and detailed Descriptions for the Guitar Picks
However, in most online shops for guitar picks, the product pages show you everything you need to know.
Usually they display a couple of pictures of the guitar picks, inform about the guitar pick material, the thickness, the shape, and they include a detailed description of the plectrum and its features.
In our case, we use pictures like this to condensate all the information:
Nevertheless, we care a lot about packaging and want you to have this information in your hands as well
You can visit online guitar pick websites and compare products. This will make you a more educated customer that can take decisions based on facts. It will make you reflect on your guitar playing style and which necessities your guitar pick should cover.
3 - Personal Contact with the Guitar Pick Makers
It is as easy as sending an e-mail or a PM on Instagram, and you will be talking directly to us, the founders.
In the social media era, small start-ups manage their own profiles by themselves. I have had great conversations with customers from all over the world about guitar picks! We receive lots of questions every week and try to answer every private message. So far, I think we have answered 100% of the messages, or at least I have tried!
Regarding this point: not only the customer profits from this, but also the guitar pick maker, who gets to know the customer in a more detailed way and becomes aware of the problems to solve.
A few months ago, I talked to a customer who had purchased his guitar pick Rombo Diamond back in July 2019, directly from our first campaign on Kickstarter. After a year of playing daily, he made a new order and sent us a picture of the new pick vs. the old one.
That was amazing! It was a great feeling to know that somebody had spent so much time with a product we have developed and that it still worked! Also, I wonder how he could keep the pick for so many months without losing it!
4 - Guitar Pick reviews are Gold!
Depending on how old you are, you probably remember the time when purchasing goods on the internet was a surprise: you wouldn't know if the product was of good quality until it arrived.
It is very easy to find guitar pick reviews online, sometimes even on Youtube. These reviews can help you a lot. Especially if the product page of the guitar picks is missing some important information, like in the following this example, a review “Jan” left on Rombo Origami:
Now, let’s suppose you want to purchase Rombo Diamond for your bass because of its guitar pick thickness. Maybe after reading this review you change your opinion!
5 - Reviews can trigger Changes in the Design of Guitar Picks
This point is connected to the previous one.
Considering that the founders read the reviews, and they can have direct influence on the product, the best idea you can have is to tell them what points you like/don’t like.
We have a very good example here in a review from Matt Samuel on the Guitar Pick Holder:
We received this review on the Guitar Pick Holder some weeks ago. After a couple of small workshops together, we have now designed a packaging, which we hope to implement in a couple of months.
A simple action like this can have a big impact on the product you will get! Thanks for that, Matt Samuel!
6 - Your Wishes will be fulfilled!
In our big survey from June 2020, 1552 guitarists were able to choose the names of our new guitar picks. We had some ideas for their names, but two users offered a new fresh source of inspiration when they decided to give their input and suggest new names.
Rombo Horizon and Rombo Jade were suggested at the beginning of the survey by random users and the votes kept rolling in for those names. Two days later, these names were the winners and more customers kept voting for them until the survey finished. We will be using these names as soon as the guitar picks are launched in 2021. These two unknown participants are heros for us!
Some weeks ago we received an e-mail from a customer that said: “Hey guys, you should create a special edition of your guitar pick Rombo Origami in the color white, like paper origami”.
How cool is that? Of course we will do that sometime in the future, it is such a great idea! I can already visualize the packaging with different white tones and the white guitar picks on it and I just feel extremely happy to have such a great guitar community around Rombo picks.
7 - Online Guitar Pick Stores are open 24/7
You can visit the stores anytime from your couch or while you commute in the metro. That’s quite practical!
8 - Very easy to ship!
Guitar picks are very small pieces of gear and they fit in a small envelope. This means, you don’t even need to be at home to get them delivered because they fit in your mailing box.
One of the best advantages of such small products is that they are very adequate for surprising your friends. Imagine you come home after a long day, you open the mailbox and find a strange letter on it containing a couple of cool guitar picks. That probably feels very good! This is one of the reasons we created the gift boxes.
9 - New Guitar Gear for the Price of a Starbucks Coffee
Let’s admit it, sometimes we - guitarists - just want to shop a little bit and have a couple of new experiences trying new gear.
If you feel like this and don’t feel like spending much money, guitar picks are a very good option. Guitar picks are the loudest amplifier in our hands and will have a direct influence on the tone our guitars produce! Therefore, why not try lots of them and use them for different purposes?
In our article Guitar Picks for Beginners we talked about the importance of having at least 3 favorite guitar picks. Let’s go find them!