Jazz III

I do. I use Ultex jazz III 2.0 and they work great for me. Even with that way of holding the pick

Yeah, those petrucci picks might be the most functional pick Ive ever used because of the sharp Jazz III tip, the stiffness of Ultex, and how smooth the playing surface is. My big gripe with those is that they have no real grip whatsoever. They just slide around in my hand. Ive been on a quest to find the perfect pick recently. For over 10 years now, Ive been using gator grip 2.0 and I think they have some of the fullest and biggest tone to them, but they kind of cause a litte sloppiness to my playing(my fault, not the picks) and they wear down way too fast for my style. The sloppiness I think comes from the pick being too thick and chunky and it cause me to hit other, unintended strings but it also adds to how “big” notes sound, or rather the mass of the pick does. So I think Im stick with about 1.5mm for now. I also started trying different pick materials for different sound.Some are darker, some brighter, some notes clearer, some more harmonically complex. Dunlop T3 are great. Its a large Jazz III style made with tortex, so they are the same size as the average pick, with a Jazz III sharp tip, and made with a harmonically complex sounding Tortex. They have great harmonic overtones. Pretty solid combination. I wouldnt say they are the best if youre doing super shreddy stuff because the overtones can muddy up fast flurries of notes. Ultex is a much more clear material and lends itself to playing lots of fast notes as you can hear the note separation a bit better. Supposedly, the perfect pick and material is made by blue chip picks. They are also expensive at around $30 a pick, but they are nearly indestructable and last well over a year. I heard Red Bear can be great, but they fall apart if you get them wet and youre supposed to condition them frequently with oil.

Hey Richard – I use Jazz III picks from time to time myself. I also use the regular sized Dunlop picks, and keep everything from the .50mm to 1.14mm laying on top of my amps to use. I’ll use a Jazz III or regular size for days or weeks at a time, but find myself switching when I may have trouble practicing a particular exercise or riff. It’s not that the pick itself is the trick to successfully playing it, but something in my brain will approach the music differently if I’m using a different pick. Maybe it’s as simple as giving my mind something different to focus on (the size of the pick) to let muscle memory take over. Kind of like a Jedi mind trick, lol.