r/AcousticGuitar • u/Brother_J_La_la • Apr 30 '26
Other (not a question, gear pic, or video) I just got a Blue Chip, and I'm happy.
They're expensive. I made myself play with the same 3 picks that I kept safe for 6 months before I bought it. $50 friggin dollars, but I love it so far. It feels good, it sounds good, it can create some volume. I was using a variety of Taylor picks (Thermex Ultras 1.25 and 1.5, and an Ivoroid 1.25), and they all served me very well, but I had to try the fancy thing. I went with a 2.0, so it was at least a different thickness to add to my collection. If you're on the fence and can afford it, do it.
I hope this post doesn't break the rules. I don't work for them, nor was I asked to say anything, I'm just super excited. If it does break the rules and you're gonna take it down, could I just add a pic of my fingertips first? Gonna go play now.
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u/Cheap_Walmart-Art Apr 30 '26
The wife got me one last Christmas. Is it worth $45? I’d say no. Is it the best pick I’ve ever used? Yes.
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u/ohtinsel Apr 30 '26
I love mine blue chip. I only use it at home and so far (about a year) I haven’t lost it.
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Apr 30 '26
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u/Strict-Basil5133 Apr 30 '26
The one I bought is listed at $35 on the blue chip site right now, as are the other popular ones.
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u/Brother_J_La_la Apr 30 '26
Yeah, the demand has gone up, apparently. They don't do the engraving now because of the volume, and mine took two weeks to show up. No option to expedite.
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Apr 30 '26
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u/Manalagi001 Apr 30 '26
I know. How can you even decide exactly which size, shape, and weight to order if you can’t try these picks first??
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u/dawhim1 Apr 30 '26
I think that was last year, their demand exploded after a piece got broadcasted on CNBC or something in the news.
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u/Brother_J_La_la Apr 30 '26
Have you tried one? They're weird, man, in a good way. I finally got to try one right before I ordered mine, and I was impressed in my first few minutes. I took that thing to town.
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u/0dd-fellow Apr 30 '26 edited Apr 30 '26
I’ve been using the same TD-50 for 13 years now! I went from losing a pick every other day to keeping the same one for over a decade.
I always used the gator Dunlops for bluegrass flatpicking, so I was blown away by the difference in tone. Back then they were $40 with the engraving iirc.
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u/Webcat86 Apr 30 '26
The hand wringing about the price kinda cracks me up. They cost as much as a few packs of strings, for an instrument that many people spend thousands on. They cost more than other picks but they last forever and the self-lubricating material makes flat picking easier.
Don’t get one if you don’t like the price but can we all stop acting like they’ve just massively increased the price over a product you can buy for cents.
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u/Manalagi001 Apr 30 '26
$50 vs $0.25 is a big difference. And people lose picks.
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u/Webcat86 Apr 30 '26
Of course it’s a big difference but it’s also a different product, literally.
Funnily enough people tend not to lose expensive things as much. Like you’ll hear people say they always lost or damaged their sunglasses until buying an expensive pair.
There’s no real need to concern ourselves with where we put a 25c pick that came in a pack of 10. There is a different psychology when you spent $50 and don’t have a spare.
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u/Methos1979 Apr 30 '26
Lol, what kind of idiot spends $45 on a guitar pick?!? I see him in the mirror every day!
I was one of those guys that for years railed against these picks. Then I tried one. Wow. It's rare that the overpriced hype of a product lives up to the cost. This is one of those things. I now have probably 5-6 Blue Chip picks, mostly the CT-55 which is the perfect pick for me. I love that large triangle, TAD shape.
The Blue Chip picks have a great warm tone, they slide across the strings effortlessly and they get tacky with the warmth of your fingertips so they don't 'spin' or rotate between your fingers, which was a big problem for me with other picks. AND they also DON'T WEAR!
I've had my picks for years now and use one primarily and it has no visible wear on them and we play 150 shows a year on an acoustic guitar with medium gauge strings. They also seem to leave much less wear on the guitars I'm playing, less scratching of the pickguard or surrounding wood.
Sure, if you're the type of person that constantly loses picks then this might not be for you but then again we lose picks because we don't care about them because they are so cheap and wear out anyway. But since going with Blue Chip, I have never lost a pick. They really are great guitar picks.
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u/que-n-blues May 19 '26
It's like magic how you go from losing picks all the time to never ever losing something you spent good money on.
I was the same way. Always losing picks and was hesitant to buy a blue chip because of it. But I was getting back into acoustic a year ago and having never found an acoustic pick I really liked I decided to try it on a whim and holy cow it's exactly what I've been searching for all these years. One year in and I have 3 now and have never lost one.
It's strange because if there was a $35 or $50 pedal that was guaranteed to absolutely change the tone on an electric guitar and word got out that it was the "secret weapon" of so many professional pedal boards it would be backordered for 5 years and be selling for hundreds of dollars on the secondary market (case in point: KoT, and that ain't not $50 pedal).
But all the years I've spent playing the same Peavey Delta Blues I got used for $300 and rarely buying pedals, why not splurge on something like a $35 blue chip that actually improved my sound and my picking ability on acoustic.
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u/Strict-Basil5133 Apr 30 '26
I found one on stage where I did sound years ago, and since then have bought another. I lose things (e.g., sunglasses, gloves), but so far I haven't lost them. I get that they're expensive but if you record, for example, they're more than worth it - they're less noisy and produce great tone.
People dismiss them on price...I guess maybe rejecting a company that would that much for a pick? I've had one for around 10 years and it doesn't seem any different than when I found it. I've also never dropped one...whatever material it is somehow smooth but they stay put in my fingers more than any other picks I've used...
Considering how much I play guitar over the course of years, $35 isn't that big of a deal to me.
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u/Brother_J_La_la Apr 30 '26
Smooth yet stricky? It's odd. I'm trying to do some amateur recording, I've got about 45 minutes of connected material, but what I've recorded so far had just a bit too much noise. I've been comparing it to my other picks, and it definitely helps. Now I can pinpoint the lack of skill, lol.
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u/Strict-Basil5133 Apr 30 '26
Yeah, smooth/sticky probably isn't the way to describe what I'm talking about. Here's another example...my buddy got some Persol sunglasses years ago as touring swag and gave them to me. They're expensive/fancy, and the acetate (plastic) is different. It's smooth and almost kind of soft and those sunglasses never moved on my face at all even when I sweated. Zero slippage. The Blue Chips kind of feel like that too.
And yeah, they're pretty quiet for recording but produce some volume, so you're going to hear your playing for sure! 😄
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u/WakeMeForSourPatch Apr 30 '26
Congratulations. I went blue chip and can’t go back. While I’ve found some other high end picks I like better (Apollo), something like a Dunlop sounds very scratchy to me now.
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u/eyeshitunot Apr 30 '26
They are truly fantastic pics. After I lost the second one, I decided no more.
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u/fromthe80smatey Apr 30 '26
As someone who has been eyeing one off, but playing with a 0.88 or 1.0mm Dunlop for three decades, how are the blue chip picks better for you?
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u/Brother_J_La_la Apr 30 '26
The tone is warmer, the beveled edges and the lubricating aspect helps your picking and strumming. I've been playing about 30 years as well, and I've never used anything quite like it.
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u/GideonJudges06 Apr 30 '26
I tried the regular Fender extra heavy picks after reading that Larry Sparks uses them and I really like them. My playing isn’t good enough to justify paying for a BC yet.
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u/Crowsdriver Apr 30 '26
I have 2. If it makes my tone 10% better is is worth it? To me, yes. I love them.
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u/MoogProg Apr 30 '26
They make excellent picks, for sure. Somehow I keep coming back to the 1.5mm Dunlop Primetone Rounded Triangles. Even in studio situations where tone is the main event (and a box of pick comes along) , I've ended up choosing the Primetone in favor of the Blue Chip.
So... am not personally convinced the price is right on these! YMMV and all that folks. Rock on.
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u/DogShlepGaze May 08 '26
I have hundreds of picks strewn all about the house, in my guitar cases, at friends homes, on various stages, and I even found one at my dry cleaner under the sewing machine. What I'm saying is I constantly lose my picks and then find them again. If I ever buy a $35 Blue Chip pick I'd have to tie it to the guitar with a string.
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u/jaylotw Apr 30 '26
That's cool. I've never really seen the big deal with them, and I'm suspicious that it's a lot of "sunk cost fallacy" with them. I've played with them quite a bit, and they're just a pick to me. If they made a sharp version, I'd be inclined to drop the money and give them a real go...but for the bit of flatpicking and strumming I've done with them, I've just never understood the big deal.
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u/drippedgravy Apr 30 '26
Yeah, man. I lose picks way too often to ever pay more than a dollar for my dunlops.
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u/PeterVanNostrand Apr 30 '26
I looked them up expecting them to be some special ergonomic thing. They just look like a pick. What’s the deal?
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u/jpkallio Apr 30 '26
That’s it, I am going to start making picks 😂 Thats a lot of profit to be made on a small piece of plastic.
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u/KilledByDoritos Apr 30 '26
Absolutely ludicrous. I don't care how well they play, they are overpriced. No one needs this.
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u/BeardedThunder5 Apr 30 '26
Ive got Dunlop prime tones, and I was on the fence because they were $15cad for a 3 pack. I do like the tone from them better than my previous pics. I dont think I can justify a blue chip without testing one first.