Picking vs Plucking

[tonello]

Today I went and bought my daughter a Squire Bronco bass and a fender rumble 30 amp for her 8th birthday, because she's been wanting to play bass for a while now. As soon as she picked it up, she already had a better grasp of finger plucking than I did, as being a metalhead/ guitar player who moved to bass I'm using a pick.

I've always been kind of jealous of people who could do the finger plucking very well, so I kind of saw a little green mixed in my pride watching my daughter fumble through a few scales.

So now my question, do you pick or pluck your bass?

Like I said, I'm playing really super fast, and I'm a guitar player first, so I'm using a pick, but I'd like to hear from others out of curiosity.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Picking vs Plucking

i use rest stroke mostly. It gets the fattest tone. It is the most common way to play an electric bass and its origins are from classical guitar technique. It is fat sounding and fast playing. When its done right it is really neither picking nor plucking, its more like brushing the string with a flexible finger tip, which actually presses the string down towards the body of the guitar before releasing it whereas clawhamer picking style pulls the string upward away from the body creating a sharper, brighter, thinner sound with more attack.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Picking vs Plucking

I slap the crap outta it

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Picking vs Plucking

For the first 20 years that I played bass (man, that is scary to think about it in terms or decades), I played almost entirely fretless, and almost entirely with my fingers. The only time I used a pick was when I played fretted bass. I switched to fretted as my main type of bass in 2008, and in that band, I never used a pick. However, in 2009 I joined a punk/garage band, and started using a pick all the time. As our repertoire has grown to include other songs, I've started switching back and forth between pick and fingers, depending on the song. Some songs are easier and/or sound better with one method or the other. I do both within the same set; it depends on the song. I also use my thumb and fingers together on a few songs that require it to sound like two parts at once. Basically, that's classical guitar right hand technique. That's usually making up for a distinctive keyboard part on a cover song, since we don't have a keys player. In "Get On This Plane," I use the thumb to play the main bass/guitar riff on the low E, 1st and 3rd fingers to play the keyboard octave thing on the A and G strings. On "122 Hours of Fear," I use thumb and 1st to do the descending octaves, and thumb and 2nd to do fifth chords for the refrains. The Screamers had two keyboards, no guitar or bass.



The other thing is that when I do use a pick, it is almost always downstrokes only, Ramones style, none of that floppy hand business. It may sound like a minor detail, but that technique is essential to getting a certain sound.

 

[tonello]

Re: Picking vs Plucking

The other thing is that when I do use a pick, it is almost always downstrokes only, Ramones style, none of that floppy hand business. It may sound like a minor detail, but that technique is essential to getting a certain sound.

YEah there is a certain style to it. James Hetfield from Metallica (my main inspiration as a rhythm guitarist), uses almost entirely downstrokes. I haven't quite gotten that technique down yet, but I'm close.

 

[TheLivingDead]

Re: Picking vs Plucking

I pick, finger, pluck and slap.

Just depends on what kinda feel I want for a song.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: Picking vs Plucking

I use all styles. I'll sometimes, pluck, pick with my nails, and slap all in one riff/baseline. I also alternate up and down, instead of just plucking up or brushing down. Sometimes I'll even do the flamenco triplet picking thing on one of the strings. If you aren't very developed in plucking, then you know something to practice.

 

[tonello]

Re: Picking vs Plucking

If you aren't very developed in plucking, then you know something to practice.

Absolutely. But in the meantime for gigs, I'm gonna stick with my pick and pluck in practice.