The guitar pick is probably the most overlooked part of your signal chain after your choice of guitar strings, but it's still surprising no bolder designs on he humble plectrum have ever really taken off before. Could Acoustik Attak's Attak Piks change that?
The idea for Attack Piks was hatched when Connecticut-based bassist and Chief Product & Technology Officer Mark Labbe, along with New York-based guitarist, Chairman & CEO Michael DePietro, became disillusioned with flat pick designs.
So they came up with a way to innovate with a customised injection moulding process. Their Attak Piks feature patented raised ridge with, diamonds and other patterns on both sides of their lower tip attack zones that the company claims results in enhanced sound waves for your tone.
That's regardless of whether you're an electric or acoustic player, or your choice of instrument or strings. Certainly a bold claim.
"Attak Piks actually brighten the sound of a guitar or bass without having to go through an equalizer," says producer and Attack Piks convert Jason Mariani of Carbonite Sound studios (Kenny Loggins, Joe Bonamassa, Simon Phillips, and a Grammy Award for his work with Mumford & Sons). "It's such a cool and straight-forward design that it's surprising no one thought of it before."
The picks are launching with two models to choose from; with the new Ambush and Attak models.
The Ambush pic features five staircase ridges on its top and underside, and Attack Picks claim it can enhance upper-midrange harmonics, distortion, percussive effects and thickened upper-midrange frequencies, especially for rhythm guitarists or bassists.
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The Attak model features three rows of pyramid-shaped ridges on its top and bottom for clarity and less string noise, "especially within mids and high mids, ideal for lead guitarists," says Acoustik Attak.
For more info, head to attakpik.com
Rob is the Reviews Editor for GuitarWorld.com and MusicRadar guitars, so spends most of his waking hours (and beyond) thinking about and trying the latest gear while making sure our reviews team is giving you thorough and honest tests of it. He's worked for guitar mags and sites as a writer and editor for nearly 20 years but still winces at the thought of restringing anything with a Floyd Rose.
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