Dunlop Tortex® Pitch Black Jazz III, 1.0mm, 12/Player's Pack

Perfect size, shape, texture and rigidity I needed for speed picking. I normally bought larger mediums like 0.80-0.9 with very little flexibility till someone suggested I should try 1 or more thickness and with smaller picks for speed alternate picking, and sure enough, it made a difference in my playing in that style. There's more economy of motion and allows your fingers to be even closer to the strings so you can fell them more and easily accessible for sweeps as well that the larger picks made it more work to execute. The smaller picks like this one makes the most sense to me now. I'm surprised I've never used them till now. It's also better for hybrid picking too. Just so much easier because the grip allows you to be closer to the strings like a classical player would be for more economy of motion.The texture material of this pick I also like. I'm a sweathog, and shiny smooth untextured picks normally slip in my fingers causing to constantly readjust. Thats why I still to these graphite types that have a bit of texture to it, and because the pick is smaller now, it's less prone to rotating or shifting between my grip.

There's a reason why these are still a popular choice for technical players. They just work perfectly for the picking technique and progressive styles of music.

After only using the John Petrucci Jazz 3 pick for well over a year now, I had to try these picks. The JP Jazz 3 pick is the only pick I had and wanted to use, until this pick came to my door. The JP pick is a great BUT, I find it to be heavy (Not thickness, but actual weight) and a touch long for me. kept hitting the pickup with the pick when playing so I would choke up on the pick and it would throw the balance of the pick off in my hand, but overall it was my favorite pick, UNTILL I used the Dunlop 482P1.14 Tortex Pitch Black Jazz III, Its a little smaller, shorter, lighter and thinner then the JP pick and within a couple notes I knew I would keep using it. It is a little slippery when holding (But I tend to have a lite grip on it so it may be me) but the feel and playability of the pick is just great, and with a lot less "Chirp" when picking a string. I highly recommend this pick.....

Awesome picks, Great Seller AAA+ 😉

After trying various guitar picks, I settled on the Jazz III as my go-to. It's comfortable and most importantly easy to grip especially with hybrid picking. I would say not to expect the Dunlop pick label itself to last -- mine basically disappeared within an hour's worth of use. So its just a grayish-black pick now. But still good.

My only issue was they have some white residue on them, you need to clean them first to make them actually black. Otherwise very happy with them

Yes these are the best picks in the world. Okay, maybe "best" is subjective, but when you've played metal for 16 years and gone through lots of picks and narrowed down the field to just one, that has to mean something. These combine the great speed, articulation, and efficiency of the Jazz III with the durability and pick attack of Tortex.Now, if you've never tried Tortex, know that they provide greater scratchiness to your attack than the dull plastic sound you get with the red Jazz III. But not so much scratchiness that it becomes difficult to pick or that your notes are buried in noise. They are also slightly thinner than the Jazz III, and like wearing a thinner.... glove ... you get more feeling. However, the red Jazz III do feel buttery compared to these, so if you care only about super slick quiet picking then maybe the red Jazz III would be better.But for recording purposes the better attack definition of these black Tortex picks are a real asset. How so? Because consider this -- with a dull sounding pick you might increase the presence/treble of your amp to compensate, and while that does up the attack, now you've also got ear-piercing grating highs during the rest of your chord. There's no way to eq just the onset of an attack and have it still ring out smoothly. That is, unless you do it at the source with a sharper sounding pick. Hence Tortex.Long story short, they add brightness back to old strings and increase the clarity, articulation, and harmonics of new strings. Pinch harmonics are a little easier, but then they weren't difficult on my other picks either. Anyway, I consider these Tortex "Pitch Black" the ideal picks for recording distorted rock and metal guitars. They're only a few bucks, can't lose.EDIT 2014: After trying the .60mm, I much prefer the .60mm. Reason is that they are even brighter/middier with better attack than the 1.0mm. For distorted rhythms they are significantly more articulate sounding in the riffing. Though I think for double tracking or quad tracking guitars, using a .60mm on the left and 1mm on the right would be an easy way to increase stereo separation. You know, the pick is the left side of the equation, the string and pickups and amp, etc. are the right side. It's interesting what a difference a pick makes, but it's the very thing initiating the sound.

They are great small picks. Easy picking. Just didn’t like that the lettering wipes off after just after 5 minutes of use.