Winspear Picks Spotlight - They Win!

I was really excited when I received a package of 4 Winspear Picks this week. The selection of picks included a Bloodline Longsword V, Sandstorm Shuriken III, Purity Shiv IV and, most excitingly, a sample of a new material called Ultem, which they're hoping to release this year. The naming of the picks gives you an idea of the shape, weight, tone and grip, and they have a helpful graphic which describes the differences on their website. All the picks have a very classy look to them, with a Black and Gold 'W' badge on the front. These things look great!

Starting off with the Bloodline Longsword V, this pick has a very nice taper from the 'grippy' end to the point, my estimation is that it goes from 5mm to around 1.5mm. The Bloodline material is very light weight, which is interesting for a thicker feeling pick, and has a nice warmth to the tone. As I've found with each of these picks, the warmth of the tone doesn't effect the attack, and even at the warmest end of the material scale, this pick works really well for rhythm playing. Perhaps not for fast, alternate picking stuff though.

The Sandstorm Shuriken III is a small triangular pick, and I am loving the Sandstorm material. It feels really hard, and has a really nice, controlled brightness to the tone which I really enjoy. I will say that, on their website, there is a section which compares the grip of each material, but I have been finding each of these materials feel great and don't slip about. The smaller size of this pick isn't really what I'm used to, but with a bit of practise I got used to it, and found it was great for playing lead parts and pinch harmonics.

Onto the Purity Shiv IV, and I must say this shape is great - it's basically a smaller, pointier version of a 'regular' pick shape. This pick also tapers down to the point, a feature which I really like, as it gives the reassurance of the thicker grip, but you don't get that scratchy sound you sometimes find with thicker picks. The tone of this pick has a great snap to it - not scrapey pick noise, just a great attack, and a nice underlying warmth to it.

From the three stock models to the prototype model, this pick is roughly the same shape as the Broadsword V model (not in this review), and is my favourite pick of the bunch! The material feels great - all of these picks have a really classy matte finish which both looks really cool and feels really nice, and to me this is the best of the lot. This pick has a great brightness to it, which is not dissimilar to the tone of the Sandstorm Shuriken, however with a bit more of a pronounced warmth to it. I'm really looking forward to seeing this product being released and hearing what everyone thinks of it - I'll definitely be getting myself a couple of them, I think they play and sound great (so much so that I've been using them when recording guitars this week!).

If you haven't already, definitely go and check out Winspear Picks, they offer a wide variety of really cool products, really good value for money, and all made in the UK. The prototype pick will definitely be making a continued appearance alongside my signature pick, which shows how high quality they are (if you hadn't already picked that up from the review itself).

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