Jacob Rozmajzl (24), a multi-instrumentalist from RichmondVirginia with a bachelors in Music Industry and experience as a sound tech& touring musician with whom we recently connected.
After spending time with blade, he came back with thisresponse:
Blade is unlike any pick I’ve touched in my ten years as aguitarist. I like my tone to sound round with a fine point, which I’vestruggled to find in the dark tone of my les paul. I’ve used numerous effectspedals to achieve my desired sound but Blade places the tone directly in myhand. I am able to cut through my mixes while still retaining the full-bodiedsound I love. The ridges give the illusion of plucking the string withoutremoving the fluidity and versatility needed when using a pick.
This model is useful particularly for guitarists playingheavy metal as is it illuminates each pitch through the wall of heavydistortion and provides a percussive impact with each stroke. The more time youspend with this pick in your hand, the more applications and possibilities willappear.
Of course, we are grateful to Jacob for taking the time totest Blade and even happier that he loved the pick.
Jacob Rozmajzl (24), a multi-instrumentalist from RichmondVirginia with a bachelors in Music Industry and experience as a sound tech& touring musician with whom we recently connected.
After spending time with blade, he came back with thisresponse:
Blade is unlike any pick I’ve touched in my ten years as aguitarist. I like my tone to sound round with a fine point, which i’vestruggled to find in the dark tone of my les paul. I’ve used numerous effectspedals to achieve my desired sound but Blade places the tone directly in myhand. I am able to cut through my mixes while still retaining the full-bodiedsound I love. The ridges give the illusion of plucking the string withoutremoving the fluidity and versatility needed when using a pick.
This model is useful particularly for guitarists playingheavy metal as is it illuminates each pitch through the wall of heavydistortion and provides a percussive impact with each stroke. The more time youspend with this pick in your hand, the more applications and possibilities willappear.
Of course, we are grateful to Jacob for taking the time totest Blade and even happier that he loved the pick..
Guitarist Brian Goss is a New York City native who’s split time between the Big Apple and upstate New York since the onset of COVID-19, and often gets hired as a studio artist and/or touring musician by some of the music industry’s marquee names.
His credits include work with members of disparate international acts like Guns N’ Roses, Television, and The Misfits; popular New York City punk acts The Noise and Warzone, and poet and vocalist Simon Felice, with whom he’s opened tour stops for folk-rockers like The Lumineers and Mumford & Sons.
Brian was also the principal guitarist who ran literal hands-on clinical tests of the initial rollout of Attak Piks.
Q: What were your initial audible impressions of the Attak and Ambush Picks?
A: Honestly, they remind me in a way of the Snark, those clip-on tuners that work off of vibrations. Every guitarist seems to have at least one of those now when, 10 to 15 years ago, they didn’t seem to exist. I remember playing with the Picks and thinking to myself, “Is it possible that no one ever thought of this before?” It’s a whole other approach, effecting your tone with a pick. Before, I always thought of a pick as just an accessory.
Q: What did you think of them visually when you first saw how different they were from flat picks?
A: I was intrigued by the mathematical aspects of them. They weren’t just in some random new shapes, but designed mathematically with an idea as to what the shape would actually do, and cause. My first inclination was to wonder if the new shapes could hinder my playing in some way, but after playing with them for awhile, I completely forgot about all that.
Q: You forgot you weren’t playing with a flat pick?
A: Yeah. At the beginning, coming from playing with a regular pick, I wondered if it would feel obtrusive. But it doesn’t take long for it to feel like a new normal.
Q: What kind of guitars were you playing when you first used the Picks?
A: Mostly Gibsons. A Les Paul; an SG.
Q: Do you use light or heavy gauge strings?
A: I use 10s, slightly on the heavier side. Most people use 8s or 9s. But I think Stevie Ray Vaughan used 13s, and what a monster player he was.
Q: When you were testing the Picks, were you doing any additional analysis, or just trusting your ears and not making it overly technical?
A: When Mark and Mike first contacted me, they had spreadsheets and lots of different Picks. And they wanted me to play and record with them all and write down comments. So in the beginning, it was quite scientific. But things really took shape for me when I let that all go and just started playing with and enjoying them.
Q: Was there an “aha” moment?
A: Yeah, because after playing with the new Picks for a while, I went back to a regular pick and it sounded dull by comparison. That was the moment. A flat pick didn’t have the same bite or attack, no pun intended. They were what I’d been playing with my whole life, but it was no longer the same. It was like a case of reverse engineering to figure that out. That’s when I could really hear the different tones brought out by the Picks. Especially the Attak and Ambush models.
Q: Regardless of what you were playing through or what effects you were using?
A: A lot of players think that their tone is the result of things like their amp and instrument. And they’re right, to a certain extent. But I’ve come to realize that it’s mostly the result of a musician’s hands. The tone is in your hands and fingers, and these Piks in your hands accentuate that theory. Let’s see if some kid from somewhere, like say Sweden, gets a couple of them and uses them to do things that no one had ever thought of before.
Q: Will Warzone come through with that rumored first reunion tour since 1997?
A: I don’t know. A lot of the main guys have died, but a couple of the surviving members got to talking about it. But doing a tour after losing singer Ray Barbieri in ’97 would be like doing shows as The Doors without Jim Morrison. It would only be like a tribute to The Doors. So I’ll believe it when I see it.
Q: Are there specific genres, like hardcore punk scene Warzone was in, where do you think the Picks might gain popularity at first?
A: I think the shredders and death metal people might love them right away, so they’re likely to do well in Norway and Germany, where musicians tend to be technical and analytical. The tone chasers will literally have fun playing with them, as I certainly did.
Ojai, California-based producer and sound engineer Jason Mariani has not only earned a Grammy Award for his work with the British folk-rock group Mumford & Sons, but has also sat behind the controls for projects with pop singer/songwriter Kenny Loggins, blues singer/songwriter Joe Bonamassa, and all-purpose drummer Simon Phillips (Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, Hiromi, Joe Satriani, Toto, The Who, Robert Palmer, Judas Priest, 10cc, Tears for Fears).
As if that’s not enough, Jason’s additional production, mixing and engineering credits include the pop band Supertramp and swing revival act Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, plus iconic blues and jazz/fusion guitarist Robben Ford. Most of the celebrated engineer’s artistry currently takes place behind the sound board at Carbonite Sound in Southern California.
As the analyst of the audio samples recorded with Attak Piks, Jason gained first-hand knowledge in what sets them apart sonically from standard flat picks.
Q: How unique are the Attak and Ambush Picks from a sound wave standpoint?
A: In analyzing the recorded files, I have to say it’s a pretty interesting phenomenon. The Picks actually brighten up guitars without the player having to go to an equalizer on their amp. It’s pretty cool.
Q: Was it at all surprising to you that no one had ever patented Picks like this before?
A: Oh yeah, I would’ve thought that someone had done it before. When Mark and Mike explained the concept to me, that was one of my first thoughts.
Q: Are you a musician as well as an audio engineer?
A: I don’t like to call myself one. I used to play keyboards in a band, but no, I consider myself just a straight-up producer, engineer, mixer and general button-pusher now. I found that calling the first time I walked into a proper recording studio. The way all the sound integrates, and blends together, just made sense to me. I sat down, and felt that somehow I already knew the language. Then it became my obsession.
Q: Really? You never played a stringed instrument?
A: No, but working with guys like Robben Ford, Kenny Loggins and Joe Bonamassa, it’s easy to develop an appreciation for the guitar. And to hear the difference the Attak Piks make.
Q: Are you from California?
A: No, I’m a New Yorker from Queens who came out west to work in Los Angeles, but the city didn’t sit well with me. Still, I never went back east. Ojai is about an hour north of LA proper, not far from Santa Barbara. It’s like a high-end little hippie town where a lot of name actors and musicians have their retreats. It’s a place people want to escape to, so it’s not hard to get artists to want to come here.
Q: What are the latest projects you’ve worked on?
A: Because of COVID-19 impacting concerts, we’re in the midst of building up a live shooting series. The last live stream we did was with Simon Phillips, who lives nearby. He was doing themed nights at a local club, and the last one was supposed to be a fusion tribute to Weather Report. So because they couldn’t do it at the club, we did a live audio and visual stream of it at the studio. And Simon had also co-written some things with keyboardist Derek Sherinian, who’d played with Dream Theater, for an audio project where they invited Bonamassa to come in and play guitar and sing.
Q: Is there one aspect of the Attak Piks that impressed you the most?
A: Yeah, that the Picks’ ridges are such a straight-forward and simple idea that nobody else had ever thought of it! That’s something we all strive for.