The Best Thumb Pick For Guitar - Fred Kelly Bumblebee Pick 

Having always been a flat pick player, I spent probably a year auditioning a huge variety of thumb picks, (including filing them down and sort of making my own) and I ultimately decided on the Bumblebee Jazz Heavy. I totally agree with your pros and cons, and it is hard to tame that sort of "bigness" out of the sound, but what killed them for me was once after around an hour of playing along to backing tracks, I looked down and my thumb had turned blue. They're too tight for me, but I think if I loosened them up they wouldn't be tight enough. C'est la vie!

I just jammed with a guy and He turned me on to a Fred Kelly Speed Pick. Absolutely amazing. Great video on the Bumble Bee. Can't wait to get my shipment. Keep up the good work

Bumblebee picks are the best. Perfect for someone who has difficulty hanging onto a regular flat pick, but also doesn't like the stiffness of normal, single-piece thumb-picks.

I love the WAY you do a review!! Explaining the pros & cons.. You answered a lot of my questions!! I hope you do other equipment reviews!! Will definitely check them out! Thanks

Very well done, I'm glad you have shared your insight on the Fred Kelly Bumblebee Pick as the best pick!

thank you for the great testimonial of our Fred Kelly Bumblebee Picks

Thanks, it was very helpful to me. I appreciate that you share your experience.

Great video... thanks! I watched another review where the guy "locks" down the position (slide and pivot angle points) with a drop of super glue once the perfect position is found. I may try that with mine.

I recently got into bumble bees. It increased my shreding speed double. Smooth as silk after you get used to them. There is a little learning curve. Chicken pickin is much improved also.

Great video solves my problem that I had with my right hand after an accident.

I just watched Steve Earle play for 2 hours and never take this pick off his thumb. He played an acoustic guitar, a 12 string, a mandolin, and an bouzouki with it. He’s not a subtle player, but he sounded amazing. The feel of a pick is a mysterious thing.

I am just getting into Thumb picking. I too, mainly play Metal, Rock, Blues. However, I like the sound of Thumb picking, exactly why I want to pick it up. Very helpful.

These are the best thumb picks I’ve ever used, they allow me to transition between Travis style and strumming more seamless than before. The only problem I have with them is they are expensive and I wear down the picking surface very quickly as I play a lot of fast tremolo style picking on acoustic strings. I have gone through about 15 of them now.

I use the Fred Kelly bumblebee picks. Once I got used to them I like them. I play a 53 Les Paul a 96 Fender stratocaster and a Martin HD 35 and use the bumblebee on all of them. I play flat picking style and finger picking .

I am interested in this because I do a lot of tapping, and so I go from all 8 fingers tapping on the fretboard back to strumming / standard flat picking, and have to do so quickly. Some people glue heavy fingernails on or grow out their nails and use hardeners / coatings - I also do a lot of writing and keyboard playing, so long fingernails are a problem and that's not a solution. Some people have developed the skill of holding the pick against the base of their index finger and then slide it back and forth as needed (viz. Sarah Longfield). Sarah's... well... "a special talent" and her incredible dexterity exceeds my slower more sausage-like fingers. So, I've been looking at thumb-picks - but many of them are narrow and optimised for country / blues / folk / jazz playing, and I'm left handed, and finding lefty thumb-picks at the local music store is a pain. So I got online and found out about Kelly's picks, he makes them left handed too, and this demo video. I like this one because it looks like it can be held very similarly to a regular flat pick, and then when I get all happy tappy on the fretboard, it's out of the way, stuck to my thumb. So, thanks for the demo and the review!

Thanks, very well presented. Interesting channel!

I am a chickin picker and rockabilly. This pick is a God send for me. I also do classic rock and can shred with style with this pick. I agree with everything in this article. You can get over the cons but there is a learning curve. I now only use this pick for everything. If I leave for a gig without it I will turn around and go back.

Playing manhattan by Eric Johnson really got me into the Fred kelly picks. Really handy for wes Montgomery style licks

I got mine recently from Amazon. I am a beginner and I do have traditional picks too. I haven't tried this one out yet so time will tell. As a beginner I probably won't notice much of the stuff you just touched on. Thanks.

A couple of Bumblebees, a couple of Black Mountains & a couple of regular plectrums in the tin & I'm ready to go.

Totally enjoyed the video! What size and guage do you recommend for mostly jazzy , acoustic but also some Rock playing ? Heavy or medium guage? Thanks for sharing 👍

Keith, If you haven't check out Herco thumb picks under $2.00 each Heavy, Medium, Light thickness. Simple no moving parts springs clips etc. They are as close to a regular flat pick you are going to get.

Doesn't that pick rotate at the hinge on it's own when playing?

Whoa. I think my search is over.

Sweet gold top, and playing to match.

I've had a couple of these. Pretty good. You can't really strum with it though.

I play bass guitar with a standard medium guitar pick. I have been thinking that it would be cool if I used a thumb pick so that I could use my fingers once in a while. I wonder if this is the solution.

Are these meant mainly for finger picking or can they benefit my horrible trem picking technique!

My favorite thumb picks were the Saddle Thumb picks, but they don't seem to be available anymore. It just seemed to be the most comfortable. I tried to find out how to get in touch with the manufacturer, but I've been unsuccessful. I'd even think about trying to buy the rights to have them manufactured. Here's their video link: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eCQYEWbNkGQ.html

hey dude, cool vid but you totally can do pinch harmonics! You just have to put your index finger in front of the pick, like Lenny Breau/Danny Gatton false harmonic style :) nice playing tho!

Golden gate the best blues thumb pick I recon

This might solve the problem I am having with traditional picks I use,which is they always slip and rotate between my thumb and finger, will these have the same effect or are they pretty much solid between your grip?

Question. I play prog metal and I combine classical guitar technique with metal/jazz style. So basically when I'm playing fingerstyle I don't want the pick to touch the strings at all i just to use my thumb nails and have the pick not in the way until i switch back to a metal/jazz section. Basically i want to pick to be there all the time but I only want to use it as a flat pick thats connected to my thumb and I just want my fingernail for fingerpicking. Is this possible with this pick?

Cool

try filing it down for a better fit

Artificial harmonic. ..boooooooo!!!!!!✌😁rock on....

bet you can't chug full downpicking in a 7 string guitar :V

I stopped at 2:55 into this video . All we really wanna know is does it shred ?? Now ti finish watching the video ! lol

Not a good pick at all. I used them and never again. Loose... they wear out so damn fast. Waste of money

I got one.The freakin thing moves in and out while you play.Real unpredictable.

Seems unstable...