Guitarists know all too well about gear acquisition syndrome. But before you order that new pickup, pedal, or amp to fix your niggling tonal troubles, have you considered that your pick, even how you hold the pick, could be the answer you’re looking for? It certainly was for Steve Vai and his own playing.
“I just was getting tired of not having a great tone,” he once said. “I went through all these amplifiers. I was searching for something that sounded like some of the things I was hearing at the time. Edward Van Halen had hit the scene. You had Yngwie. So many players. And I could never figure out why I don’t sound good.
