Strings are your first point of contact with your instrument, and they deserve as much consideration as any other part of your signal chain. Different gauges and materials can have a profound impact on your overall sound, and they also allow you to experiment with different techniques and tunings.

Lighter gauges are great for lead guitar players thanks to their tonal clarity and bend-friendly tension, while heavier gauges are great for fat rhythms and for adding balance and stability to downtuned instruments. Of course, you can go in the opposite direction for your own tonal and tactile needs, including mixing and matching string gauges to create a set that matches your own playing style.

Bass players likewise have numerous options—lighter gauge and Stainless Steel strings provide brightness and clarity, while heavier gauge and Nickel Wound strings add fullness and warmth. And then there’s Flatwound Bass Strings, which give you that classic old school thump like nobody’s business.

As with strings, trying a different pick can totally change the dynamics of how you sound and play. There are four crucial variables to consider: material, gauge, shape and finish or grip. The material sets a baseline for the overall feel—rigid or flexible, bright or warm—and the gauge allows you to adjust for feel and tonality within the natural range of that material.

Lighter gauges tend to be more flexible with a brighter sound, while thicker gauges tend to be more rigid with a warmer sound.

The shape is where you get to really focus on your playing style. Do you want clear and articulate notes for leads and solos? Try a shape with a sharper tip such as the Ultex® Sharp Pick. Want your chords to ring out with thickness and heft? Go with a broader tip such as that of the Nylon Standard Pick. If you want to choke up and play fast, choose a smaller, more aerodynamic pick such as the Jazz III Pick in one of its many variations. Modern designs such as Primetone® Picks and Flow® Picks go even farther with specially sculpted bevels that offer an unprecedentedly smooth attack and a wide range of tones.

Finally, how do you want your pick to feel in your hand? Some players love the peace of mind that a very pronounced grip provides—best exemplified by Nylon Max-Grip® and Prime Grip® Delrin Picks—but others prefer the more subtle textured surface of Tortex® Picks. The aforementioned Primetone and Flow Picks offer something of an in-between option with a very low-profile grip.

Your strings and picks can cover a whole lot of ground when it comes to tightening up your tone and technique. If something about your creative process is feeling stale or uninspired, try changing up your strings or your picks. Maybe you just need to find the right fit.

This is a small, no-frills pedalboard for players who like to keep it simple or for players who need a setup that’s ready to go when they get a last-minute call for a gig. It’s just enough to get you through the gig.

First, you need yourself a solid power source, and in this case, we recommend the Mini MXR® Iso-Brick™ Power Supply. It’s just the right size for our purposes, and it’ll provide more than enough juice. The first pedal in the chain is the MXR Phase 95, which gives you four different phase options in a mini housing for some nice texture and coloration to your tone. Next up is the MXR Super Badass® Distortion, a super versatile dirt box that covers a whole range from dirty boost to crushing distortion. Finally, the MXR Carbon Copy® Mini Delay provides those classic warm repeats and spatiality while keeping things tight and tidy on your pedalboard.

This pedalboard is all about covering the basics with just enough options to experiment and indulge your creativity. Here, we go with the MXR Iso-Brick Power Supply, which has more than enough outputs and the power to handle more demanding pedals. A staple of many genres, the vocal and expressive Cry Baby® Wah starts off this board’s chain. The MXR Dookie™ Drive Pedal comes next for your classic amp stack distortion sound, followed by the MXR Timmy® Overdrive for when you want a nice boost or just a little bit of grit in your tone. For iconic modulation sounds, we’re going with the MXR Analog Chorus, which gives you syrupy power ballad tones when clean or super textured and ethereal riffs when distorted. Finally, the Echoplex® Delay provides vintage tape echo sounds with a hi-fi analog dry path. We’ve got it connected to an MXR Tap Tempo Switch so that you can tap in your beat for the repeats to follow.

Alright, busy players, this one’s for you. Say you’ve got a Friday night gig with your cover band, a Saturday night gig for your original work band, and bright and early Sunday morning, you’re handling six-string duties at church. If you’re playing that many shows over a three-day span, you probably won’t want to spend your downtime swapping pedals in and out of your pedal chain. We put together a group of pedals that’s comprehensive enough to be more or less multi-purpose.

Once again, we’re powering our board with the MXR Iso-Brick Power Supply for its high number of outputs and its plentiful power. The CAE Wah goes first, providing two different wah voices—one warm, the other bright and aggressive—along with built-in boost circuit and controls to tailor the sound of the pedal to the needs of your gig. In the gain department, we’re bringing plenty of options. First, the MXR Octavio® Fuzz is for when you need to break out some sizzling, synth-like saturation. Next, the MXR EVH® 5150® Overdrive provides hyperdriven amp stack tones with a three-band EQ, a boost, and a noise gate so that you can have it the way you like it. The MXR Timmy Overdrive is back again to cover the inevitable need for impeccable sounding pedal overdrive, while the MXR Booster gives you a ton of extra gain with a little tonal sweet sauce on it for good measure. We chose the Way Huge® Supa-Puss™ Analog Delay for your time-based needs—it has a ton of features for customizing the tone and behavior of your repeats, including an onboard tap tempo switch. The MXR Reverb avails you of six different reverb styles, and when combined with the Supa-Puss Delay will take you way out there on Saturday night so that you can bring back the angelic atmospherics for Sunday. The last pedal in this chain is the Volume (X)™ Pedal for when the singer complains about how loud you are, or in case you want to control the Supa-Puss Delay pedal’s delay time.

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These are just starting points, and an infinite number of arrangements exist before, between, and after the three different examples in this article. As always, experiment with these suggestions to find the best solutions to your specific needs.

Strings are your first point of contact with your instrument—don’t treat them as an afterthought. Dunlop Acoustic Guitar Strings have been specifically engineered to project evenness and clarity across the range of the acoustic guitar. They come in two different styles: Phosphor Bronze, for rich warmth and depth, and 80/20 Bronze for vibrant, expressive clarity. Both sets are designed for comfort and for physical and tonal durability—they break in fast and sound great for a good long while so that you can spend more time playing and less time changing your strings.

If you play your acoustic guitar with a pick, then that’s your next point of contact with the instrument, and just as demanding of careful consideration. The acoustic guitar sounds different from an electric guitar, and it plays differently, too—make sure you find a pick that’s going to bring your favorite acoustic guitar to life. Thankfully, we make quite a few that will do that quite nicely. If you’re feeling experimental, check out our Acoustic Pick Variety Pack for a collection of picks that will awaken the true richness and resonance of your instrument.

In particular, we recommend Ultex® Standard Picks and Primetone® Picks. Ultex Standard Picks project loudly and clearly, making them a great choice for singer-songwriters belting out their vocals. Try out different gauges to find the tone and feel that work for you. Primetone Sculpted Plectra also provide excellent volume and clarity—they’re made from the same Ultex material—but they’re especially great for players who need to play fast with little resistance. Designed with a sculpted beveled edge, Primetone Picks play with the smooth, comfortable feel of a pick that’s worn its way through countless sessions of blissful play. If you’re into bluegrass, or are looking to try a new technique, check out the version with grip, but if you’re a jazzer, you might be more interested in the non-grip version for its warmer attack. Primetone Picks are available in many shapes and gauges for a variety of styles and tones, and each has that nice, smooth-feeling sculpted bevel.

If you play with your fingers, do yourself a favor and try out some fingerpicks and thumbpicks—you might discover a whole new voice inside your instrument. For a tiny investment, you can pick up one of our Player’s Packs—each includes 3 fingerpicks—index, middle, and ring—and a thumbpick.

Capos are a no-brainer for acoustic guitar players. Many classic songs rely on a capo for key changes, so having one on hand will help you ramp up your repertoire with songs that everyone can sing along to. We make a full range of capos at every price point, including our most popular Acoustic Trigger® Capo, which allows for fast-and-easy key changes.

Another classic accompaniment to the acoustic guitar, the slide adds a whole new layer of expressiveness and feel. This was demonstrated by none more brilliantly than the original blues greats, who used slides to elicit the full range of human emotion form their instruments, from yearning excitement to deep sorrow. Our Brass and Chrome Slides are the best choice for acoustic guitars with weights and tones that complement the thicker gauges and different materials used for acoustic guitar strings.

Straps offer a little more freedom to move around. We offer a full range of comfortable options at every price point, from elegant genuine leather and high quality jacquard-woven fabric with stylish designs to simple, classic nylon. Each features genuine leather ends. And if you’re using a strap, the best upgrade you can make to your acoustic guitar is to install a set of Straplok® Strap Retainers for ultimate security.

Keep your instrument clean with our Formula 65™ Cleaner-Polish. It’s long been the cleaner of choice for some of the most respected road techs in the business. Safe for most finishes, Formula 65 Cleaner-Polish guarantees a fresh playing experience every time you pick up your guitar and also ensures its long-term health.

Changing strings can be a headache, especially on acoustic guitars, but the System 65™ Guitar String Change Kit contains everything you need for a pain-free process: A String Cutter that easily goes through heavy strings, a Stringwinder so you can quickly wind up without tiring your wrist, Superlube™ Gel to keep your strings from catching in either the nut or saddles, and a hex Multi-Tool in case you need to give your truss rod a quick tweak. Oh, and it also includes a polish cloth for your Formula 65 Polish-Cleaner.

If you want to capture the rich resonance of your acoustic guitar on a recording, then make sure you’re set up properly. First, you want a clean signal, and MXR® Pro Series Instrument Cables are well-insulated to keep noise out—even that generated by computers. The MXR Bass Preamp features an XLR out for direct recording, and it gives you amazing control over your EQ. Despite its name, the pedal’s wide frequency range makes it great for acoustic guitars. You can even use the ¼” out alongside the XLR out to get different tones, mixing the two signals together or panning them left and right. The MXR Reverb is indispensable for recreating that lush sound of an acoustic guitar within an enclosed physical space, and finally, the MXR Studio Compressor gives you a ton of control over the dynamics of your signal, and it’s way better than any plugin in its price range.

We hope these recommendations bring new life to your acoustic experience. Don’t forget to share the share the magic with your family, friends, and beyond.

MXR^® DC BRICK^™
POWER SUPPLY

The MXR DC Brick Power Supply is super affordable, supplies a ton of power, and is built like a tank. It’s the perfect perfect option for a beginner’s home-based pedalboard. Originally under the broader Dunlop Electronics brand, the DC Brick Power Supply entered the MXR fold with a few upgrades. On top of the the short-circuit and overload protection of the original, the MXR version handles twice the power to accommodate a wider variety of pedals and voltage requirements. Additionally, each 9-volt output has a red LED that illuminates if there is a short so that you can quickly identify and troubleshoot any power issues—a massive boon when you’re dealing with more than a few pedals. Speaking of outputs, the DC Brick Power Supply has ten in total: eight 9-volt outputs and two 18-volt outputs.

If you’re setting up a pedalboard for the first time, the DC Brick Power Supply is beginner-friendly while more than meeting the requirements of most pedals on the market, allowing for a great variety of experimentation with tons of the most popular effects—from the Super Badass^® Distortion to the Carbon Copy^® Delay and the Cry Baby^® Wah.

MXR^® ISO-BRICK^™
POWER SUPPLY

The introduction of the DC Brick Power Supply presaged the arrival of the next power box on our list. The MXR Iso-Brick Power Supply is all about smooth live performances and more sophisticated tonal and technical tastes. Unwanted noise plagues many a player when they step on stage, whether it’s caused by a venue’s bad wiring or running multiple high-gain pedals in your chain. To protect your signal from such interference, the MXR team isolated each of the Iso-Brick Power Supply’s ten outputs so that none of them share an electrical connection. This also prevents a problem with one pedal from affecting the rest in your chain, reducing a potential disaster to a minor inconvenience. Running your pedals from isolated outputs is essentially like separately powering all of your pedals with super high-quality batteries.

Next, the Iso-Brick Power Supply is equipped with even more power, and that means it’ll run just about any pedal, digital or analog, positive or negative barrel—including the super advanced units favored by today’s tonal technicians. Six 9-volt outputs range from 100mA to 450mA, two 18-volt outputs provide 250mA, and two outputs adjustable from 6 volts to 15 volts provide 250mA. With these options, you can run the high-powered MXR Reverb just as easily as you can the much less demanding Phase 90.

MXR^® MINI ISO-BRICK^™
POWER SUPPLY

The last entry on our list in an interesting little guy. The Mini Iso-Brick Power Supply—as the name suggests—is much more compact than the DC Brick Power Supply and the Iso-Brick Power Supply, and with its five fully isolated outputs, this candy-bar-sized box is absolutely perfect for your downsized run-and-gun travel board. Awesome enough, right?

Well, the Mini Iso-Brick Power Supply has even more potential than that. With four 9-volt outputs at 300mA and one output adjustable between 9 and 18 volts at 800mA, this little box has all the power and versatility of the larger Iso-Brick Power Supply. Again, a more demanding pedal such as the Echoplex^® Delay will sit nicely alongside the Timmy^® Overdrive. Here’s where the Mini Iso-Brick Power Supply can take your pedalboard game to the next level, though: Combining two of minis on a regular or larger board gives you just as many outputs as the standard, but you’ll open up a whole new range of layout options so that you can get creative with pedal placements. And lest we forget: the Mini Iso-Brick Power Supply comes with a 2-way splitter cable to run two pedals of matching voltage from a single output provided their combined current requirements don’t exceed the output’s rating.

Like its brethren, the Mini Iso-Brick Power Supply is lightweight and built like a tank, so it’ll take a beating on the road and still keep you going from gig to gig. Whether you need to power a small, carefully curated selection of favorites or double up for a creative command center, this little box will get the job done and then some.

So now that you know which MXR power supply meets your needs, get out there and build that pedalboard. Your music is waiting.

If you’re a newer player still figuring out what your style is, or if you just want to jump into the mix of things, then you should try our original Pick Variety Packs.

Available in Light/Medium and Medium/Heavy versions, these packs cover a broad range of Dunlop picks in the standard pick shape and its closest variations. The standard pick shape is a tried and true option for just about every style, and these packs offer several different gauges, materials, tips, and gripping surfaces to test out with your playing style—whether acoustic or electric. If you’re more of a strummer, then check out the Light/Medium Pack. If you’re more of a lead player, or you like to fill both roles, then the Medium/Heavy pack is a great place to start.

If you’re an electric guitar player looking to change up your tone or find a pick that better matches your playing style, then get yourself an Electric Pick Variety Pack. The gauges, shapes, and materials have been specifically selected to complement the tonality and feel of the electric guitar, especially if you’re playing leads.

Thick picks with sharper tips help with control and precise single-note runs while softer, thinner materials help achieve a built-in compression to rhythms.

Acoustic guitars require a slightly different approach than electric guitars, so the Acoustic Pick Variety Pack features a range of picks to refine your unplugged sound. Look to the thinner picks if you’re a strummer—they offer a smooth attack and nice, natural compression for even volume across the strings.

Thicker picks complement the dexterity and clarity needed to execute arpeggios and solo licks. As with other packs, different materials allow for different tonal adjustments.

So you’ve been playing a while and developed pretty killer technique, but you feel like you’ve reached a plateau. It’s time to find a new pick that will allow you to take your fretboard fireworks to the next level.

The Shred Variety Pick Pack features a carefully curated selection of shapes, materials, and grips that each take a different approach to enhancing the precision, clarity, and speed of your attack. Have fun and experiment—you might find the pick that opens up your technique to a whole new realm of expression.

The Flow Pick Variety Pack spotlights the advanced design of the Flow Pick, precision-molded to step out of the way and allow your mastery of the fretboard to take center stage—whether you’re a shredder or a strummer.

Flow Picks feature a wide angle, sharp tip, beveled edge, and low-profile grip that come together to deliver a smooth playing experience that allows you to dig in hard, play fast, and show your work. Made from aeronautical-grade Ultex material, they come in Standard and Jumbo sizes and several different gauges—this pack collects them so that you can see which one is right for you.

The Jazz III Pick Shape has become a cult favorite among players who need to play hard and fast with precision, clarity, and control. First appearing as the red and black “Stiffo” Nylon Jazz III, the shape now comes in a variety of materials and sizes.

This pack collects the most popular varieties—from the Max-Grip^® Jazz III to the Ultex^® Jazz III XL. Tons of players, from Kirk Hammett to Joe Bonamassa, have said that the Jazz III shape totally changed the way they play—grab this pack and see if these picks have the same magic for you.

The John Petrucci Pick Variety Pack collects all four of John’s signature Dunlop picks, each expanding on the iconic Jazz III shape to suit his touring and recording needs—the JP Jazz III Pick (1), the JP Primetone^® Pick (1 black, 1 oxblood), the JP Trinity Pick (2).

This pack is a must-have for John Petrucci fans or any players who want to try some of the prog rock legend’s mystical mojo on for size.

There’s no easier way to enhance your playing experience than to try out a new pick and see how it improves your tone and feel. The Bass Pick Variety Pack brings together a collection of shapes and materials that perfectly complement the low end and playability of the electric bass, whether you’re playing hard and fast or leaning back with a tight, thumping groove.