PicStix – review

PicStix is a fantastic option for keeping picks handy while playing guitar.

One of the somewhat difficult decisions that needs to be made when playing live shows is how to store extra guitar picks within easy reach. There’s nothing more annoying than dropping a pick on stage and then having to try and find it on the ground. Sure, there are pick holders that you can attach to microphone stands, but what if you are not near it? People have resorted to things like double-sided tape, which just ends up leaving sticky residue, or even worse, damaging a guitar’s finish.

PicStix is a new product that provides the benefits of holding guitar picks wherever you need them most, without the drawbacks of the other methods. It is an adhesive gel strip that can stick to many flat surfaces, giving you a way to keep you guitar picks close at hand. PicStix are also reusable, once the gel strip loses its adhesiveness you can rinse it off in water, dry it off, and get back to using it. It all sounded pretty impressive in writing so I just had to try it.

Just like the information on the PicStix website states, installation is very simple. Take one adhesive strip, remove the backing, and place it on a clean surface (guitar body in my instance). Remove the other backing and simply stick your guitar picks on the adhesive surface, that’s it! Nice and simple, but does the product hold up?

I’m pleased to say that I’ve had two PicStix installed on two of my main guitars for the past two months, each holding three picks. Only one of them started to lose it’s adhesiveness in this time, and it was as simple as rinsing off the strip, drying off and applying back on to the guitar. The strip held just as well as it did when I first applied it.

One thing to note is that it is not recommended to apply PicStix to guitars that have a nitrocellulose finish. Everything else should hold up fine though.

The only issue I has with installing one of the strips is when I tried to use it on the lower horn of my Strat. This had nothing to do with the product. The inside of the curve is more extreme than my Ibanez guitars, so it wasn’t possible to stick three picks to it in this spot. To maximise the amount of picks that PicStix can hold just make sure that the surface you are applying it to is fairly flat.

Over the PicStix is a very cool product for not a lot of coin. It’s not often that a product that is cheap and easy to use really lives up to expectations, but the PicStixs definitely did. If you are looking for a surefire way to keep your guitar picks close to you at all times, and are sick of using stuff that either doesn’t hold them properly, leaves residue or even damages your guitar then give some PicStix a try.