Why would material matter? The material choice is critical. It determines the hardness, strength, flexibility, rate of wear, grip, deformability of a product, and more. These choices are prevalent in all engineering; bridges, aircraft, drill bits, guitars.... choose the wrong hardness, for example, and your drill bit will blunt; choose the wrong wood for your guitar and it might sound bad...
Picks are no different. There are many materials in use, but the majority of picks are: nylon, polycarbonate, celluloid, delrin (tortex) or polyetherimide (ultem). Other materials are useful but less common, i.e. resins and acrylics, woods, metals, leather and more. We believe long life, flexibility, hardness and low friction are key to material choice. Prioritising these characteristics gives you a strong, clear sound without sacrificing playability.
Our ideal materials are nylon and polycarbonate. Nylon is exceptional in that it provides low friction, flexibility, abrasion resistance and low deformation. Polycarbonate is also great, it's especially hard and still features good flexibility, low-friction, low deformation and abrasion resistance characteristics. This means each choice will be complementary to your playing, translating to easy string contact and transitions, good feedback, a long life and efficiency; whilst because of the hardness you will find polycarbonate being louder.
We chose to manufacture our new Premium series of plectrums from Polycarbonate for exactly this reason - less effort, stronger sound! That said, material choice is only part of the journey..
Have a great weekend!