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ok, ok , where the hell have i been? it took me 2 hours to change over , and readjust my guitar to use 11's. wow, what a difference. wish i'd done it sooner. a total mind blower. i'm just saying........ sure glad i'm on this site!
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01-27-2010 11:20 PM
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what did you have on before?
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15s
Originally Posted by SamBooka
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i had 10's , played these all my life. got carried away here, i just was amazed at the difference in the sound. i'm better now............
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What guitar is this, your G&L ASAT (Tele)? On the Tele forum, the standard string gauge question is: "9 or 10"? Here it seems to be "11 or 12". Of course, one factor is how much you need to bend notes. But a big factor is the style of guitar. On solid bodies, you can get away with thinner strings while on archtops, heavier strings really make a big difference to drive the top of the guitar. Another factor is scale length: when you move from 25.5" scale length (Fenders and some archtops) to 24.75" (many Gibsons) you can bump up one gauge, say 11 to 12, and keep the same feel. Originally Posted by freddy j
I used 14s for a long time and now on 13s I feel like I'm on holiday!
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I find 11's are nice on a 25.5" scale solidbody guitar. I too used to use 10's for years, but now they seem way too slinky. Recently changed, and liking it, to 13's on my archtop. 15's still seems a way off though!
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big daddy, leo fender, and george fullerton, combined talents to manufactor guitars, after they sold fender to some large corp. the asat, is a telecaster, they make srats , and alot more. really well made american guitars . i have often heard that they rival fenders custom shop stuff. don't know personally but i do love mine. plays fast, looks great , and imo sounds awesome. i believe these are a great value, and very under rated. always played gibsons back in the day , can't afford new ones now. i did just buy a es 135, used, got real lucky. hopefully there is still some music left in it. later
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Yeah, I have at least .11's on all my solidbodies, and .12's on my jazzers. Welcome to the land of fatter tone.
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Years ago, when I was a little bitty picker, I asked the late Sterling Morrison (once of the Velvet Underground -- oh, that's not a jazz band?) about string gauges. He said that VU always strung their guitars with heavier gauges and tuned down to D# or D to compensate for the tension.
Consequently, I started with .013s (acoustic) and .011s (electric) right away. These days I have .011s on my SG and .012s on the 335. When I (very rarely) pick up a young person's electric, I am shocked at the thinness of the strings. I couldn't play them without inadvertently bending them up a semitone or so.
Heavier strings stay in tune better, too, especially on Bigsby-equipped guitars. Kids buy instruments with Bigsbys, string them with .009s, then complain that "Bigsbys won't stay in tune."
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A grosso modo, and in standard tuning:
25.5" scale:
11s= light
12s= med
13s= heavy
24.75" scale:
12s= light
13s= med
14s= heavy
15s= Pat Martino. Actually, he plays a hybrid set with light gauge wounds.
This is based on the gauges that Fenders and Gibsons were shipped with in the 50s and 60s, + my own experience. 9s and 10s are basically a med gauge set sans the 6th + a banjo string 1st.
Anyway, that's my version and I'm sticking to it
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tomastik .014s....flatwound...
I've had two sets in 15 years...
Ready to change to the third set....
time on the instrument...pierre
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That is pretty good Pierre. I hate them after about a month.. after 3 months I have to change them (the intonation is usually pretty whacked by that point too). What thomastiks do you us? I use the George Benson 14s from juststrings.com (who are amazing btw).
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A friend likes Thomastik-Infelds for his acoustic. I put TI Jazz Flats on all my basses -- they are pricey (the last set was $55) but last, as Pierre noted with his guitar strings, as close to forever as you can get in this vale of tears.
My AV '57 has a set I took off my Classic '50s Precision (the buyer wanted roundwounds so I swapped strings between the new '57 and the older Classic).
So far, I've only strung up basses with them -- I'm never RE-strung!
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thats it man...
George Bensons..at juststrings...
time on the instrument...pierre
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I just got them on this aft. New strings make such a difference..
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Although I have heard that at one point (in the 70's maybe) he was actually using an 18 as his top string! Originally Posted by Peter C
He probably thinks that 15's are slinky gauge...
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Yeah.. and he played an L5S because he was worried about the top collapsing under those 18s Originally Posted by Meggy
Although I have heard that at one point (in the 70's maybe) he was actually using an 18 as his top string! He probably thinks that 15's are slinky gauge...
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Well, he certainly got a killer guitar tone out of it! Although I'm not sure if you are pulling my leg about the top collapsing worry! Originally Posted by SamBooka
One can but imagine that the tension on an 18 set would be quite something though... A man with strong fingers for sure.
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i'm on 0.12 flat wounds. wound g string. ^^
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I think Pat Martino's flatwound set gauges are 15p 18p 24 32 42 52. Pretty light on the bottom 4. Originally Posted by Peter C
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The biggest decision is giving up the unwrapped G, but once you make that adjustment it is hard to go back to skinny strings.
My 1940s Gibson catalogue offers strings with wrapped B strings.
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I went string mad yesterday and re-strung several of my guitars with new guages.
I won't go heavier than 11's if I'm using an unwound 3rd. I bought a Tele yesterday and one of the goals is to use 11's with it to get some of those pedal steel style bends you can't do with either a Strat or with a wound 3rd
My archtops get 12's, roundwound on my Eastman with the new Duncan p-rails and chrome flats on my Sorrento. I tend to prefer flats with humbuckers as they have a bit more midrange punch.
I actually just went down to 10's on my gypsy guitar, but it does have a 26" scale. I actually wanted less fundamental on the high E and B strings and more overtones. I'm considering a hybrid heavy-light set, with the bottom 3 strings from an 11's set and the top 3 strings from a 10's set.
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I use 0.012 - 0.052 with a 0.022 plain G. I find the tensions to be even over the whole set. With D'Dadarrio the wound has a much heavier tension and I find the sound seems to have a lot more punch than the other strings. Plus it is nice to be able to bend if I like.
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I'm using a hybrid set as well on my L5 Washburn OE 40. 11 14 18 26 36 49 Half Rounds. D'Addario calls this set a "balanced" set. A real versatile string set. I like them.
Last edited by ChuckCorbis; 09-29-2014 at 03:36 PM.
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Here's something interesting relating to string gauge. Last year I bought the pictured Carvin SH550, which had been strung with Thomastik-Infeld flat-wounds. I long ago settled on my preferred strings, D'Addario .11 or .012 round-wounds with a wrapped G.
I pulled out a set of .011s (I buy string sets by the dozen) and found that the .052 low E would not go through the hole in the tuner post. I had to go out and buy an .049 to fit. Luckily, only the low E was affected. I strung up the other five strings with no drama.
The Carvin uses "locking" tuners where you run the string through the hole in the post, then tighten a thumb screw on the bottom of the tuner mechanism to lock it in place, so you need not wrap several coils around the tuner post.
I guess this is a testament to popularity of very small gauge strings. Personally, I can't play a set of .009s in tune to save my life.
It's a little ironic that this guitar is equipped with a Bigsby vibrato, which I learned with 25 years experience with a Gretsch Country Gent, was designed during the era that .013s were considered "light gauge."
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