About strings and recording

stoctony

New member
has anyone found a difference in the sound quality when recording using light versus heavy acoustic strings.
 
Unless you are tuning down by at least one step, you should NEVER use heavy gauge strings on an acoustic guitar. The top and the neck are not able to handle that kind of tension. Remember, all guitar builders and designers are walking a fine line between a guitar which can handle the tension involved and sounding good. We try to build them as lightly as we can to make them sound good, without blowing up. Any factory guitar should be able to handle mediums without problem, but heavies are just to much.

As to your question, yes, there is a huge difference between lights and mediums. I usually like the sound of mediums more, but I have pretty severe hand problems so I use lights on most of my guitars. We string up almost all of our guitars at the shop with medium gauge strings when we ship them out, unless we have been asked to do otherwise. The exception to this is our small bodied Parlor guitars, which seem to be overdriven by the mediums.

Bob Taylor has fairly strong opinions about this. It is his opinion that anything smaller than a Dreadnaught or a Jumbo should be strung up with lights, because he thinks the tops sound better when they are not forced to move so far. I have a different view, though, as I find the lights do not give as wide of a dynamic range, which is very important to me. I want a guitar which sounds as good when you are lightly fingerpicking as when you are strumming like a weight lifter on amphetamines. I find this is difficult with light strings, but mediums do a great job of it.

Just a little story about heavies. I have a little copy of an old ladder braced Gibson L-0 which I made about eight years ago. It has a short scale, and I was needing to tune it down to a C# (I was trying to learn some Leo Kottke song, and he tunes down that far) so I strung the guitar up with heavies so that it could handle being down that far. Not thinking too much, I took the guitar to a class, which meant I had to tune it up to standard pitch so I could play with the rest of the class. I like the sound so much that I mistakenly left it that way. About a week and a half later, I noticed the shape of the braces transferring through the top. Too much tension and it did not take long to do it. I now keep that guitar strung up with mediums, because it just doesn’t sound right with lights. It has stabilized with the mediums, but I still have to keep an eye on it because of the damage I did when I put those heavies on.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Light: Question

What are the starting guages for Light (no pun intended), Medium and heavy?

We only get 10,11 guages easily in India. 12 is difficult to find. 13 is impossible. In my mind 10s are superlight and very difficult to strum with, 11 is slightly better, I assume 10 is light and 11 is medium-light. 12s are very good but tough to find and 13 is best for my playing style, though it may be difficult on my instrument.

I find myself using 11s all the time but they are not easy to strum with - they bend too easily, and require more pressure. So, am I using light or medium-light?
 
Gauges

Sangram,

I use light PBs on one of my guitars (.012 .016 .024 .032 .042 .053), which I think are standard lights as far as the terminology goes..

And medium PBs on another (.013 .017 .026 .035 .045 .056).

I agree with what you're saying - it is difficult to drive the top with ultra-lights, and I could see all kinds of problems with the high e slipping off the fretboard..

I wonder if one did the opposite of what Light explained - tune UP a whole step with the ultra-lights - it might help a little (if those .11s are all you can get!)?

Best of luck,
Jim
 
Yeah, Jim, that's a good solution, unfortunately I won't be able to play with the guitar a step up, since I play along with CDs most of the time. Also my vocal range is kinda limited.

Thanks for the guide on guages. Really helps.
 
Sangram said:
Light: Question

What are the starting guages for Light (no pun intended), Medium and heavy?

We only get 10,11 guages easily in India. 12 is difficult to find. 13 is impossible. In my mind 10s are superlight and very difficult to strum with, 11 is slightly better, I assume 10 is light and 11 is medium-light. 12s are very good but tough to find and 13 is best for my playing style, though it may be difficult on my instrument.

I find myself using 11s all the time but they are not easy to strum with - they bend too easily, and require more pressure. So, am I using light or medium-light?

I tend to consider the D'Addario sets to be standard, as they are what we sell the most of. For acoustic, that means .012" to .052" or .053" for lights, and .013" to .056" for mediums. Heavies are .014" to .059". D'Addario makes a custom light set which is .011" to .052", and a extra-light set which is .010" to .047". They also make a Bluegrass set which uses the high three from a set of lights, and the low three from a set of mediums.


So I would call what you are using custom lights or extra lights.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Hey Light,

Thanks for the enLIGHTenment......OK, Yeah Pretty bad. You obviously are the man when it comes to strings.
I am using Elixir .010-.047. I switched to these for the higher "twang" ( i guess you could call it.) Im just really getting frustrated. I record solo acoustic. I have a recording booth. Mostly sound deadening. I am recording direct and with a AT3035 at the same time. My gutair is an Ibenez AEF20 with an AEQ pickup. I really am trying to put a CD together to send to some agencys and for some reason i just cannot get the right tone quality on the gutair just right. I try to compare it to some pro solo acoustic but i cannot get it right. Please help.
 
I have a friend that swears by using custom lights for recording. Says they sound like shit playing live, but really translate well on his recordings using an AT3035 and with a touch of eq.

Just thought I'd throw that in..
 
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