heavy strings

[six]

the other day I played a cheap squier strat and I really liked it - exept for the strings. must have been 008's or something cause they felt like rubberbands... but the tone was still great.

I really don't get it anymore... this was a cheeeeeeeeap guitar with extremely light strings whereas I play a mid-price japan jackson with a di marzio humbucker and 011 strings... and I thought the squier sounded better (ok, I always think the stuff in the guitar-shop sounds better than my equipment).

I really start to wonder if heavy strings only sound good on heavy guitars (my jackson looks like kate moss).

Any opinions?

 

[BrettB]

0.11 sound great on strat I think. Depends on taste and style.

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Sometimes you can fool yourself because the lighter strings initially feel really cool...but the thrill usually wears off pretty damn quick when you start playing for real. Sometimes I'll drag out my old Ibanez which has .010's or something and it's fun to just wail a way for a few minutes and I think, why the hell did I buy a better guitar and why the hell did I put heavy strings on it? Then after a bit I take the LP back out and oh yeah, that's why.

Also, it's been a long time since I've seen a jackson, but I seem to remember them being tailored to the hair rock crowd of the late 80's. Maybe your playing style has changed...maybe it's time for a fender and a more "natural" tone? Or maybe just a change of pickups.

Finally, what amp were you plugged into? If at home you're playing through some shitty peavey and at the store you plugged into a fender twin...well, there you go.

Anyhow, I seriously doubt it was the strings themselves making the huge difference in the sound. You can put 13's on a piece of shit $150 guitar and it's not going to sound any better.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[Krystof01]

I agree with slackmaster. The ease of playing on a guitar with 8's, 9's or even 10's. That's what happens when your in a guitar shop; you never find guitars with 11's up (electrics (or most people wouldn't buy them)). The novelty wears off and you realise why you changed up in the first place.

 

[Tom Hicks]

When I was a Jackson guitar tech,the endorcee roster went from Dave Mustaine (there's your hair band Slack) to Phil Collin to Steve Cropper.I have an old charvel strat;roller nut and stack bucker in the bridge,that sounds absolutely vintage.
Here's my take on string diameter for electric guitars.The more your tone relies on compression and distortion,the less string diameter matters.The more you play with a clean tone,the more obvious the difference of using heavier strings.
Tom

gigging with the red charvel strat

 

[getuhgrip]

Light gage strings feel like a young hard belly until the first time you bend a chord into something ugly!

 

[badgas]

Yeah, I agree. Heavy strings are a bit harder to bend at first, but they sound fuller.
On a guit of a lesser quality, like a weak neck, I'd use med gauge, but for a fine instrument, go heavy unless that light gauge is the sound your looking for.

 

[gibs]

Slackmaster2K, learn me something....are .010's considered light?...to me, the difference between 10's and .009's is huge....I thought 10's were considered sorta "regular gauge"....I can't deal with anything much heavier, I might as well be playing my acoustic.....so maybe this is just a personal ability thing as well as a tone thing......?......seriously, a real question, not a joke or bait.....

I've got 10's on my lps, but my strat and tele have 9's.....now mind you, the 10's on the gibsons are gibson strings....and the 9's on the fenders are fender strings......I had fender 10's on the strat and they were uncomfortable for me, whereas the gibson 10's are very comfortable on the lp's......the gibson 10's seem lighter than the fender ones to me.......is this a side effect of the shorter scale of the lps?.......or am I just stupid......that could be it..... .............seems like the shorter scale would logically make the strings have more tension instead of less, no matter what the gauge......which makes me even more stupid, because I know nothing of physics...........

also, it's quite possible that I'm a dumbass because I buy fender and gibson strings, but I'm really very unfamiliar with all the other million brands......anyway, I seem to be rambling....the strings on my fenders work for me, and the strings on my lps work for me....but enlightenment would be nice.......gibs

 

[Slackmaster2K]

gibs, no I don't consider 10's to be light...and I agree they're usually considered "regular". 10's are all my Ibanez can hold, and they're a guage lighter than the strings I put on my les paul, so it still feels really easy to play initially. Unfortunately 11's are all my LP will hold...I thought about going up a notch a couple years ago but the rod is totally maxed out (stress from previous owners perhaps) and I like the action where it is. 11 is a good weight.

I put 13's on my Ibanez once just to see if they'd take...the bridge came up off the guitar (spring loaded) when I tried to bring them up to pitch. So I left them tuned low, and but the neck was so warbly that it just didn't work. It was made for light strings.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[jimistone]

i use the heavier gauges of strings. i like 12's, but right now im using 11's (wasn't playing live that much and lost some of my bending strenth). For the style of playing that i do anything lighter than 11's are out of the question. I play blues and i really strike a strings hard on bends...10 gauge or under e-strings don;t last 1/2 way through the 1st set...i rip them slap off the guitar. I like heavier gauge top e strings than come with a standard 11 gauge set (i like the top e to be over 50 gauge). Heavy strings give you better tone and sustain. I don't really think you can play blues with those real slinky strings...well, at least I can't...and i've tried. The down side to a playing style like mine is that hammering heavy strings with a heavy pick (don't give me one of those pussy thin picks) and doing real deep bends wears your frets out alot quicker than a rock style with light strings. i've broken a nut or 2 also...not to mention screwing up your finger tips on your left hand. But, I do get a kick out of letting nurses stick my ring finger on my left hand to do a blood test...they are amazed that no blood will come out..i guess its a solid callous.

 

[baldguy]

I had really good luck with the BBKing Gibson strings. Mediumish gauges on the high strings and heavy guages on the bottom 4. Couldn't beat em with a stick, but the store that used to carry them doesn't anymore so I'm outta luck.

 

[six]

Also, it's been a long time since I've seen a jackson, but I seem to remember them being tailored to the hair rock crowd of the late 80's. Maybe your playing style has changed...maybe it's time for a fender and a more "natural" tone? Or maybe just a change of pickups.

ha, slack... you said it!

at least I have a s-s-h version (with the head-plate showing to the floor, haha) and the humbucker's a di marzio superdistortion which is quite nice I guess... not that 'metal'.
but the neck is sooooooo thin (as I said) - what the hell is it good for?
you're right - when I have the money to buy another guitar it'll be a fender (ok, I can't afford anything better than a mexican one) s-s-s... single-coils rule!

does someone have a spare white '57?

 

[Krystof01]

The BB king ones are 10-54(or is it 56) aren't they?; I used them for a while before' moving up'. On my LP I am using 10-54 at the moment (Dean marley LTHB's (light top/heavy bottom), 11's on my super strat and 12's on the rest.

In my opionion Les Pauls don't need overly heavy strings due to it's natural sustain (it's also hard to bend those frets, around 17 upwards with heavy strings on (above 11's) and the single cutaway).

I try and get 13's but there harder to find (even in bulk). If I have 13's on, I need to get into it (playing at least an hour or two a day) or else I can't play the thing.

 

[Dunder XIII]

I've been playing with .10's for a while but I've detune my string to Eb last week and, of course, its much easier to bend (and I like it ). Does anybody think that there's an adverse effect doing this (other than changing the key of open chords)?

If not, why not put .13 and detune to something like D ? Won't this put almost the same tension as lower gauge strings on the neck??

 

[Slackmaster2K]

Lots of famous players use heavy strings and tune to Eb. However, 13's at Eb is not equivalent to 11's at E...not by a long shot.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[64Firebird]

Over the years, I've been going to fatter strings. I just put on a set of 11's, tuned it up, strumed an open E and WOW! Really big sound. Also, I can do a faster vibrato with the bigger strings. I'll play these for a while and then try out some 12's (if I can find any).

Fat strings rule!

 

[Dunder XIII]

I wonder if there's any string gauge tension vs tuning tension (against a reference gauge of course) chart out there on the web (something like: how to tune any gauge to feel like .010!) hehe. Even if its as low as C, B or A etc.

Anyway, saying this to all readers in advance: Happy new year!

 

[toyL]

excellent thread...I’m of the opinion that musicians are constantly searching for a better sound or “that certain sound”…and so, we endlessly examine the critical elements involved whenever and wherever we hear the guitar—the coolest fucking thing since Prometheus brought us fire…so yeh, it can seem like other peoples’ “stuff” sounds “better”…but, maybe it only “sounds” better because it’s bouncing off a show-room wood-floor and you’re hearing “more” reflections than you are used to…or maybe it sounds better for any one or a combination of thousands of other possible reasons—only one of which would be the strings…so, it's hard to tell for sure in any given instant...how do ya get that tone from the 1st seven seconds of jeff beck’s version of “rollin and tumblin” on You Had It Coming? (someone please tell me)..."strings", for me, are pretty straight-forward...to begin with, there are probably only a few manufacturers of the raw material used to "make" strings...so no matter what brand-name is on the pkg, chances are, they came from the same place as any other brand-name...(cheap may actually be better here folks)... personally, 8s and 9s are for speed and accuracy, but, they won't hold up live live...and yeh, as others have said, you gotta watch the neck...

 

[six]

hey! my japan jackson with the supermodel neck can't be that bad then - 011 for some years now and it didn't break!

but I had to put 5 (instead of 2) springs to the floyd rose... it helps also to stay a bit better in tune when bending - unison bends can sound quite bad when your vibrato-system slacks (is that the word?).

btw: do floyd rose systems kill more of the guitar's sound than "normal" systems?

 

[six]

200th post

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