Dig it! Dan and Mick tackle the "light vs heavy" string question...

gtrjunior said:
This^^^
I've learned that I play the strings that both feel and sound the best to me. I have 10's on my LP and that guitar sounds Huuuuuge.
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For me, it's always been the feel. I can always throw in a muff or something if I need it to sound bigger. I like my guitars to all have the same tension so they all play the same. It was funny though when I had 10s on my McFeely and my 7/8 Tele. The McFeely is 24" scale and the Tele is 24.75" so I thought the Tele would have higher tension, but the strings were rubbery compared to the McFeely. A few months ago it dawned on me, that the McFeely has the Mastery bridge and vibrato so the strings are a few inches longer on it. I upped the Tele to 11s and now the 2 are about the same. I think I could use 12s on the Tele to get it even closer but that would probably require some work on the nut and I'm not up for that.
 
bsman said:
I think that 10-46 are the default for most people. I tend to go up from there, using 11s on a couple of my guitars.
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For the longest time, I used 9s. It wasn't until around 2000 when I was playing in a band that tuned to Eb that I went to 10-46. Then when that band broke up, I had a million sets of 10s, I started playing in standard tuning and have been with them for the most part.
 
I gotta say my baritone with .013s always sounded huge. It’s not the tension, it’s the mass. Boris play everything tuned to A#, even on albums where they don’t use the extra low end, just to sound massive.
 
I use 11s or 12s, but it's more for playing feel, than sound. You can make 8s sound as good as 12s IMO, with the right amp settings.
 
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