Hey all you heavy gauge string users...

10's for me. I love how they bend on my Tele, 9's were too rubber band-y.

When I set my other Tele up for slide, I put on flat wound 12's, and OMG that guitar resonates so much better now. Give it a good strum and you can feel the whole guitar vibrating.

And since acoustic mediums are 13's, I just don't get how people can play 9's or smaller. I had 9's on my 335, and playing it after playing my acoustic I would fret every chord sharp. Thats with small vintage frets. Plus, I think the pull of 10 against the truss rod on the Tele just makes it more stable than with 9's.
 
I haven't watched the video yet... but I don't select my string gauge for any perceived tonal change, but simply feel.

I used to use 9's on Strat scale length guitars and 10's on Gibson Scale to even out the feel. I tried 9 1/2's on my PRS since the scale length split the difference, but started using light/heavy sets (10-52) when I started playing the funk stuff because when I would start jamming out the funk and reggae, the lower strings would warble flat if I hit the strings too hard.

I'm now using 10-52's on all of my guitars, but I keep my PRS guitars tuned to Standard and the Strat scale ones are a mix of Standard and Eb depending on the feel. Some guitars like the slinky Eb (like the Pink Charvel) while some guitars seem to thrive on the higher tension of E (the Pink Thorn).
 
My friend gave me a set of 10.5s that he was given and didn’t want to try.
I chose to put them on my Classic Vibe tele because I hated it’s current set so much (I’m pretty sure they were 9s.).
Instant and huge improvement. Mostly in how the strings feel under my fingers which was what I didn’t like about the old ones.

The gauge change altering the feel makes sense of course, but I was surprised at how much.

I do like the sound, too.
 
I don't think most listeners can hear a differences in string gauge (or guitar weight, or or shape of the guitar) but all of these specifications change how the guitar hangs on the player and how they wrestle it. I know when a strat hangs on me, my "resting fret hand" gravitates to the 7th fret and I love playing in that 5th fret to 12th fret area (even though I can play anywhere on the neck).

I find that when I pick up a 24 fret PRS or Charvel, my hand wants to rest closer to the 12th and I find myself playing the 12th - 19th frets much much more. Add in the fact that the 24 fret guitars don't require me to pivot my wrist to play those upper frets. Because of these things, if I pick up two different guitars, I'm very likely to improvise two completely different parts on the different guitars. Even same string guage, same amp, same clumsy musician... but if the guitar feels different, I'm likely to play it with a slightly different attack.
 
I used to use 11-52 on all guitars for some years. I've changed to 10-52 on G types and 10-46 on F. My fingers appreciate it and I actually find my tone spankier in direct contrast to my preconceptions.
 
I've always used 9-42 Super Slinkys, mostly for bendability rather than tone. Heavier strings are just too hard for my small, thin, girly fingers to bend.

It's interesting that they focused completely on the bass strings. I wonder if there's any difference in the unwound strings, especially while playing leads.
 
13 - 56 on the jag, 12 - 54 on the JM. I absolutely can hear thin strings, they sound like tissue paper. Distorted it’s harder to hear the difference. I’m going to move up to 14 - 60 at some point soon! They just feel and sound so much better for the heavy surf I play. The tone is more full, period.
 
I use 10's on all my guitars now. I used to use 8's or 9's, but when I bought my Steinberger I could only find 10's. Even ordering from Juststrings, usually they only had 10's in stock.

Now, 9's just feel wrong.
 
SurfPunker said:
13 - 56 on the jag, 12 - 54 on the JM. I absolutely can hear thin strings, they sound like tissue paper. Distorted it’s harder to hear the difference. I’m going to move up to 14 - 60 at some point soon! They just feel and sound so much better for the heavy surf I play. The tone is more full, period.
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What tuning do you use with those big wires? I found my Strat pretty hard to wrangle with 13's tuned to Eb, but the low mid snap was amazing. Too thick in the mix and not bright enough for most of the genres I play.
 
I hope they do a similar experiment with a clean tone. I'm not surprised at all by the results with a cranked marshall, but i've found heavier gauge strings just ring for days and sound better when playing clean stuff.

i also think the gauge has a lot of effect on feel, which affects my playing a lot. i'm not a fast player, so lighter strings are definitely a plus when i'm playing something that's tricky for my clunky fingers.
 
BlockInlay said:
I hope they do a similar experiment with a clean tone. I'm not surprised at all by the results with a cranked marshall, but i've found heavier gauge strings just ring for days and sound better when playing clean stuff.

i also think the gauge has a lot of effect on feel, which affects my playing a lot. i'm not a fast player, so lighter strings are definitely a plus when i'm playing something that's tricky for my clunky fingers.
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I found a half a box of 11s in a drawer. I strung up my Tele with them and playing it unplugged there was a huge difference in sound. So much bigger. It was too stiff though and the action went a little high, so I put 1os back on it. I should have plugged it in to see how different it sounded.
 
Chad said:
I found a half a box of 11s in a drawer. I strung up my Tele with them and playing it unplugged there was a huge difference in sound. So much bigger. It was too stiff though and the action went a little high, so I put 1os back on it. I should have plugged it in to see how different it sounded.
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i haven't played it in years, sorry to say, but i put 12's on my strat plus and it just sounded so pretty. playing it also felt like wrastlin an ornery alligator but my left hand got crazy strong.
 
I’m back to playing 10’s on my electrics. I play better on them and they work better for the music I play the most. Sometimes I bump up to 11’s and my arch top has 12’s on it.
 
BlockInlay said:
I hope they do a similar experiment with a clean tone. I'm not surprised at all by the results with a cranked marshall, but i've found heavier gauge strings just ring for days and sound better when playing clean stuff.

i also think the gauge has a lot of effect on feel, which affects my playing a lot. i'm not a fast player, so lighter strings are definitely a plus when i'm playing something that's tricky for my clunky fingers.
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Rhett did a followup and some of the playing is clean.


This definitely convinced me to try 9's next time I change strings
(I've been playing 10s for two decades).
 
I go back and forth between 9s and 10s, usually sticking to 10s. I like the tone of both. I felt the same about them in the video - I thought the 11s sounded muddy and the 8s sounded thin. 9s and 10s were both in the Goldilocks zone for me - sounded just right. Right now I'm playing 10s on everything, but I may go back to 9s...
 
I'm kinda doing things bass-ackwards because I have 10s on my B-bender Telecaster (tuned E standard), and 9s on my 24.75 scale Mockingbird (D standard) and Deamond Starfire Special (E standard, with a Bigsby).

Not sure why I'm doing that, other than it seems to be working and I don't want to change it.
 
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