Playing with heavier strings

[gnr2391]

Hey y'all,

 

So I play a Epiphone Sheraton II with 12 guage strings. The thing is that I feel that I can't do vibrato as well as I would like to because of the weight of the strings, however I can't let go of that fat sound that guys like SRV had. Plus, jazz, which is what I play a lot of as well, sounds better with a fatter sound imo which is what the thicker strings can give me. Needless to say, bending is a little tough too but I'm working on that. For those of you who play thicker strings, were they natural for you from the start or they took some getting used to?

 

THANKS A BUNCH GUYS!

[1001gear]

I progressed from 9s to 14s over a decade or so; and this on a Strat scale Carvin Bolt. While the tone and drive is no question, much fuller, a lot of the "thinness" I experienced with skinny strings was due to inept picking. That said, having progressively developed the required strength, 12s on a Gibson scale now feel like 10s and are quite wangable.

[M3NTA7]

One thing I've done to get a more meaty tone is to roll off the tone control a bit on the guitar. Instead of keeping it on 10, set it between 3 and 7 depending on your taste.

 

I've also heard that Billy Gibbons uses 8s!

 

Cheers!

[jeremy_green]

All I will say is be very careful with the big strings thing. My phase of trying that led to a pretty major flare up of my hand issues. Personally, I think it is over rated UNLESS you're using a pretty clean tone. If you you use much gain it pretty much negates most of the girth.

 

Yes! Gibbons uses .008's, my guitar tech is friends with his so i know this to be true. His tone is pretty damn meaty!

[JonnyPac]

I'm not a big string-bender these days, so 12's are nice on my jazz box. I keep 9's on a strat just in case I get rock-blues inspired though. I never play anything but 12's or 13's on my acoustics. Beefy sound is more important than anything to me.

[BydoEmpire]

I would carve out some time to simply practice your vibrato (regardless what gauge strings you use). Take 15 minutes and work on different motions (vertical, circular, etc); different speeds and attacks, etc. Practice making your vibrato smooth and calming, or aggressive and angry. IMHO it's like any other technique - if it isn't where you want then you have to practice it. Getting used to it on thicker strings will take some time, but so does everything else.

 

I went to 11s when I got my first strat, and it took a couple months to get used to coming from 10s on my 'shredder' Jackson. After that it felt great. Never went higher except on acoustic, but I tend to play differently on acoustic anwyays. Now I keep all my electrics with 10s. It's comfortable, I have had hand problems before and don't want them to flare up, and it makes it easier to change strings knowing I always have a set of 10s around. When I had different gauges on different guitars it was always a PITA to find the right string in the right set for the right guitar when I broke one.

[jeremy_green]

Yeah me too Bydo! It was a pain keeping all the strings organized. Now ALL my guitars have the same strings on them.

Honestly, the thickness of my strings is the last thing I need to worry about. Many wonderful players have made .010's sound perfectly fine.

 

Fix the hands and the string "problem" vanishes

[Hudman]

 

All I will say is be very careful with the big strings thing. My phase of trying that led to a pretty major flare up of my hand issues. Personally, I think it is over rated UNLESS you're using a pretty clean tone. If you you use much gain it pretty much negates most of the girth. Yes! Gibbons uses .008's, my guitar tech is friends with his so i know this to be true. His tone is pretty damn meaty!

 

 

I agree.

 

Heavy strings are a recipe for wrist and joint problems.

 

Everyone used 8's and 9' in the '80's. 10's are heavy enough.

[BydoEmpire]

Fix the hands and the string "problem" vanishes

One for the Christmas philosophy thread: Fix the ears and the brain problem vanishes. Fix the brain problem and the hand problem vanishes. Fix the hands and the string [insert any gear here] "problem" vanishes.

[1001gear]

I like my 14s. I use the wounds from a 12 set and they balance quite well. Tension and sonically. Also and surprisingly, the neck only needed a slight tweak of the truss. Anyway, absolutely Y E S - no it's not stuff to shred on. And bends max at around a half step. So why? Well picking is easy, stiffer resistance = consistent attacks. Sustain - natural compression is smoother. Tone - clean, distorted - easier to work with because of the sustain. Luvs 'em.

[oldschoolshred]

 

Hey y'all, So I play a Epiphone Sheraton II with 12 guage strings. The thing is that I feel that I can't do vibrato as well as I would like to because of the weight of the strings, however I can't let go of that fat sound that guys like SRV had. Plus, jazz, which is what I play a lot of as well, sounds better with a fatter sound imo which is what the thicker strings can give me. Needless to say, bending is a little tough too but I'm working on that. For those of you who play thicker strings, were they natural for you from the start or they took some getting used to? THANKS A BUNCH GUYS!

 

 

Everyone here obviously has their own tastes as should you, so based on what you said -that 12s seem slightly too heavy on your Sheraton- I suggest try 11s. The difference in tone isn't that big. Personally I think it's the ideal gauge for a 24.75" guitar you plan to bend with. Jazzers would prefer 12s or 13s but I agree it makes bending tough and at least it made me unconsiously avoid it. And I think one should strive to get the best tone possible but not at a great expense of playability. My two cents is these are the best gauges:

 

Acoustic 25.5" : 13s

Electric 25.5" for rock : 10s

Electric 24.75" for rock, blues or fusion : 11s

Jazzbox : 13s (don't try to bend)

[JonR]

 

Hey y'all, So I play a Epiphone Sheraton II with 12 guage strings. The thing is that I feel that I can't do vibrato as well as I would like to because of the weight of the strings, however I can't let go of that fat sound that guys like SRV had. Plus, jazz, which is what I play a lot of as well, sounds better with a fatter sound imo which is what the thicker strings can give me. Needless to say, bending is a little tough too but I'm working on that. For those of you who play thicker strings, were they natural for you from the start or they took some getting used to? THANKS A BUNCH GUYS!

 

I've never used anything as heavy as 12s on electric. Normally I have 10s on both my electrics (Epi Casino and Tele Custom). (I can get as fat a sound as I want on those guitars, because of the P90s on the Casino and the HB on the Tele).

What I do when I want a "jazz" sound is fit flatwound 11s. They give a nice mellow tone, with a useful increase in "meatiness", but still bendable. (Although I tend to bend less often when paying jazz.)

Traditional jazz strings were always flatwound (IIRC). They don't sustain as well as roundwound, and aren't as bright, but that's fine with me.

 

BTW, I used 12s for years on acoustic, but have come down to 11s. That's the reverse of electric, where I began on 9s (even sometimes on 8s), but eventually got fed up with the thinness of tone, and weakness of response and - as my hands strengthened - moved up to 10s. (I use very little distortion, and I like to get as much tone from the string as I can.) On acoustic, I realised I didn't need the extra volume of 12s and what I gained moving down to 11s was worth it - I play fingerstyle, I don't strum hard.

 

BTW (2) - remember SRV tuned down a half-step, making 13s roughly as manageable as 12s (or even 11s) in EADGBE.

[Alex_DeLarge]

In wikipedia it says that SRV got to play .018-0.74 is that true?

[girevik]

 

So I play a Epiphone Sheraton II with 12 guage strings. The thing is that I feel that I can't do vibrato as well as I would like to because of the weight of the strings, however I can't let go of that fat sound that guys like SRV had. Plus, jazz, which is what I play a lot of as well, sounds better with a fatter sound imo which is what the thicker strings can give me. Needless to say, bending is a little tough too but I'm working on that. For those of you who play thicker strings, were they natural for you from the start or they took some getting used to?

 

 

When I got my first steel string acoustic, it had .013 gauge strings. Before I got it, I practiced only on electric guitars, which have .009 and .010 gauge strings. So no, it did not feel natural for me to bend the .013 strings on my acoustic.

 

Ways to squeeze more "warmth/fatness" out of your guitar that do not require a string change or great expense:

 

1. Try different picks. Some picks tend to produce brighter tones than others, because of the material used. The thickness of the pick is also a factor.

 

2. Use a finger to pluck a note instead of a pick. The flesh (not nail) of your finger naturally produces a fatter tone than any pick.

 

3. Experiment with picking closer to the fingerboard, or even over the fingerboard - vs. picking close to the bridge.

[girevik]

 

Jazzers would prefer 12s or 13s

 

 

Mike Stern and Pat Metheny use .011s and I like their clean tones more than most other jazz guitarists. Metheny isn't a huge bender, but Stern is. Then again, Stern plays a Tele-style guitar while Metheny plays an archtop (most of the time).

[capitalist]

I use .010's and can feel my testicles shrink when you guys talk about anything larger than .011's.

[girevik]

I use .010's and can feel my testicles shrink when you guys talk about anything larger than .011's.

 

My only .013 guitar is the steel string acoustic. My electric guitars have .009s.

 

Who's gonna call Billy Gibbons less of a man for using .008s?

[1001gear]

What did Ted Nugent use? That's the best wanky/ballsy tone I've heard.

[JonR]

What did Ted Nugent use? That's the best wanky/ballsy tone I've heard.

You may find this interesting:

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showpost.php?p=9670632&postcount=50

- which claims his standard choice was 11s, tuned down a half-step (although he used different gauges on different guitars)...

 

or this:

http://forums.birdsandmoons.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-6204.html

which claims they were 10s.

 

IOW, nothing unusual either way.

 

IMO, tone - of that nature anyway - is less to do with string gauge and more to do with string type (and how new they are) and then pickups, effects, amp settings - and plain/simple articulation: ie how you use your pick and fingers .

[1001gear]

The second link is a different thread unless I misread. Cool stuff regardless. Thx.

[JonR]

The second link is a different thread unless I misread. Cool stuff regardless. Thx.

There's a post some way down which states: "I use a .010 .012 .016 .026 .036 .046 set a lot, Ted Nugent's choice..."

- and the choice of countless others', one might add (few of whom would sound like Nugent).

[1001gear]

K.

 

I was going through T Nugent Ytubes looking for that fat tone. Heard nothing but thin lifeless white noisy tone. I thought memory had failed me until I realized I'm on inch and a half speakers lol. Busted out the phones and that did the trick. whew...

Not as fat other later guitarists though. Better gear I suppose.

[karma279]

All my acoustics have 12's.... my electrics have always held 10's until the other day... I did a re-string of 5 or 6 guitars and put 9's on my USA Strat. It is definitely a different feel... its been years since I've used under a 10 or a custom set. I'm a hard strummer and fret way to tight to be ergonomic.... so I find myself lightening up. But teh bends are the {censored}

 

And I couldn't imagine playing anything over 11's on an electric. I would cramp like a mofo

[dparr]

I love to bend way too much to use real heavy strings.

 

I use light top heavy bottom (10-52).

 

The best of both worlds for me.

[karma279]

I use light top heavy bottom (10-52). The best of both worlds for me.

 

Like Sir Mix-Alot? Little in the middle but she got much back...