# String Myths Part 1



## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

I found this interesting column in the new issue of Premier Guitar.

I think much of the contemporary desire for heavier gauges is due to tuning down, but he had some good points in the column anyway.

String Myths Part 1


----------



## kat_ (Jan 11, 2007)

zontar said:


> I think much of the contemporary desire for heavier gauges is due to tuning down, but he had some good points in the column anyway.


Thanks for posting that article. 
Tony Iommi uses very light strings and tunes down as far as C#. I can't imagine that. I have 11-49 on my G&L ASAT (standard tuning) and 11-52 on my other G&L (tuned down a whole step). When other people play the ASAT they can't believe they're 11s. The guitar is set up with very low action and well polished frets so it still plays like butter. I used to use lighter strings on it but the first string was always quieter than the others and just lacked tone. Since I went to 11s all 6 strings sound good.


----------



## ezcomes (Jul 28, 2008)

very nice...i play 10s mostly...i was playing 9s but i kept breaking them, although am known to pick up 9s every now and again...i play 12 on my warlock, but thats tuned down 1 1/2


----------



## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

On electric, 10s have been my string of choice for years because I get a bit more volume and tone from them, and a more even vibrato. That little bit of extra string tension seems to suit me. The bulk of my playing is on flattop acoustics so I'm used to 12s, but find anything heavier than 10s on electric makes bends trickier. 

As for breakage, I've very little experience with it. A well set-up guitar (including fresh strings) and light technique more or less eliminates it. 

(An aside: I can't count the number of people who complain about their guitars being unplayable, quit playing because they can't hack the tension, marvel at so-and-so's guitar that's just like their own but is easy to play, break strings constantly...blah blah blah...when all they need is the right gauge and decent set-up to suit.) 

Peace, Mooh.


----------



## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

String gauge is a many-splendoured thing. Change gauge and you change a lot more things than many people think about.

Now, when the string consists of more....stuff (i.e., it's thicker) then it has a greater chance of producing more influence on the magnetic field of the pickup, hence more output. At the same time, the thicker the string, the stiffer it is. And stiff objects will have less harmonic content, simply because they cannot wobble freely into quite as many subdivisions. It is those subdivisions that provide the harmonic content, and if the string can't bend and wiggle freely, you won't get them. 

One of the reasons why wound strings ARE wound is because it provides a strig that can maintain enough rigidity to take on a low pitch, yet maintain enough flexibility to still produce plenty of harmonic content. If you've never played flatwounds before, give it a whirl and you'll see what I mean.

Of course, the flexibility of the string and harmonic content is also related to the length of the string. An iron bar 2 feet long will not wobble, but an iron bar of identical thickness that is 20 feet long CAN wobble. If you have any sort of octave divider, like an MXR Blue Box, you will be familiar with how it tends to perform more predictably once you get above the 5th fret or so. Why? Because the higher up you go, the stiffer the remaining string length becomes, and the less harmonic content there is (compared to the fundamental) to befuddle the octave-extracting circuitry.

So, it is worth noting that most of these people in the article who employed heavier gauge strings tuned down were using Strats, not shorter gauge Gibsons. The slightly longer string of a Strat permits a thicker high E tuned down to still wobble a little more freely than it would on a shorter scale instrument. Of course you can still use heavy gauge strings tuned down on a shorter scale instrument, and some do, but these are not folks looking for pristine clean glassy sounds of the type that Stevie would often aim for.

Another thing that comes with heavier gauge strings is not only the extent to which they yield less to your fretting fingertips, but also the extent to which they yield to your pick. If you like the precise and crisp strumming you're likely to find on a Ventures, Shadows, or similar tune, you won't be able to get it with floppy strings, whether they are a set of Super Slinkys, or a set of heavy gauge tuned down. The string has to resist or picking in order to behave in that sonic manner.

And, because the wobble less freely, heavier gauge strings also have a different envelope, coming to rest from the initial attack transient slightly more quickly. If you want to be Steve Cropper, and get those punctate sharp jabs, super light strings or anything floppy is not going to do it for you.

In BB King's case, of course, other factors enter into it. He's diabetic (like me) and has to regularly jab his fingertips to meaure his blood glucose (something which I am not nearly as diligent about), so a string which is gentler to his fingertip is just as important to him as a glucometer that is gentler (like he says in the ad: "These ten fingers are all I've got.").

Finally, string thickness and frets interact to determine string life. If you have higher frets, thinner gauge strings can be deformed via finger pressure against the fret more rapidly.

I was first introduced to light gauge strings exactly 40 years ago this month. I was 18 and writing for a Donald K. Donald-backed music magazine in Montreal (also on staff were Angus McKay, who became one of the early CHOM-FM djs, and Ken Waxman, who went on to write for numerous business mags), and was assigned to interview Ted Nugent following their show as part of a large festival at the old Montreal Forum. I met up with him at the Holiday Inn on Sherbrooke across the street from the McGill music faculty building. While we were chatting, I commented on his blonde Byrdland lying in the open case in the hotel room. He extended an offer for me to try it out, and when I did, I couldn't get over how easy it was to bend the strings. Noting my incredulity, he mentioned that it was because of the lighter gauge strings. At the time, I and all my homeys were buying our La Bellas, Black Diamond, and Pyramid strings at Miracle Mart, moving all strings over one space, and buying a banjo string for the high E (when they were available), just as described in the article. We had no knowledge whatsoever of the existence of "string gauges", since your average department store would carry only "electric" and "acoustic" strings...period...with no distinction within each category. Ted pulled over a briefcase and flipped it open to reveal a sort of "string rolodex". It was completely full of individual Ernie Ball strings in their packages, hundreds of them, gauged from heavier to lighter, going from left to right. Ted whipped me up what he felt was a balanced set (maybe even two, I forget) and gave them to me. It was, I think an .008-.039 set, though I may be wrong. Whatever it was, I was hooked and when those strings finally wore out, I was off in search of a store in town that sold individual strings. Somewhere in the early 70's, I switched to D'Addario XL110s and have pretty much used them ever since. They aren't as bright as some other brands when you first string them up, but they hold their initial brightness longer, I find, than some brands that start out birght and dull up in a few weeks.


----------



## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Mooh said:


> On electric, 10s have been my string of choice for years because I get a bit more volume and tone from them, and a more even vibrato. That little bit of extra string tension seems to suit me. The bulk of my playing is on flattop acoustics so I'm used to 12s, but find anything heavier than 10s on electric makes bends trickier.
> 
> As for breakage, I've very little experience with it. A well set-up guitar (including fresh strings) and light technique more or less eliminates it.
> 
> ...


Regarding breakage, Stevie had a ridiculously vigorous attack, so it's no surprise that sets of .009s and .010s would explode on him. Not that he couldn't play lightly, like he does on Lenny, but most of the time he's basically thrashing that poor '59.

I use .011s on my 25.5 scale guitars and .010s on my 24.75 scales. I'm used to that and like it that way, though I've been debating switching my Tele over to something like a .010-.048/.049/.052 so I can have some nice Tele-twangy bending goodness while retaining a solid low end.


----------



## Robert1950 (Jan 21, 2006)

Stevie had fingers the size of mutated atomic sausages that shot laser beams.


----------



## Milkman (Feb 2, 2006)

I use 10~46 Ernie Balls (Regular Slinkys) on most electrics and sometimes 11s on Teles. I use what I use because the feel is right. I have no doubt that you can get good chunky tones with lighter strings, but they feel like spagetti to me. The 11s on my Teles really seem to make the guitars ring better to my ear.


----------



## megadan (Feb 5, 2006)

I don't think he made any points. He just listed the gauges that a few random people use, and said that he didn't like .13's when he was a kid.

I like .10's and .11's cause I'm a bass player really, so the really light strings just cut my fingers right up.


----------



## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

megadan said:


> I don't think he made any points. He just listed the gauges that a few random people use, and said that he didn't like .13's when he was a kid.
> 
> I like .10's and .11's cause I'm a bass player really, so the really light strings just cut my fingers right up.


But he does seem to have made you think about why you use that gauge--or to at least regurgitate it for us.

That's saying something.

Anyway--his main point is that you don't need whopping huge strings to get great tone.
Also we should realize not everyone will agree with our gauge choices.


I say--explore for yourself.

We have different shapes & sizes--including our fingers, and we want different sounds & styles--so we use different gauges.


----------

