Saturday, August 21, 2010

Of string gauge

You've probably heard this countless times: Stevie Ray used .013s, that's greatness. Over time, when we mingle around long enough, our peers would suggest sporting a thicker gauge for our guitars to achieve a more pleasurable tone. So we invest in thicker-than-usual strings for ourselves only to deal with a change in action which might not be beneficial (among other problematic entailments). 

So is it true then, thicker = better as far as strings are concerned? The truth here would be, thicker strings give us a different tonal response, a beefier tone which is more marked in acoustic/ unplugged settings. For us solid body dweebs, this tonal difference is highlight for clean settings. As soon as drive/ distortion kicks in, the beef would be cloaked, the more you dial up, the lesser the difference. SRV's greatness was coupled with the conscious use of overdrive, his clean but crunchy tone is legendary to say the least.

Over the years, I've also discovered thicker gauged strings are better heard with single coils. As these strings manifest more bottom end, they tend to blend too easily with the inherently boomy humbuckers unlike the average single coil where twang is present to ensure clarity. The uninitiated player would deem this response
to be 'better'; it's chunkier, there's more thump so it has to be more desirable, yes?

Bofore you embrace thicker strings, be informed that manufacturers equip their guitars with a specific string gauge at the factory. Should you make this decision final, be prepared for a revised action & intonation settings as necessary accommodations. Thicker strings being 'better' is certainly a myth when the player himself delineates better from worse; it's strictly a personal take, your gem might be someone else's swill. I stick to .009s for all my 25.5" scaled guitars, it's not the end-all gauge as far as preference is concerned, just that this gauge set gives me the preferred tension & action settings I embrace. For all other shorter scaled guitars in my possession, I have a .0095s in them. The Les Paul camp would scream heresy but as mentioned before, it's strictly personal- I can't play well with .010s, regardless of the conventional embrace & the fact that Gibson equip the LPs with .010s back at the factory. Speaking of quirks, it's interesting to know the following professionals keep their string gauge manageable despite popular beliefs:

  1. Jimmy Hendrix: His black Stratocaster was equipped with a set of .009 - .038, so lesson learned here- it's not about the strings... it's about Hendrix.
  2. Jimmy Page: .008 in his Les Paul- this would give rise to a super flapping experience but because it's Jimmy Page, we'd take it as educational, if it's some other bloke out there, it'd be rubbish *sigh*
  3. James Hetfield: .009 - .042
  4. Eddie Van Halen: .009 - .042
  5. Carlos Santana: .009 - .042

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Playing with 0.13s is a killer on my fingers. I did once tried a thicker guage on my acoustic kapok and it does sound 'bigger'.

Fitch

subversion.sg said...

it will definitely sound deeper, that's the desired outcome :-)

Ijau D. Koceng said...

i used .013 to imitate 7-string setting (b-tuning)

subversion.sg said...

ah... very similar to what the CARCASS chaps did back then :-)

Anonymous said...

I read recently on Guitarist - the resident columnist once tried to imitate his idol Stevie - only to realise the Stevie played to a point where he NEEDED 13s for his live performances - I guess we all tried such silly things sometimes! ;)

subversion.sg said...

that's the key word: NEED, for pros like SRV, the string gauge is a feature which would help him deliver his performance, it's not about carving a statement.