Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

[kylewrt1986]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

I found 011's on my electric extremely stiff. I had to use so much force to actually get a "free" sounding vibrato, that my hands, arms and neck hurt.

But hey, if you never bend, vibrato, or such, you might as well use 14's.

Try tellin that to SRV! In fairness he did get told to stop using 14s before he did permenant damage..oh and aswel as the 13's, there was the high action he used too lol. the man with titanium fingers (and probably a titanium truss rod..)

 

[Erlend_G]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

Well... sorry for the "harshness" of my last post.

I'm happy with my 0.09 - 0.46 on 25,5" scale lengths, and 0.10 - 0.46's on 24,75" guitars.

They just feel "right", sound good, and work perfectly for me.

 

[34029324079]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

dude, these guys with their 12 gauge strings are playing downtuned to d or c so don't let em fool you with their utmost strength and massive pick attack

9s work fine when tuned to e that is why they sell em

I like 10s on my acoustic for now because it is so easy to play; it actually sounds fine when my acoustic is plugged in, but not plugged in, it does not sound too good.

 

[kylewrt1986]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

Well... sorry for the "harshness" of my last post.

I'm happy with my 0.09 - 0.46 on 25,5" scale lengths, and 0.10 - 0.46's on 24,75" guitars.

They just feel "right", sound good, and work perfectly for me.

That's cool, wouldn't be any good if we were all the same! And we don't all wanna be SRV either, so its all good! I personally use 10s on my 12 string acoustic, my poor fingers cant cope with nethin bigger. I got a Fender done with 11-48 and fitting some hybrid slinky 9-46s on my other fender. and some 10-54s for my epiphone dot studio.

Kyle

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

Try tellin that to SRV! In fairness he did get told to stop using 14s before he did permenant damage..oh and aswel as the 13's, there was the high action he used too lol. the man with titanium fingers (and probably a titanium truss rod..)

He actually had an 11 set with heavy E's (13 & 58).

 

[kylewrt1986]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

He actually had an 11 set with heavy E's (13 & 58).

from the article "Supernova Strats" by Dan Erlewine as published in February 1990 issue of Guitar Player magazine. That issue featured Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jeff Beck together in one interview as they were touring in tandem at the time:

.013, .015, .019 (plain), .028, .038, and .058.

so the b and g are a bit fatter than a normal set of 11s too.

 

[Earwicker]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jeff Beck together in one interview as they were touring in tandem at the time:

.013, .015, .019 (plain), .028, .038, and .058.

so the b and g are a bit fatter than a normal set of 11s too.

Well, don't knock it till you've tried it, but I don't really see the point of that. He'd have been better off just using standard 11 - 49s and tuning the guitar in the normal way.

I'm sure the great man had his reasons...

 

[kylewrt1986]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

Well, don't knock it till you've tried it, but I don't really see the point of that. He'd have been better off just using standard 11 - 49s and tuning the guitar in the normal way.

I'm sure the great man had his reasons...

Well BB King uses a fat low E, so maybe thats a reason he chose heavier strings..but then albert king apparently played with 9-50s so I dunno. either way it seemed to work for him, and I guess it must have been an integral part of his signature tone - I do notice the difference in tone when changing from lights to heavier, but I couldn't use a 13 as the e myself, i dont think my maple fretboard would like nice with a scarlet tint

 

[dderat]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

I used 10's for years, being primarily an electric player, and 10's didn't hold me back. Then I got a new Martin and it came with 12's and the improvement in sound was dramatic. I could play as hard as I wanted on the upper strings and they would ring clear. The 10's would slap the fingerboard and little sound would come out. Now I can even hear when someone is playing light gauge strings on an acoustic. It is a sound I won't go back to.

After playing 12's for a year my hand and fingers are strong big time and I can have a ball when I play my electrics with 9's.

 

[octavedoctor]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

I generally favour heavy strings, but what is important is to match the gauge of the string to your guitar and playing style.
A vintage strat with a radius anywhere between 7.5" and 9" will have difficulty with a low action; the strings tend to fret out above the 12th when bending as they are sounding across the fingerboard arc. Vintage fretwire is also quite low so you don't get much "push" when bending. On these guitars 009 -.042" or .009 - .046" work very well. Also some rock strats, particularly the later Ibanez models struggle to cope with the combined tension of heavier strings, but the heavy fretwire profile of some of these guitars can cause intonation distortion with light, flexible strings.

Acoustic guitars require the energy delivered by the higher linear mass of heavy gauge strings to voice the soundboard. The exception to this seems to be Ovations which seem to find their ideal voice with lighter strings, .010 - .048" for example.

 

[octavedoctor]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

dude, these guys with their 12 gauge strings are playing downtuned to d or c

One of my clients used to use 12s on his acoustic and tuned them down to D.

One of the advantages of this is an increased harmonic richness; the string still has the weight required for proper acoustic coupling with the soundboard, but at the lower tension it is a little more flexible and supports more high end harmonics with less inharmonicity (although this is inverted if the strings become too slack whereupon inharmonicity increases).

 

[Earwicker]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

Vintage fretwire is also quite low so you don't get much "push" when bending.

What's the thinking behind it being easier to bend strings with larger frets? I just presumed it was due to the lower pressure on the fret - greater area for the same force...???

 

[octavedoctor]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

What's the thinking behind it being easier to bend strings with larger frets? I just presumed it was due to the lower pressure on the fret - greater area for the same force...???

If the frets are high your finger doesn't touch down on the fingerboard as readily; this means you can get your finger under the string for a more perpendicular push.

With low frets you are trying to drag the string across with the tip of your finger which is much harder, and made worse by friction between your fingertip and the board...

 

[ratherdashing]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

bump to kill the polls.

 

[34029324079]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

Acoustic guitars require the energy delivered by the higher linear mass of heavy gauge strings to voice the soundboard. The exception to this seems to be Ovations which seem to find their ideal voice with lighter strings, .010 - .048" for example.

ya I have an ovation; it is currently set up tuned to D and has .010 gauge strings on it; sounds not so good compared to bigger gauge...

but plugged in to a PA it sounds really good; probably cause of the microphoning of the guitar and the way the body of the guitar is ported...whatever the case is, it makes it nice for electric players that like to shred like myself, and don't like the extra tension of the bigger gauge strings so much.

 

[Akrin]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

I use 12-53 in standard on my acoustic, and I don't think I'd go lighter. Light, looser strings don't sound as good for strumming IMO.

I use the same set for Drop D and open D Minor (DADFAD) tunings too, but that's just because I only have one acoustic guitar.

 

[octavedoctor]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

ya I have an ovation; it is currently set up tuned to D and has .010 gauge strings on it; sounds not so good compared to bigger gauge...

but plugged in to a PA it sounds really good; probably cause of the microphoning of the guitar and the way the body of the guitar is ported...whatever the case is, it makes it nice for electric players that like to shred like myself, and don't like the extra tension of the bigger gauge strings so much.

I think you're pushing it a bit though to use 10s downtuned to D; My point about the Ovation is that it responds betterr to lower tensions than other guitars however this is truer of the earlier Ovations with the fan braced soundboards than later ones and licensed (or unlicensed) copies which reverted to X-bracing.

 

[Earwicker]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

With low frets you are trying to drag the string across with the tip of your finger which is much harder, and made worse by friction between your fingertip and the board...

Oh right, so nothing to do with the width of the fret then?

 

[Zerberus]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

dude, these guys with their 12 gauge strings are playing downtuned to d or c so don't let em fool you with their utmost strength and massive pick attack....

^^Useless blanket statement which will now be voided by fact.

I play in e-standard. For downtuning to d I use 13-60 .... I know multiple people In RL and on this and other messageboards who use similar guages in standard.

 

[Jeroen]

Re: Anyone ever tried 0.09's on their acoustic?

0.09's on an electric really annoy me, has to be 0.10's or 0.11's
As for acoustic, I'm curious to know how that would work

That thick huh? Wow. 0.10 is like...the E-string of a bass! :bigthumb: