Hi!
I should prefix by saying that I play my guitar through a clean pedal or DAW and then through my home theatre system that includes tweeters, powered sub, and the solid state home theatre amp so I am very familiar with my Tele's twang, harmonics, and tone. I don't have tubes or cabinets colouring the sound. I get a full range of sound in clarity.
-I have a Squire Tele about 10 years old made in China.
-The guitar came with 9-42 Fenders strings (re-branded D'Addario's).
-I never changed the strings as I'm an 'on again off again' player.
-6 yrs ago I got Duncan Vintage pick-ups. Can't remember which.
-I noticed that I was able to get perfect tone similar to Syd Barrett - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIER8JSz9sA&t=25s
-It's more of a shrill twang which is what I like.
-I usually have my tone knob at only 1/3. Volume turned down also.
-I had no idea that the sound could have been from strings. I thought it was the pickup and such.
So I wanted to get strings that were more faster action. Sure enough everyone had a different opinion. People kept saying to get pure nickels and many liked the round cores. You know, the people saying "Since 1972 I've used xyz and I keep coming back to that"
Several said "i tried all the strings, and the best were DR Blues". These are round core and pure nickel wound. But many said do NOT get pure nickels because they don't sound good.
I got the DR Blues (pure nickel, round core) and put them on. NOTE: When I changed my strings, I noticed that some of my frets were chewed a tad bit.. just a little. That was surprising since I'm a fairly causal player.
Anyhow, after the DR Blues were put on, the sound was SO THIN, and so bad, that I thought I must have knocked the pick-up lose or something.
They were also LESS slinky despite them being round core. I heard pure nickel is less slinky. Now I agree. I played all night adjusting the pick-up height, the truss bar, the string height. Nothing helped. It was like trying to get blood from a stone.
The strings are thin sounding. They lack harmonics and depth.
And here's the thing, while straight through with colour it might not seem like a huge difference, but when you add mild colour (overdrive, re-verb, etc) then it makes ALL the difference in tone and the poor performance really shines though.
Playing clean, actually, that's where you hear it the least. It's when you decide to setup your rig and play, that's when you notice the difference. But naturally, those who use cabs or fuzz would likely never notice the difference. You need to play through home theatre or headphones to hear the difference.
I recorded the difference between the two strings, uncoloured, directly in the computer. There's harmonics that you can hear in the old strings that are not present in the new ones. (I'll put the vid up later).
The strings are so bad, that I'm going to take them off. Before I do, I was hoping that those who 'know the difference' or 'know what I'm talking about' can help me chose some good replacement strings that are maybe faster action than my old ones, but with a similar sound.
Thanks a bunch!
I should prefix by saying that I play my guitar through a clean pedal or DAW and then through my home theatre system that includes tweeters, powered sub, and the solid state home theatre amp so I am very familiar with my Tele's twang, harmonics, and tone. I don't have tubes or cabinets colouring the sound. I get a full range of sound in clarity.
-I have a Squire Tele about 10 years old made in China.
-The guitar came with 9-42 Fenders strings (re-branded D'Addario's).
-I never changed the strings as I'm an 'on again off again' player.
-6 yrs ago I got Duncan Vintage pick-ups. Can't remember which.
-I noticed that I was able to get perfect tone similar to Syd Barrett - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIER8JSz9sA&t=25s
-It's more of a shrill twang which is what I like.
-I usually have my tone knob at only 1/3. Volume turned down also.
-I had no idea that the sound could have been from strings. I thought it was the pickup and such.
So I wanted to get strings that were more faster action. Sure enough everyone had a different opinion. People kept saying to get pure nickels and many liked the round cores. You know, the people saying "Since 1972 I've used xyz and I keep coming back to that"
Several said "i tried all the strings, and the best were DR Blues". These are round core and pure nickel wound. But many said do NOT get pure nickels because they don't sound good.
I got the DR Blues (pure nickel, round core) and put them on. NOTE: When I changed my strings, I noticed that some of my frets were chewed a tad bit.. just a little. That was surprising since I'm a fairly causal player.
Anyhow, after the DR Blues were put on, the sound was SO THIN, and so bad, that I thought I must have knocked the pick-up lose or something.
They were also LESS slinky despite them being round core. I heard pure nickel is less slinky. Now I agree. I played all night adjusting the pick-up height, the truss bar, the string height. Nothing helped. It was like trying to get blood from a stone.
The strings are thin sounding. They lack harmonics and depth.
And here's the thing, while straight through with colour it might not seem like a huge difference, but when you add mild colour (overdrive, re-verb, etc) then it makes ALL the difference in tone and the poor performance really shines though.
Playing clean, actually, that's where you hear it the least. It's when you decide to setup your rig and play, that's when you notice the difference. But naturally, those who use cabs or fuzz would likely never notice the difference. You need to play through home theatre or headphones to hear the difference.
I recorded the difference between the two strings, uncoloured, directly in the computer. There's harmonics that you can hear in the old strings that are not present in the new ones. (I'll put the vid up later).
The strings are so bad, that I'm going to take them off. Before I do, I was hoping that those who 'know the difference' or 'know what I'm talking about' can help me chose some good replacement strings that are maybe faster action than my old ones, but with a similar sound.
Thanks a bunch!
