How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

[wanmei1]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

There is a mass of info available on the net.
One article states:
"in the 1950's there were no 10 gauge strings let alone 9 or 8's the lightest was 11 gauge."
So if your serious about that vintage PAF sound ...you know what strings to use.

Srings effect SOUND
Besides affecting the action, a change in tension may also affect the sound (sustain and tone). Some players may choose to increase the string gauge on their instrument to experiment with volume and sustain. A common complaint when using very light or extra light gauge strings is a loss of volume, sustain and a thin or twangy sound.

Strings effect playing COMFORT
OK, not that you could have missed it but...bigger gauge=more tension, and more tension can cause discomfort for some players as it places more pressure on your fingertips while fretting. It also makes it even more painful for those playing instruments with very high action.
For those who are just beginning to play this can equate to some serious discouragement, especially when the box you are learning on has the action of a dobro. Yow! Been there, done that right? For this reason I may recommend some beginners opt for a Light or Extra Light gauge until their fingers have developed calluses. Once you've learned to play you can start pondering just how to obtain the best possible sound from your instrument.
And let's not forget string benders. Not all of us can take an .011 gauge E string and bend it 2 notes sharp. Playing style can also dictate gauge...while some players opt for lighter gauge strings to aid their string bending skills, still others may find their mighty digits over bend strings that are too small (a common problem on short scale instruments strung with .008's)...those light tension strings will actually bend with so little effort that the player tends to play sharp as the strings offer little resistance when playing normal chords.
http://www.fretnotguitarrepair.com/stringchoice.htm​

 

[wanmei1]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

11's? You're clearly not bending enough, young fella.

What makes you think that this poster or indeed a lot of other people can't do lots of big bends using medium gauge 11 strings ?
Like yourself I play a lot of blues (mostly blues) and have no trouble at all with large bends using 11 gauge.
I'm not a particularly big or strong guy with average size hands, just under 6 foot and 14 stone.
I use one finger for bends but if anyone finds that to be heavy going you can always use a couple of fingers to "help" bend the note.
I just don't know why you think you can't do deep bends with 11 gauge.
If I use anything as light as 9's, I just push em right off the fretboard,.......Extreme bends anyone ??????
I don't notice using any effort until 12 gauge but I can play all night with em.
Have you ever tried a set of 11's ?
Why not give them a go for a couple of months, you will then be accustomed to bending on 11's and chances are you'll think nothing of it.
11 gauge is not considered heavy by most string manufacturers they are usually listed as medium.
12's and above are most commonly listed as heavy gauge.
Try a set for a few months on a shorter scale guitar such as a 335 and hear how that brings the guitar to life in every way.
Note however, that as a result of using medium gauge strings your evaluation and opinion of various pickups and magnets may well change dramatically as a result.

 

[B2D]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

11's? You're clearly not bending enough, young fella.

LMFAO.

I don't know Diego's playing preferences, but some styles don't make use of bending a whole lot. Jazz, for instance.

Plus I've noticed some guitars tend to react better tonally to certain gauges. I used to have a Strat that sounded better with 9-42's than any other gauge. Conversely, I once set up a vintage strat with 12's and it was as resonant and playable as you'd ever find for a guitar.

 

[Diego]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

Actually, I use a lot of bending. I play lots of stuff; Whitesnake, King's X, basically lots of Classic Rock and some modern stuff. I can bend and do lots of vibrato on 11s just fine,it's just harder to shred or do complex chording fast enough on it, but I can handle it.

 

[pinto79]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

I use 9-46 on my Eb tuned guitars, 10s on my Tele, and straight 9s on E tuned guitars. This is what I love about digital modelers, string gauge doesn't REALLY play a huge role, so I can just use what's most comfortable.

 

[rivera213]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

That explains how he manages to plug a PRS into a Boogie and still sound like arse. :1:

*runs for cover*

Ha ha.

Actually, you can get great tone with 8s! Brian May is a winner on this. Santana just doesn't!

Shawn Lane also.

 

[rivera213]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

If I use anything as light as 9's, I just push em right off the fretboard,.......Extreme bends anyone ??????

That's probably because you don't have too much control. J/k.

Shawn Lane used .008's yet could bend 2 steps to pitch without going off the edge.

I use .008's & can bend 1.5 steps to pitch w/vibrato and not go off the edge.

A certain Yngwie Malmsteen who has awesome touch, bending & vibrato can bend to 1.5 steps pitch perfect with wide vibrato as wel so I don't think it's fact that thin strings will go off of the edge.

For distorted guitar, there isn't much of an advantage to having thick treble strings over thin when in standard tuning imo. There is a tonal difference for sure, but that's more for the bass strings (the .022, .030, .038 bass strings are weak sounding). Action height matters more in my experience.

.008's may be a bit too thin for most people, but I think .013's for standard tuning are too thick for most people.

Jazzers I believe use .012's in standard tuning. If you play on a clean tone for the most part and have good control & strength then .012's would probably be the best option. I certainly wouldn't use .008's for jazz, they'd sound weak but on a double locking trem w/25.5" scale, they aren't too floppy for me.

 

[rivera213]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

Halos blow
Waylon try to build a new facility in Texas ,and try to clear the bad rep.
I wish him luck!

Oh. How do they blow? (Crap construction etc?)

I haven't played 1, I just saw a 10-String guitar and thought of you. Ha ha.

Anyways ,actually I wanted to jump on a 9 instead of 8.
The problem is ,everytime I play low F# or F.or even G ,it feels not right.
And the 27Hz is nowwhere comfortable for me.
So i stay at A as the lowest and go with 8 string.
The high G will be giving me more sustain and new arpeggios without lacking definition and sweetness. The neck is scalloped ,so the bendings will b so nice nad sweet....Yummieeee:friday:

Low A is still pretty low. Ha ha.

Another problem are pickups. It's probably very difficult to build a pickup which has enough high end so the low-F# doesn't sound like crap, but not too much that the High-A will sound like cats being strangled. Lol.

Post some clips of the 8 if you can.

 

[daemon barbeque]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

Oh. How do they blow? (Crap construction etc?)

I haven't played 1, I just saw a 10-String guitar and thought of you. Ha ha.




Low A is still pretty low. Ha ha.

Another problem are pickups. It's probably very difficult to build a pickup which has enough high end so the low-F# doesn't sound like crap, but not too much that the High-A will sound like cats being strangled. Lol.

Post some clips of the 8 if you can.

Well they forgot to drill wholes for the strings on a string-thru guitar!!!
They had many quality problems ,since the guitars where made somewhere in Asia ,the inconsistencies where huge!
Again ,Waylon is a cool guy and he tries to solve those problems.I hope His name and Halo will be a trademark in the future.

I use Q-Tuners on my 7 and 8(it's still in production)
The Q tuner has a range of 27hz to 12khz(resonant peak).So it's enough room for everything heheh.
The most articulate ,flawless and unforgiving sound.
You can't imagine the harmonics I get on the 24. fret Low Bb!!!
Many people don't like them because they are too tight ,too straight ,too flat and too unforgiving.

Check q-tuner.com
and check www.soundclick.com/ear. (my soundclick)
You may find a song(smaragd) and 2 other clips for the PU.
Cheers!

 

[Laughing Kookaburra]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

Well, I used to bend a fair amount on 11s, still do on a Hamer (Gibson scale). I haven't been playing as much lately, so it's back to 10s on the Strat.


I played friend's Strat yesterday, it had 9s. A bit light, but really fun to bend 'em!

 

[korovamilkdud]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

I don't know, I just break them.

 

[blueman335]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

What makes you think that this poster or indeed a lot of other people can't do lots of big bends using medium gauge 11 strings ?
Like yourself I play a lot of blues (mostly blues) and have no trouble at all with large bends using 11 gauge.
I'm not a particularly big or strong guy with average size hands, just under 6 foot and 14 stone.
I use one finger for bends but if anyone finds that to be heavy going you can always use a couple of fingers to "help" bend the note.
Have you ever tried a set of 11's ?
Why not give them a go for a couple of months, you will then be accustomed to bending on 11's and chances are you'll think nothing of it.

I'm not just pushing the string up, I'm strangling it & throwing it around wildly back & forth. I have trouble bending like this with 10's (I have them on one hollowbody guitar because they do sound better); after I play a while my fingers loosen up, but I still don't have the pitch control like I do with 9's. I don't know about your style, but I'm constantly bending, every few seconds (if not more often), and many bends are the big sustained ones with deep, fast vibrato, like Peter Green & Danny Kirwan (experts at an extreme style that evolved in England during the mid/late 1960's). Very few players over the decades bend like those boys did. Listen to the ending solo on Fleetwood Mac's "Coming your Way." That's bending. Some nice bending on their live album "Shrine '69" too.

When you use "one finger" for bends, is that using the same finger each time? I use all 4 fingers for bending, with the 2nd and 3rd doing the extreme stuff. With deep, fast, sustained vibrato, using more than one finger to bend would get in the way, at least for me.

 

[B2D]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

Does anyone here prefer half-gauges? .0095-.044 and stuff like that?

I actually used .0095-.044 for a while but went to .010's after about a year because .0095's aren't as readily available as .010's are and thus it's easier to replace single strings in a .010 set.

 

[Sludgenutz]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

Does anyone here prefer half-gauges? .0095-.044 and stuff like that?

I actually used .0095-.044 for a while but went to .010's after about a year because .0095's aren't as readily available as .010's are and thus it's easier to replace single strings in a .010 set.

I tried a couple sets twenty years ago with 1/2 sizes (Vinci?). I loved them, but the availability factor was the reason why I never persued 1/2 sizes as well.

 

[Philcguitars]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

When I started playing I used 8's. After years of doing my job I now use 10.5's!

 

[blueman335]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

When I started playing I used 8's. After years of doing my job I now use 10.5's!

I started with 8's too way back when. Seems like a ridiculously thin gauge now. Like the wire they wind PU's with.

Michael Burks (blues player) uses 10.5's too, and he does some nice bending, but he's got short thick powerful fingers. Mine are long & thin. That's got to be a factor in this.

 

[Petrovsk Mizinski]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

What makes you think that this poster or indeed a lot of other people can't do lots of big bends using medium gauge 11 strings ?
Like yourself I play a lot of blues (mostly blues) and have no trouble at all with large bends using 11 gauge.
I'm not a particularly big or strong guy with average size hands, just under 6 foot and 14 stone.
I use one finger for bends but if anyone finds that to be heavy going you can always use a couple of fingers to "help" bend the note.
I just don't know why you think you can't do deep bends with 11 gauge.
If I use anything as light as 9's, I just push em right off the fretboard,.......Extreme bends anyone ??????
I don't notice using any effort until 12 gauge but I can play all night with em.
Have you ever tried a set of 11's ?
Why not give them a go for a couple of months, you will then be accustomed to bending on 11's and chances are you'll think nothing of it.
11 gauge is not considered heavy by most string manufacturers they are usually listed as medium.
12's and above are most commonly listed as heavy gauge.
Try a set for a few months on a shorter scale guitar such as a 335 and hear how that brings the guitar to life in every way.
Note however, that as a result of using medium gauge strings your evaluation and opinion of various pickups and magnets may well change dramatically as a result.

Dude, which way are you bending the strings?
They shouldn't be coming off the fretboard no matter what you do, unless we are talking about a guitar with a 20 inch fretboard radius and you bend the G string right off the fretboard.
The general rule is, bend G, B and E up, and the lower string bend down.
For vibrato, E and B up, the rest down (the 2 up, 4 down rule), which as I've observed, is what the masters of vibrato generally do.

 

[wanmei1]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

That's probably because you don't have too much control. J/k.

Shawn Lane used .008's yet could bend 2 steps to pitch without going off the edge.

I use .008's & can bend 1.5 steps to pitch w/vibrato and not go off the edge.

A certain Yngwie Malmsteen who has awesome touch, bending & vibrato can bend to 1.5 steps pitch perfect with wide vibrato as wel so I don't think it's fact that thin strings will go off of the edge.

LOL

You know the only reason pyrotechnic speed players Steve Vai and Yngwiezt Mammothsteinl don't use custom made 5's is because they don't have too much control.
LOL.
Though they might tell you they're just too much like rubberbands, offer little resistance for feel, the tone just ain't there and you gotta be careful not to push em clean off the fretboard.
You and I know better though.....

It's because they don't have too much control. :biglaugh:

 

[wanmei1]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

Dude, which way are you bending the strings?
They shouldn't be coming off the fretboard no matter what you do, unless we are talking about a guitar with a 20 inch fretboard radius and you bend the G string right off the fretboard.
The general rule is, bend G, B and E up, and the lower string bend down.
For vibrato, E and B up, the rest down (the 2 up, 4 down rule), which as I've observed, is what the masters of vibrato generally do.

Dude,

Using 8's... if I want to .... I can push the top E string over the bottom E and off the fetboard cause they're just so light and have so little resistance.

I use medium gauge 11's.

Thanks for the tip about string bending.:smack:

 

[wanmei1]

Re: How do people play with 9 gauge strings?

I'm not just pushing the string up, I'm strangling it & throwing it around wildly back & forth. I have trouble bending like this with 10's (I have them on one hollowbody guitar because they do sound better); after I play a while my fingers loosen up, but I still don't have the pitch control like I do with 9's. I don't know about your style, but I'm constantly bending, every few seconds (if not more often), and many bends are the big sustained ones with deep, fast vibrato, like Peter Green & Danny Kirwan (experts at an extreme style that evolved in England during the mid/late 1960's). Very few players over the decades bend like those boys did. Listen to the ending solo on Fleetwood Mac's "Coming your Way." That's bending. Some nice bending on their live album "Shrine '69" too.

When you use "one finger" for bends, is that using the same finger each time? I use all 4 fingers for bending, with the 2nd and 3rd doing the extreme stuff. With deep, fast, sustained vibrato, using more than one finger to bend would get in the way, at least for me.

I must admit I'm in danger of playing too predicatably by bending notes whenever they can be bent in a blues piece just for the hell of it and just cause I like it so much.

I am a self confessed bend addict.

Fortunately I'm not as passionate about using vibrato as I am bending cause If I used vibrato with nearly every bend then I really would be the epitome of predictable.
So I only use vibrato occasionally and I'm not addicted.

However, I have a terrible addiction to doing slides, even when they're not called for, so that's just one more demon I've got to wrestle with.

I use different fingers for bends, one finger at a time, and use the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd fingers. I couldn't play fast bending blues licks at all without using three fingers and I seldom use the fourth finger for any playing. But that's just me.

Not being an avid fan of Bill Clintons' favourite band, I haven't heard the Mac track and album your talking about. Nothing against Mac, it's just that I find them a little too polite and "pop" though I would like to check out the bending you mentioned. I'll do a net search.

I guess my strongest roots influence would have to be Hendrix. He opened up my eyes, heart and mind to the whole world of blues, going back to the the traditional blues greats from the late 1920's, through to the technically perfect playing of modern day Clapton.