Lighter touch
I use 11s currently and I’m seriously wondering if it’s what’s messing up the experience.
Maybe the tone I’m looking for requires 10s, tension be damned.
Here’s my take on it. You get used to the lighter tension, and it allows more finesse in your playing. You don’t have to use a lot of strength to fret or bend strings, and that can allow you to play faster and more expressive.
The main reason I use 9’s is the tone. I can get a lot of snap and attack on the notes. With strings past 10’s the sound becomes too “clunky.” It almost more like a piano. Lol
When I watch YouTube videos of some players, I can tell they never learned how to get different tones from their fingers; how you fret and how you pick. They aren’t smooth sounding. Everything is staccato, so with light strings you get “plink plink plinky plink.” They lift their fretting hand fingers between every note and don’t hold notes long enough.
But listen to Billy Gibbons or Jimmy Page. They are playing 8’s. Or Terry Kath who played with Chicago. There’s some live recordings of him soloing all by himself. He took a set of 9’s, threw away the low E and used the A string and strung up the rest that way, and used a banjo string for the high E. Probably an 8. He doesn’t sound thin.
Back before Earnie Ball came out with Slinkies, players like Hendrix and Page used banjo strings.
What I’ve always done, on both guitar and bass, is practice without an amp. Once you sound smooth and full that way, when you plug in it’s huge. Just like all these classic players who used really light strings. People are quick to change pickups or string brands when they don’t like their tone. But they don’t bother to practice on getting a good tone. So they use heavy strings and a “warm” tone to hide that plinky tone coming from their hands.
Oh and stop using flexible picks! You lost your power and speed to the pick bending. Use at least a 1mm and hold the pick lightly but firmly.
Now it’s this dumb macho shaming thing and you have to use at least 12’s or you aren’t a man. Lol. Yet the virtuoso players often use very light strings. At least 9’s. I’ve also been a bass player for 47 years. So I’m used to fat, stiff strings.
And people cite SRV, but he also turned his guitar down like a half or whole step.
But look at Tony Iommi, he tunes down and uses 8’s or 9’s depending on what key he’s tuned to.
Because I often drop to D I like the D’Addario 9-46 set. I can bang out chords without the low strings getting too warbly.
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