skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

[leevc5]

Picked up a real cool Gibson Les Paul Special with P90s, plugged 'er in and started to play. Hmmmm...something strange, I could bend the A string completely across the fretboard. The strings were really light, lighter than anything I think I ever played. I went and tried out a Fender Custom Shop Tele, same thing, Fender Stratocaster, same thing.

Do the manufacturers ship their guitars now with ultra light strings or does the music shop put them on for some reason. Once again I find myself befuddled and turn here for some sort of explanation.

 

[TimmyPage]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

A lot of fenders ship with 9's (or at least did a few years ago) and a Gibson scale length with 10's feels about as slinky. I'm pretty sure a lot of guitar stores put lighter strings on their guitars to make them feel more 'playable' which is a funny concept to me because I find the more solid a string is the easier it is to play. I know my archtops with 12's on them feel a lot more playable than a guitar with 9's where I'm strugging to hold it in tune..

 

[jeremy]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

as someone that puts 11's on everything, 9s on a fender feel very loose. i understand why they do it but if im interested in a guitar i ask them to restring it with 11's so i can see what itll feel like in the wild

 

[JeffB]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

Gibsons have been shippjng with 9-46 cleartones since 2014

 

[dave74]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

Loose bugs me, skinny not so much. lol
Just tune her up to F if it has 9's.

 

[BriGuy1968]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

My fingers have wimped out over the years... I really like nines for my electrics and have gone to tens on my acoustics. Used to play thirteens on my acoustic a hundred years ago, but now heavy strings just make my fingertips hurt and my hands & forearms ache!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[AlexR]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

different people like different gauges. I'd be more interested to know why you feel that guitar makers should be putting on strings to suit your own convenience.

 

[leevc5]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

Perhaps you have once again missed the point. It is the fact that all the guitars had skinny strings. Might it be more practical for there to be a mix of string gauges on the guitars to reach out to guitar players who prefer heavier...oh ©&¿%* ya gits it or ya don't.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

Adapt. For every guy that says floor guitars are strung with strings too light, there's going to be guys that say the strings are too heavy. Respectively, quit beating the strings as if you're beating your meat or quit pussyfooting it and just play. Honestly, I care less about the string gauge on floor guitars, and more so about if there's any broken/missing strings or strings that are so dead/old/disgusting to play. Everyone is going to have different string gauge preferences, and the stores can't please them all.

*This post is not directed at anyone in particular. It's not an insult, so don't take it as one.

 

[AlexR]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

^ Precisely.

Maybe a knowledge of absolutely basic business practice is missing too. To make your guitars attractive to the most possible people....fit them with strings that will suit the most. The practical person who uses heavier strings will be able to still see if a guitar works even when fitted with light ones (or most will, which is good enough). Going heavier means that the regular player, beginner or casual 'might buy if it really plays smoothly' browser it straight away discouraged.

Leeve, are you really young??

Your questions seem to me to indicate this

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

Nines are great. For a long time I put Power Slinkies only on my guitars; getting away from that really woke up the tone of a few of my guitars, opposite of what I would have understood before. I need to give myself a break sometimes anyway, and just have something easy where I can focus on technique and being able to play with minimal fatigue; refocus that energy in other aspects of playing.

 

[Johnny the Kid]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

I can get by with whatever the guitar is strung with on the floor. I'm gonna end up setting it up how I like it if I buy the guitar, so more than anything I'm trying to find out if it is solidly built, plays well, and sounds good. So if I'm okay if I fret a note slightly sharp because I'm not so much listening to the note itself but the tone of each note more than anything.

That being said, I'm playing an 11-50 set 90% of the time, so I'm not completely out of my element if I'm playing a 9-46 set (maybe on the top strings but not the bottom).

 

[Mincer]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

Working in a guitar shop for many years, I can say the workers are far too lazy to set up each guitar so they are easy to play. The owners are also far to cheap to invest in new strings for every new guitar. I think 9s are standard for Fender (what I use) and 10s for Gibson.

 

[baritone]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

I think guitars come from the factory with skinny strings because they put less strain on thr neck for shipping.

When I test out a guitar in a store, I tune it until the tension is comfortable. I get a really good sense of how the tone & feel of this instrument would be if set up to my preferences.

 

[blueman335]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

Nines are great...just have something easy where I can focus on technique and being able to play with minimal fatigue; refocus that energy in other aspects of playing.

+1. I have 9's on all my electrics, I like having control over the strings. Like EVH said: 'Why make it harder than it has to be?'

 

[Johnny the Kid]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

+1. I have 9's on all my electrics, I have control over the strings. Like EVH said: 'Why make it harder than it has to be?'

I think for some people, myself included, it's a matter of liking a bit of fight in our instruments. If you're a hard picker, then you're also going to go out of tune easier on thinner strings.

 

[Phantasmagoria]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

9's for my 25.5 scale guitar's (most of them), 10's for the short scale one's. Plus I tune to Eb standard. That way the tension's roughly the same for both & ideal for me..

Don't really care what my new guitar's come strung with because I always change their strings right away :bigthumb:

 

[Chad]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

Where have you been? I've been playing over 20 years and new guitars have for the most part always come with light gauge strings. Very few guitars ship with anything heavier than 10-46. This isn't something new.

 

[AlexR]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

^ I don't think he existed 20yrs ago.

The fact that he didn't even know the term 'entry level' or what it meant (even though its explanation is in the phrase)

 

[tc]

Re: skinny strings drive me crazy - walked into my local music shop today

A couple of years back it was an industry standard that Fender and Gibson would send out their guitars setup the way the real vintage Strats and Les Pauls did. For example, back in 2014, Les Pauls came straight from the factory with flatwound 13s with a wound G. It sucked because I would have to dump the 6th string, get myself some banjo strings and use the A as my 1st.

I guess they caught on to it and started putting 8s to please me and what you're seeing are the results of that. Sorry dude.

/s