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I feel like the string gauge on electric guitars is less important than for acoustic guitars. Sure, light gauge strings have less volume, but with an electric guitar, I can just turn up the volume knob. However, on acoustic guitars I found that heavier gauge strings affect both the volume and the tone significantly. But for me, the most important thing is that heavier strings cause me pain in the fingertips. In the distant past when I was using heavier strings, I developed significant callouses on my fingertips, but you can’t maintain those callouses unless you abuse your fingertips by playing a LOT. Skyla Burrell is a hard-working blues rock guitarist who tours non-stop, playing for hours every day. And her fingertips look like this:
And maybe another consideration is this: Do you mainly play with a pick, or fingerstyle? Light gauge strings are definitely easier for those of us who play mainly fingerstyle.
Sunjamr Steve
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Ouch! That aspect of being a rock star never seems to get mentioned! Just the money, the fast cars etc!
I agree that acoustics are a different kettle of fish to electrics. In fact I think you need to find the right strings for the particular guitar you have. I’ve ditched the Martin 12 gauge strings on my Martin 000 to Elixirs11s and the guitar sounds brighter and livelier as a result without any perceptible loss of volume.
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Interesting video. It didn’t surprise me that there was little tonal difference between the guages or that the difficuly increased with the larger strings. I can relate that the lighter guage strings require a special touch and that you have to approach them with a different attack
Robin Trower, who I think is one of the greatest players of our time, uses 13’s on on all of his Strats – but he tunes down a whole step D-G-C-F-A-D and at times, he goes another half step more. He feels that it gives him a better toneAcoustic guitars are a totally different animal.
Case in point: I’ve related this before but I has a Washburn J-6 archtop jazz box, which is a copy of the Gibson L5 as used by Wes Montgomery – basically an acoustic guitar with humbuckers. I started with 10’s and it just didn’t have that jazzy sound. Went to 11’s and the sound improved a little but OMG!!! when I went to 12’s that guitar totally came alive!! It was like a totally different guitar.
The 12’s were beefy enough to move the arched top and the guitar was much louder and the tone was tremendous. The tradeoff was that the chords were of course, more difficult to playI have recently dropped down to 9’s on one electric guitar because I’m doing a deep dive on vibrato. Like many of us here on the forum, I’ve worked with my hands a lot in the past as a metal worker and in electronics, my hands ache more than they used to so in one respect the 9’s feel better for me for this study. Using 9’s, I’m having trouble with the strings slipping out from under my fingers at times. I’ll likely go back to 10’s at some point.
On my acoustic, I’m using 11’s for one set to strengthen my fingers; I’d taken a break from acoustic for bit so I’d lost some of my strength and the 12’s were too much at first
I can’t use 10’s on my acoustic b/c with my fingerstyle approach, b/c the strings slap the fingerboard too much. Studying a lot of material by Stefan Grossman, I hear him say that you can’t play lightly and be an effect acoustic blues player.
His question that I hear quite often is: “Are you playing your guitar or is your guitar playing you?”
Considering that Stefan has studied directly with Rev Gary Davis and learned from Mississippi John Hurt, Son House and other from the Delta, I think he knows what he’s talking about.-
That’s interesting about the arch top. I had a similar experience with my Gretsch steel bodied resonator. I used to have 11s on it but after a recommendation from my local guitar store put 13s on ( same brand). The tone with a heavy duty slide sounded do much richer and full as a result. I was surprised at the difference and can only put it down to more energy being transmitted to the cone
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Acoustic guitars are such testy animals; temperature and humidity makes them grumpy and the they don’t play nice.
We look at a nice Martin, Taylor or my favorite – Breedlove and we talk about tonewoods and construction. We talk about favorite players who played our favorite models and on & on.
Of course they sound great but 2 acoustics of the same brand and the same model – and there will be differences in the toneWhy??? Because even though we romanticize our acoustic guitars, at the end of the day – an acoustic guitar is a mechanical device masquerading as a musical instrument
Movement of a guitar string attached to flat pieces of wood causes vibration of that flat wood and how the pieces of wood are joined together and braced will cause the resulting sound to be projected. – or in the case of your reso, pieces of thin metal
When we see it thru that lens, it’s easier to understand why the heavier string improves toneBut! The arch top scenario will make builders to fuss and scratch their heads. A leading builder in Colorado that I follow will tell you that tonewoods on an electric doesn’t make any difference in tone of an electric guitar – it’s all about the pickups. I wonder how he would respond to the heavier strings on that arch top with the same pickups causing such a huge difference in tone??
Back to the drawing board for him lol -
I’ve seen similar videos on you tube about the effect of, or rather lack of effect of, tone wood on pickup tone. However there’s a feedback loop in the mechanics which makes me think the wood can affect it, particularly if it resonates well and good resonance is something I look out for when trying electric guitars.
Basically the string vibration makes the wood vibrate which in turn makes the strings vibrate. But! The frequencies of resonance of the wood is very likely different from the natural frequencies of the strings and so the latter gets modified subtly which the pickups would pick up as different overtones.
It’s just a theory, I’m no sound engineer, but anything that vibrates on a guitar could do the same as could be the case with your arch top.
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This is a subject we could debate for a very long time Andy.
As Steve mentioned, different gauge strings have a much larger effect on an acoustic guitar as against an electric. The difference in tone in Justin’s video was minimal compared with the amount of effort he had to use to achieve the full bends etc.However, differing string gauges have a much larger effect on the sound and playability on acoustic guitars. The string gauge choice here has more to do with your playing style, your attack on the strings etc., your physical strength to hold down the chords cleanly and the tone quality you are trying to achieve, let alone the volume.
My personal choice on my acoustic is Custom 11’s which I believe is the best compromise for me. If I chose 10’s I would probably rattle the frets more with my personal playing style.
In conclusion, as we are all of different physical builds and play with differing styles there’s no predictable answer as to what gauge suits you and your guitar.
As Justin said, just experiment.Richard
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I used to think heavy=more and better tone. Hey, if SRV used 13’s on a strat that must be the ticket. Ok fast forward to today I use 10’s on my electrics. Tried 9’s more than once and took them right off after overbending everything. The feel was not there for me but it must be for a great many folks because most Fenders come out of the factory comes with 9’s.
I was of the impression acoustic guitars needed at least 12’s and used them until my fingers wanted relief. Played 11’s for quite awhile and then thought I’d give a try to 10’s. I always use Elixir strings on my Taylor so I dropped down and figured there goes money down the drain… but wait! you won’t believe this but I love these strings. I cant detect any tone loss and my fingers love them. My cousin came out for a visit and he plays fingerstyle in a band. He went back to NY and put on the 10’s. Just sayin… 🎸Mike
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Richard/Mike/Alan
All good insights and this whole discussion has made me review my own buying habits for strings. I think for both acoustics and electrics I’ve probably prioritised comfort and ease of playing but with a checkpoint on tone. For that latter aspect, if I don’t like what I’m hearing then mostly changed brand rather than gauge, with the few exceptions I’ve mentioned above.
On electrics I’ve settled on 10s as I also found 9s a bit too flimsy and I like that little bit of fight. On acoustic it’s been 11s but that’s because I’ve never really considered 10s.
After Mike’s experience I think I’ll give it a try. -
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Another aspect of string gauge for acoustic guitars that some have to take into consideration is open tunings
If you are studying various styles of blues, you will eventually come across Open C tuning: C-G-C-G-C-E ……
Or Drop C tuning: C-G-C-F-A-D… which is a full step lower than Drop DI had 11’s on my Breedlove when I started learning “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean”, also known as “One Kind Favor”) by Blind Lemon Jefferson which is in Open C – Stefan Grossman’s arrangement of it is such a great song that I had to learn how to play it
That tuning was a total No Go with 11’s – strings were almost totally loose on the neck as I was attempting to tune it that low. Attempting to tune in Open D still wasn’t a viable option so that’s when I invested in my first set of 12-54, which made playing in that tuning possible
And a side benefit of using tunings that low – if you have a guitar that is made with solid woods instead of laminates and it’s been played long enough that the wood is broken in, your guitar will sound really amazing! My Breedlove just with Drop D – I love doing a slow backward strum when tuned to this just to hear how my guitar resonates.
And when I tune even lower…. tonal magic!!
I know – small things amuse small minds LOL but I challenge you to try it just once!
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