String gauge. Should I change?

Maccattack

Following on from my posts last week about gettting my guitar set up etc.

I bought the strings and did it myself.

Anyway I went from 9's to 10's. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

We had rehearsal on Tuesday night and I thought my fingers were going to fall off.

They were bright pink for days and i couldnt touch the guitar til last night.

I havent been playing much so my fingers arent as tough as they should be.

thing is the guitar defo sounded better with the 10's, except that my playing sucked harder because i couldnt make all the notes.

My question is. Should I admit defeat and change back to the 9's or just perservere with the 10's. will i get used to them or am i pushing sh*t up hill?

Have to say. I dont lke the feel of the 10's. They feel very tough by comparison

Ancient1

There shouldn't be a big difference in feel unless you deliberately raised the action to compensate for fret buzz etc.

You could try tuning down to Eb but i think that it's just a matter of getting used to it. Give it another week or two and you might feel differently.

Doctor J

Ehhh, what is the guitar?

Paladin

I had 9's on recently but had to just cut em off. Sound was terrible.
Id recommend sticking with 10's. Your fingers will get well used to them. The sound is a big improvement.

I prefer the feel of 10's too. 9's feel too light and slippery. End up messing up a lot of bends with the 9's, and bending them too much when fretting chords. Thats just being used to 10's, but Id still never use 9's now.

Thing is though, 10's shouldnt feel tough either. It may be their action is way too high if your guitar isnt adjusted for them. Id make 100% sure of that before jumping to conclusions.

However, in the end of the day, with string choice, you should do what you enjoy most. Does the better sound give you more pleasure or the feel? Give it a few weeks and decide.

Ancient1

Doctor J wrote:

Ehhh, what is the guitar?

Tele, iirc...

Doctor J

10's shouldn't be an issue. I usually use 11's though I've got 13's on the strat at the moment

Unless the 10's have drastically changed the action of the guitar (though if it's a Tele it shouldn't have had that much effect), you should just persist and toughen up. Get into a regular daily practice routine, rather than just sporadically overdoing it at a rehearsal, and you'll get used to it in no time.

Maccattack

yes its a tele. action seems to be ever so slightly higher. dont think thats the problem.

they definitely feel harder or something. not sure what it is. But ill take the advice and perservere for a while longer.

I do prefer the sound. comfort over sound? I guess we should suffer for our art;)

Ancient1

I've got 13's on the strat

Holy crap.....SRV all the way!

Tell me this Doc, did you have an issue with nut height?

Coz i do (i'm on 10s) - the low E nut slot won't really accommodate the string perfectly, but i don't have anything resembling a precise nut file so i just raised the string height slightly, as a temporary solution.

Doctor J

Yeah, had to widen them. Even with 10's they were very tight against the side of the nut slots. I was thinking of sticking a graphtech nut in there, see if the trem is any use at all

13's rock though. You get the tone

Ancient1

Graphtech makes sense....

I'll have to file the nut as well, need to get a proper file set first though.

But yeah - huge improvement in tone, there's no going back to 9s!

Stick with it, Maccattack, you'll be glad you did once you get used to higher gauges!

Mystic Fibrosis

put .13s on, become manly

Maccattack

Mystic Fibrosis wrote:

put .13s on, become manly

No!

Im very definitly a wimp if thats the baromoter. Im relativelly new to guitar. Have played for years and years but not seriously. Drums was always my first instrument, but earlier this year I decided to make the switch for good ((?)).

Thats why if i ask stupid questions like this.

I want to be a good guitarist and am really starting to appreciate what a good tone is. I just dont know if perservering with the discomfort will be a bad thing. long term its the right thing to do im sure, but short term i feel like im doing myself damage!

It might sound odd to some off you long term pro's but the difference (to me ) is immense.

Ancient1

long term its the right thing to do im sure

Depends what you're after. Not every guitarist uses heavy strings, you should do whatever suits you and whatever you're comfortable with. 10s are not considered heavy gauge, even though they are far more potent than 9s, but you're still in safe territory there. If you're going up string gauges, the idea is to go a gauge at a time. I'm sure you'll get used to them. If you find that it's not for you at all, then go back to your normal gauge. It's all about balancing things out.

Rustar

Get a cheap bass and play it for 15 minutes every day before you go to guitar. You'll soon be able to handle 13's with no problem.

Maccattack

I have a bass. Rick 4001. those strings dont cut yr fingers to ribbons though.

I'll stop moaning and just try to get used to them.. maybe it was simply because i hadnt played for a while.

Karl Hungus

Hmm... Can I ask what brand of strings you've just changed to, and are they the same as the ones you've used before?

Rustar

And have you tried a half-round string, like these
http://www.daddario.com/DADProducts.aspx?ID=1&CLASS=AACA

Maccattack

Hung

they are D Addario XL. Not sure what the previous were coz they came on the guitar.

Rustar

never tried them no. they look interesting. Youd think that would effect the tone.

Are you recommending them?

Karl Hungus

Eep... I can't stand D'Addario strings. I used to use them myself and thought they were garbage, then tried a set of Ernie Balls and never looked back, far superior strings in every reguard.

Might be worth trying a different set of strings tbh. I've got one guitar here that's set up with 10's, and tuned to E and I don't have a problem with it, so it could be the strings themselves rather than the guage.

Maccattack

showing how much of far call I know. I thought D Addario were among the best.

They seem to be the most widely available. Is that coz theyre cheaper?

Rustar

Maccattack wrote:

Are you recommending them?

Can't specifically recommend them for guitar, no...but I've used them for bass. Not a lot of difference in tone on the bass, and they seem to last longer. But I use DR's, they last longer anyway.
And yes, very much smoother on the fingers than roundwounds.

Hmm, it occurs to me that DR doesn't make halfwounds... don't remember what brand it was, but I did try them.
Looks like the new thing is polymer coated strings, supposed to make em last longer and stay cleaner.

Johnny Storm

Try a hybrid gauge - ie 9-46. That the EAD from a set of 10s and the GBE from a set of 9s so you get the bendy high strings and the toneful boogie from the low strings.
I particularly like them because I am not able to make up my mind between 9s and 10s.:rolleyes:
Actually they are great.

loveducati

i use 7's from USA, only prob is everyone else who picks the guitar up presses to hard and then thinks guitar is out of tune

Steinberger usa

John

loveducati wrote:

i use 7's from USA, only prob is everyone else who picks the guitar up presses to hard and then thinks guitar is out of tune

Steinberger usa

7s! I thought 9s were too light for me.

fish-head

I changed from 9s to 11s and I found that I played better.
Plus I always just rip 9s right off when I play..

Just stick it out.

Johnny Storm

loveducati wrote:

i use 7's from USA, only prob is everyone else who picks the guitar up presses to hard and then thinks guitar is out of tune

Steinberger usa

Please post pix of your 'berger.

Maccattack

AN update

I feel like a bit of a plonker now.

I played with the 10's all weekend and feel much better about them now. I have gotten used to them. I think my fingers were just really tender from not playing for 2 weeks. We practiced for something like 4 hours straight so no wonder they got sore.

Over the weekend I practiced for an hour or two at a time. much more sensible.

Ive bought a set of Earnie Balls for the next restring anyway coz of the recommendation. they do seem to be better quality.

Funnily enough I put 12's on my acoustic and they seem fine. we only do one song on th acoustic at the moment so im sure i can last that long at least.

so the moral of the story is suffer the pain for the sake of the tone.

Jimmy_Jazz

Doctor J wrote:

10's shouldn't be an issue. I usually use 11's though I've got 13's on the strat at the moment

What brand do you use? I've been using Power Slinkys (.11s) on both my Strat and Les Paul, but I'd prefer to use .12s on the Strat and .13s on the LP. The problem is that I can't seem to find them. In fact, finding .11s is difficult enough. Ernie Ball seems to be the only brand that are widely available in this gauge.