The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
Reply to Thread Bookmark Thread
Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 123 LastLast
Posts 26 to 50 of 73
  1. #26

    User Info Menu

    I think that- with archtop guitars- if the strings are too heavy they exert too much downforce on the top plate through the break angle at the bridge. That can "choke" the sound of the guitar. Older guitars (say mid-40s and earlier) were intended for use with heavier strings because the instruments were used acoustically. As pickups became the norm lighter strings became more popular. Of course the glaring exception to that is the Selmer-Maccaferri which used very light steel strings (but a much longer scale) early on- lightly built guitars, light strings and lots of volume.

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #27

    User Info Menu

    Every guitar is different. My Gretsch G400 Synchromatic sounds best with 12s or 13s, however on my Godin 5th Avenue I like to swap the top two strings from the 13 set to a 14 and 18. That works that particular guitar. I tried it on the Gretsch but it changed the tone (dulled it) in a way I didn't really like. The Gretsch has just the right level of 'thunk'.

  4. #28

    User Info Menu

    A more general simple answer is that thicker strings will give you thicker tone. So if your guitar is thin or bright sounding, such as a Tele, it will benefit from thicker strings. If you are after a thicker tone as the tone of Pat Martino, Wes or George Benson, thicker strings can deliver. If you want to play fast twangy stuff as with chicken pickin, then thick strings will make it very difficult to do.

  5. #29

    User Info Menu

    What kind of strings are you using on the Buscarino?
    Russell Malone: Flatwounds. I have a 14 on the high E, on the B string it's an 18, then 26, 36, 46 and 56.

  6. #30

    User Info Menu

    I use D'addario 11's on everything except my gypsy guitar, for which I use Martin Bronze 10's -- shocking I know

  7. #31

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
    What kind of strings are you using on the Buscarino?
    Russell Malone: Flatwounds. I have a 14 on the high E, on the B string it's an 18, then 26, 36, 46 and 56.
    My teacher, Jeff Caldwell, sets up his guitar this way in order to achieve very low action without buzzing. Although the strings are very heavy, his guitar is remarkably easy to play.

    Sent from my XT1064 using Tapatalk

  8. #32

    User Info Menu

    I just put 12's pure nickel on my new Baja 60's telecaster and have been getting use to the increased tension and less Bounce the guitar seemed to have. Not sure they'll stay ?

  9. #33

    User Info Menu

    When it comes to archtops I seem to be equating heavier strings with a louder acoustic punch at the expense of longer sustain. I really believe some experimentation for the guitar and playing style is in order.

  10. #34

    User Info Menu

    I think there's an "arc" in there somewhere, and it's different for every guitar...up to a certain point, volume and sustain both increase with string gauge, until you reach a point where only volume does, and then only difficulty of play does

  11. #35

    User Info Menu

    Another consideration is that of playing style. In my experience, fingerpicking is easier with lighter strings and becomes slightly more difficult when the gauge reaches 13. My playing is a combination of pick style and fingerstyle, so I've opted for 12 gauge strings on most of my guitars. I find that the 12s are thick enough to drive the tops of my acoustic archtops and thin enough to allow for quality fingerpicked tones.

  12. #36

    User Info Menu

    By 12s, we do mean 12-52 or 12--53, not the T-I 12-50, don't we?

  13. #37

    User Info Menu

    I have a Joe Pass also, unmodified with the exception of a rosegood :-) bridge. It wears 12 round wound and it and I love them.

    My fingers / hands are also not happy with heavy strings, never were but as it happens most of my archtops (especially the JP) really project with lighter strings. But I admit I have heavier flats on two of my Ibanez because they play like butter and just sound great.

    I think every git has a personality and finding a string that best meets your sonic wants and physical needs may be a trial and error experiment.

  14. #38

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
    By 12s, we do mean 12-52 or 12--53, not the T-I 12-50, don't we?
    You've got it. I consider 12-52/53 and 13-56 to be the standard sets.

  15. #39

    User Info Menu

    I'm an older guy with 53+ years of playing in the rear-view. I started fingerstyle in emulation of John Fahey (when the Resurrection album came out I worked on 'Brenda's Blues') and Geoff Muldaur. Jody Stecher taught me about string-boiling (I don't).

    I own several instruments and string them all differently. I'm discussing my Yamaha Martin Taylor (AEX1500) with hum/piezo:

    I always liked the better sound/noise ratio of the heavy-guage strings. Those sets always come with a wound G, which deteriorates pretty damn fast - it would sound dead in a week - and I never could afford to buy new strings that fast. Using Tomastik strings, even more so...

    First, I'd order an extra G, but that wasn't always possible (I like to support local stores but most don't carry TIs). Then I'd buy an unwound G string. Also logistically iffy.

    But that turned me on to figuring out the "string-pull", effort it takes to fret strings. Guitar String Calculator

    Currently, I order single GHS strings as follows:
    RM32 Big Core Nickel Rockers Singles
    RM42 Big Core Nickel Rockers Singles
    RM56 Big Core Nickel Rockers Singles
    024 Plain Steel Singles
    018 Plain Steel Singles
    013.5 Plain Steel Singles

    I feel they last a month or two, and give me an fairly even 32 lb. resistance across the neck. Really good for bending the G at the second fret...

    Not shilling for GHS - they're the only place I could get all the weights above. But that changes all the time. Just Strings has SIT singles but only .13 or .14 plain...

    (By the way; Ken parker builds his archies for .12s

    Thoughts?
    Last edited by Marko47; 01-14-2017 at 04:34 PM.

  16. #40

    User Info Menu

    In my experience I found that the use of different picks brings more changing in tone than the use of different sting gauges. And cost less.

  17. #41

    User Info Menu

    As you see from my post above, I went a different direction:

    "Action is my speciality. I’m obsessed with action and playability. I understand that all of us are constructed differently, and I have devoted a big chunk of my worklife to facilitate the guitarist’s healthy and long - term interaction with the instrument. I can get an electric guitar to play perfectly at 1mm bass, .75 mm treble @ the 12th, but for expressive purposes, this action is too low to get a desirable dynamic range from an acoustic guitar. I normally build the guitar for D’Addario EXP (coated)Phosphor Bronze strings “012” - .053”. As a builder, I believe these strings to be superior to all others....

    "I’ve been at this repair/building thing for 35 years, and have worked for many guitarists who have had soft tissue problems that spoiled their ability to play. The sad part is that everything is fine until it isn’t, and then there’s no going back and doing it differently. In my opinion, based on this experience, 13s are too much for many of us, and it’s kinder on the body to consider the organism’s limitations. What a tragedy to be unable to play or practice the way you would like! I believe that the curves of humans and guitars cross at 12s, and have designed the guitars to respond optimally to the tension of this set. In my experience, shifting to 11s cuts the output greatly, but so does shifting to 13s! The greater force applied to the top seems to clamp it so hard that it’s no longer as sensitive, and tends to bark more than ring. “Clamped Shut” is what the guitars sound like to me when they see too much downpressure.

    "The guitar, unlike a bowed instrument, has to be very efficient to have any useful dynamic range. The difference between the most powerful guitar and a “normal” good guitar isn’t a huge difference. In order to offer the player a useful dynamic range, it’s necessary to build a powerful instrument that also sounds great at low volume, and is easy to “start” at low volume. This condition I think of as efficiency, and it has a lot to do with the relationship of the strength of the body relative to the downbearing force of the strings."



  18. #42

    User Info Menu

    What Russell Malone said. Personally, I hear a deeper tone with heavier strings, which I immediately noticed when I first used them. I never went back to 12's after that. And I much prefer the feel of heavier strings, the grip, especially for fingerstyle. Generally I use TI 14's, but occasionally I'll use TI 13's, like on my Epi Premium and the L4CES. 13's feel noticeably lighter to me. All my 17" and 18" guitars have TI14's and a few Labella 15's.

  19. #43

    User Info Menu

    Does Ken Parker have a default scale length ? Does he speak about this at all ?

    Sorry if I missed the reference.

    Thx.

  20. #44

    User Info Menu

    When I was a kid, maybe high school or college, I put 16s on my Epiphone Broadway. I don't recall what the entire set was, but I had to special order them. The music store guy thought I was crazy. I wanted to achieve better tone and build up my chops. It lasted about three string sets changes. And it always takes me months between sets, so I probably played 16s for just about a year. Never again though. I was so happy to get back to 13s and then 12s. I didn't feel that the heavier gauge, or not THAT heavy, gave me better tone. But honestly I don't think I would've known good tone if it had **&^% my %&** then anyway. We're talking 1974 probably. Vox tube and then Ampeg solid state amps. Not a lot of tone shaping knowledge in those days for me.

  21. #45

    User Info Menu

    I confess. I used to play Ernie Ball 9s a lot. I did turn my nose up on 8s as being wimpy.

    Years later I moved to 11s for jazz. One day a very good jazz played shamed me and said I should at least use 12s to drive the sound board. So I did.

    Now I use 12s up to 16s.

    Thanks to COVID-19 I've been able to watch a lot of youtube. Here is the case for very light strings- if you're a rock player.



  22. #46

    User Info Menu

    We found out what set of strings has the most pleasing djent. We learned nothing about the string choice for the other 99.99% of the less caveman like applications.

  23. #47

    User Info Menu

    Whatever they heard, I couldn't hear on my computer speakers.

  24. #48

    User Info Menu

    Roger:
    What you didn't hear is that lighter strings are brighter and janglier.
    Shocker!

  25. #49

    User Info Menu

    I spent a couple of years working in a guitar store being paid in merchandise at full tick by minimum wage ($3.50 at that time). This was in addition to my full-time job and gigging on weekends. So in one year, I "spent" more than $350 on strings trying every conceivable combination of gauges to find the perfectly balanced set for my then-#one ES-345. After that time I concluded that if 10-46s were good enough for Eric Clapton, they were good enough for me.
    Inspired by Pat Martino, my '69 Bigsby-equipped Les Paul Custom Fretless Wonder wore a set of my devising: 0.015 - 0.019 - 0.024P - 0.040w -0.050w - 0.060w. Plugged into my Sunn Concert Lead, and a Traynor Bass Mate 6-10" cabinet, it was Three Hundred Watts of joy, clean and meanin' it. Onstage those 15-60s felt like 10s.

    What I have learned through years of gigging is that tone is contextual. Your tone, on which you have lavished hundreds of hours and wads of cash, is affected by your drummer's selection of cymbals as much as anything. Once they start riding that rivet-riddled sizzle cymbal, you're going to need more highs.
    Last edited by citizenk74; 04-07-2020 at 06:52 PM. Reason: punk2ation, spelling

  26. #50

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Hammertone
    Roger:
    What you didn't hear is that lighter strings are brighter and janglier.
    Shocker!
    There are two issues I have with very light strings. One, is they're easy to bend out of tune. The other is that the upper registers of the high E string can be plinky. Their test didn't address those issues.
    Last edited by rpjazzguitar; 04-07-2020 at 05:33 AM.