Choosing the right strings for your
Acoustic Guitar
Acoustic guitar strings come in many varieties and
gauges. We have put together this guide in attempt
to share our views with you and hopefully help you
choose the correct strings for your instrument.
There are so many different gauges and manufacturers
to choose from you can often find yourself confused
as to what to use on your acoustic. I for one have
tried hundreds of brands and gauges on various acoustics
to achieve that great playability and tone that is
swimming around somewhere in the outer bounds of my
minds ear. Often the only way to find the ultimate
strings that suit your instrument is to give them
a try but this can be quite costly so hopefully sharing
our experience with strings will help you reduce the
expenditure and stumble across the strings of your
liking relatively quickly.
GAUGES
There are many gauges to choose from but we will concentrate
on the most recognised for the Acoustic guitar. There
are essentially four main popular gauges to choose
from. A word about gauges. It seems that Tone and
playability work against each other in terms of guitar
strings. Let me explain. The heaviest gauge strings
often produce the fullest, loudest and most vibrant
tone and have excellent tuning stability. But the
tension on these also offers the worst in terms of
how easy your guitar is to play. So often choosing
the right string gauge is a compromise between playability
and achieving the best possible tone without having
to invest in a Arni schwarzenegger hand transplant.
Extra light guage 10-46
These are one of the lightest gauges available for
acoustic steel string. They are the easiest to play
and have the least tension. Really great for Electro
acoustic guitar where the acoustic tone and projection
is not ultra important and is outweighed by the need
to have an instrument that will not cause your hand
muscles to cramp after the first three songs. These
tend to be too loose for our liking on standard acoustic
guitars and have a thinner sound with a tendency to
fret rattle on some instruments.
Custom Light guage 11-52
We like this gauge since it suits a lot of instruments
and retains the ease of playability due to the tension
not being too high. The tone is good and they can
be used on both electro acoustics and small bodied
acoustic guitars. (Never use steel strings on a classical
guitar, you need nylon for those).
Light gauge 12-54
This is the most popular gauge used in the professional
music industry. The strings of this gauge offer a
full tone with excellent projection. The tension is
about right on a well set up instrument but can be
a problem if you have a budget guitar or the instrument
is set with a relatively high action. The tuning stability
is much better on this gauge than the lighter gauges
we discussed earlier.
continued >>
|
