[allthumbs]

I was talking to a really good player and told him about the heavy strings I use for tone and stopping the slide from crashing the frets. He said heavy strings are a crutch and don't make much difference to tone either. I have never heard this opinion before. He plays 9s or 10s and uses really thin glass slides. What do you think?

[LightninBoy]

Try a set of .009s, and listen.
Sounds different to .013's.
Every-one has their own ideas on slide playing.
But heavy strings sound better even when playing standard, imo.
As for heavy strings being a "crutch". well, sounds like your friend is a little bitter, and he may have a bad case of sissy fingers! (lol).
Maybe he uses a lot of distortion?
I can use a light touch and slide with .009's easily if I want to, (and have on many occassions on friends guitars) but I don't like the thin tone.
I'd hate a world where everyone does things the same way though.
Whatever floats your boat.

[allthumbs]

Originally Posted by LightninBoy

Try a set of .009s, and listen.
Sounds different to .013's.
Every-one has their own ideas on slide playing.
But heavy strings sound better even when playing standard, imo.
As for heavy strings being a "crutch". well, sounds like your friend is a little bitter, and he may have a bad case of sissy fingers! (lol).
Maybe he uses a lot of distortion?
I can use a light touch and slide with .009's easily if I want to, (and have on many occassions on friends guitars) but I don't like the thin tone.
I'd hate a world where everyone does things the same way though.
Whatever floats your boat.

Thats what i thought too. It seemed very important to him to be the guitar slide master so I didn't purue it. I guess he must think SRV was a wimp for using 13s.

[bluesguy]

Originally Posted by allthumbs

I guess he must think SRV was a wimp for using 13s.

SRV was a maniac for using 13s. Eventually his guitar tech convinced him to stop 'shredding his fingers' and use 11s. Check out http://www.jcdisciples.org/musicians...umber_one.html (mid-page for info about his strings).

[LightninBoy]

SRV was a maniac for using 13s. Eventually his guitar tech convinced him to stop 'shredding his fingers' and use 11s. Check out http://www.jcdisciples.org/musicians...umber_one.html (mid-page for info about his strings).[/quote]

They are talking about the high E string only, not the rest, which remained as a .013 set.
Stevie only changed the high E (1st) to either a .012 or .011 depending on how much he had been playing.
(Stevies own words).

The SRV tone is now legendary, due in part to the heavy gauge.

[Johnny Guitar]

I use slinky (0.009 high E) strings on my standard tuning guitars, and will probably use a light cauge (0.010 high E) when I get my dedicated slide guitar. But I have to disagree with the idea that thinner strings sound the same as thicker strings. I would imagine that it is a basic principle of physics that the increased mass of thicker strings would have richer harmonic content (especially in the first four or five harmonics).

I wonder if that's true, it seems like it should be.

As to SRV, I had always thought that, like Hendrix and T. Bone Walker (I think?), SRV tunned down to E flat. Is that true?

[LightninBoy]

Yep, SRV tuned down to Eb.
However, KWS (Kenny Wayne Shepherd) uses .013>.056 and tunes to E, due to the singers tonal range.
Bob Log III uses .080 gauge strings!
And he has a monkey paw sewn on in place of his right hand!
(Musta worn out his own hand).

[Kirk Lorange]

Originally Posted by allthumbs

I was talking to a really good player and told him about the heavy strings I use for tone and stopping the slide from crashing the frets. He said heavy strings are a crutch and don't make much difference to tone either. I have never heard this opinion before. He plays 9s or 10s and uses really thin glass slides. What do you think?

Good for him if he can get a decent tone and playability out of those skinny little strings. As for the 'crutch' connotation ... I would have thought it was the other way around, that thin strings are the crutch.

To each their own.

[Johnny Guitar]

Wow! I've been thinking about this too much over the past couple of days. I'm too lazy to look up the equations of vibrating strings and I'm not even sure they would help here.

I did come up with a rational thought experiment however.

Hypothesis: for a given length of string tunned to a given pitch, there will be a certain "window" of string diameters which produce a quality tone. Strings of too great a diameter will break before they reach pitch. Too narrow a diameter will allow the energy to be transmitted through the string material through other types of waves (eg torsional).

Convincing argument (?): Strings break from overtightening. I think we all see that so all I'll say is try to tighten your "G" string to the "E" a major sixth higher -- I bet it will break before that point.

For the other side of the argument: take your "B" string and lower it to the "G" a major third lower and compare how the two sound. If you can't hear the difference, keep lowering the "B" string to the "D" below that. There must come an area as the string slacks up where pitch becomes less distinct (probably sounds as if it is going from sharp to flat) and later that you become unclear as to whether you are hearing a pitch at all as it begins to flap.

I won't comment on the quality of the tone question, or the "crutch" question since those are both matters of taste. I'm just saying that there must be a difference, and it's possible that people will notice that difference.

[Frankenstrat2]

I've participated in this debate on other Forums.
First- there is no 'right or wrong' just what works for you.
Saying that heavy strings are a 'crutch' is a bit insulting in its implications.
Its all about tone.
Plenty of players do use light strings and light glass slides and get good tone. Usually they are compensating with more overdriven electric guitars.The more sustain, compression and overdrive generated by the guitar, amp and effects used, the less important the gauge of strings becomes.
Damping behind the slide also can become less critical in that type of setup.
I just dont agree that because light strings and a light slide work for one players style that it is a superior method. Its just another way of doing it.
Personally, I use high action, heavy strings, heavy slides, AND overdriven compressed sustained amps and effects.
I ALWAYS get compliments on my tone.
b.

[randy_mc]

One of the things I like about slide is that anything goes.
With a Fender guitar, I use a set of DR 10's with a 12 on top, and it works fine. However, I usually go from guitar to COMPRESSOR to BSM for bright & silky tones, or from guitar to ETERNITY OVERDRIVE for heavier tones. The ideal tone solution would probably be to use heavy strings, heavy slides, heavy cords, heavy overdrives, and heavy amps But I have to be able to play chords and single note leads as well as slide, so I go with the 10's/12 solution.

Some folks get so uptight about what they use......

[Johnny Guitar]

I'm sure there are plenty of guys who get a great tone out of thin strings.

I just had an interesting revalation while playing non-electric guitar: I have mainly been playing my Martin D28. Not too long ago I had a major setup (and minor repairs) done so I love playing it now; the action is much lower than it had been since I first bought it many years ago. It has 12-54 strings on it as does my Yamaha FG160 (a sort of Martin knock off).

Tunning down and playing slide I was getting all the fret noise and knocking the fingerboard with the slide. A couple of days ago I pulled out the Yamaha (which probably needs a neck reset -- I keep it only for slide and detuning) and it sounded quite good. I didn't have any of the extraneous noises which I normally have with my Martin.

I'd been considering going to a thicker string gauge for slide but I don't think I will need to now (though that low D does sound a bit flabby). I should measure both guitars respective string heights to see how they compare.

I just foud it interesting considering this thread.

[Ricochet]

From the physical standpoint, real strings differ from ideal strings in having bending stiffness. When the ends of a string are clamped in a fixed position, that means the vibrational motion isn't a perfect parabola, but is distorted near the ends where the bending force is concentrated. The freely moving part of the string is shortened a little bit. It doesn't make much difference in the effective length of the string at the fundamental frequency, but as you start fitting more and more standing waves of shorter wavelength (higher partials) onto the string, the stiff fixed segments at the ends have a relatively greater effect, forcing the higher "harmonics" to go sharper relative to the fundamental as they go higher up the harmonic series. The closer a string is stretched to its breaking point, the more closely it resembles an ideal string with perfectly harmonic partials. So a heavy, tight string has its partials more in tune than a light, slacker one tuned to the same pitch.

"Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics" by Arthur H. Benade has a very good explanation of this phenomenon (and lots of others.) A very highly recommended book for musicians.

[Schermerberger]

for gigles I got a hold of some GHS electrics for Zak Wylde (sp?) and substituted a 13 for the 11 and a 23 wound for the 18 plain but the trick with these was the low end.
70, 52, 36, 23, 14, 13 is what I'm trying. That 70 ... I had never seen such a bass string on a guitar. The sustain lasts longer and they don't fret out. if the 23 was from the same set it would work well, but this one has a different feel. I like the richer tone from a 13. I never thought it would matter much. It seems however, that whatever strings and set up I goof around with, there is a slight variation in how to play them.

for what its worth...

[Kirk Lorange]

70! Wow, never heard of such a string.

When I went to see David Lindley last year in Bellingahm WA, he was using a piano string on his lap steel, his Weisneberger, or whatever they're called. Man was that a huge sound! That was the first thing he did in the show: pluck that bass string ... and gave a little wry smile when everyone's eyes popped open wide ... "piano string" he told us all, in his funny voice.