So 12s are fading away.....

[AndrewG]

Originally Posted by rokdog49

And I'm not sure I agree with you on this. I found that having light strings on the high B and E sounds tinny on my Dreads, both of which have plenty of bottom.On those guitars I use 17s and 13's as a substitute on 11-52 sets.
The trebles are thicker and louder, especially for strumming. As far as picks go, I use a .88, .96 or 1.0 which I consider heavy.

Different guitars respond to strings in different ways. What works on your guitars may not necessarily work for others. I use .88, 1.00 and 1.14 depending on what works best for any specific tune. If it's a simple strummer it'll be the .88. For more control on flatpicked tunes, the 1.14.

[Oldguy64]

Originally Posted by TBman

I've been using 11s and 11.5 on most of my guitars for a while and now I have 12s on only two of my guitars..... I tend to avoid playing them now. The only thing is they sound so good... Anyone else wimping out over time?

I'm a big, sturdy guy, and while it would be more manly to use 12's I find myself gradually going back to 11-52's on my six strings.
I find them to sound as good or better than 12-53's and they are easier on my hands to boot.

I'm also a finger picker more than a strummer.
I find the 11's let me hold with less force on my fretting hand.
Therefore I can play longer before discomfort sets in.

[Howard Emerson]

I'm still using my D'Addario EJ-16 or NB light gauge wound strings, but I stick with the .017 & .013 medium plains.

They get the thicker sound I'm wanting. With the jumbo fret wire they're easy on the fingers anyway.

HE

If the need ever arises for me to "wimp out" I'll go to a piezo equipped electric before I'll put anything less than 12s on one of my acoustics.

[HHP]

Sometimes, you have to go down. I have a deep body 00 that I always used standard light gauge on. It sounded good. I went down to a set of custom light gauge Monels and the sound just explodes out this thing now. It is both louder and more projective with the lighter gauge set.

[Long Jon]

Originally Posted by Howard Emerson

I'm still using my D'Addario EJ-16 or NB light gauge wound strings, but I stick with the .017 & .013 medium plains.

They get the thicker sound I'm wanting. With the jumbo fret wire they're easy on the fingers anyway.

HE

I don't normally like Elixirs, but I just put a set of their HD lights on my short scale Taylor 312 and they have made it play and sound the best I have ever heard it (had regular D'Ad PB lights on it previously .
These HDs sound much richer and also feel better to me. they are 13, 17, 25, 32, 42, 53.

Originally Posted by HHP

Sometimes, you have to go down. I have a deep body 00 that I always used standard light gauge on. It sounded good. I went down to a set of custom light gauge Monels and the sound just explodes out this thing now. It is both louder and more projective with the lighter gauge set.

I had a Recording King RN25, a deep body Nick Lucas style 00 . It sounded much better with light than mediums.
I understand the term is "choked" (?) for the effect of strings that are too heavy for certain guitars.

[Mr Fingers]

I disagree with the premise of some of these comments, as it is not my experience that heavier gauges are tonally better than lighter strings. I can only convey my own experiences, but while my dreadnoughts seem at their best both tonally and in terms of volume, with sets with 12s at the top, that is not the case for my 00 and 000s. (Of course, we're talking 25.5" scale length, since w/ 24.75, it's necessarily different, usually by one whole "gauge.") Some of my smaller-bodied instruments sound great with 12s; others become overdriven, compressed, and thick, and need lighter middles, particularly, to breathe with full fidelity. Oddly (just personal, I guess) I find that using a high E that is one step heavier than usual for the gauge of the rest of the set works really well for me, perhaps because I hate a shrill, sharp tone up there.

[Moocheng]

Have tried light gauge strings and they just did'nt do it for me. The trade off in sound was too great especially knowing how good the guitar can sound with mediums so in the end I just stuck to 13's Its a dynamics thing, with mediums I can go from the sweetest whisper to a full roar, Something I car'nt seem to do with light strings or do as well

Its just an opinion, there are no rights or wrongs on this, Maybe as time passes there may come a time to move to lighter strings, though not yet

Another thought, sort of related,
one of my dreads was transformed from a stiff old clunker to a nice playing wonderful sounding guitar just by dropping the tuning a tone. It might be an alternative to using lighter strings