Quote:
Originally Posted by Aspiring
...I had 12s TI flatwound on my Collings I30 and switched to 11s on it. At least for that guitar I didn't notice a significant drop in tone and the playability increase is nice.
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The Collings I30 is a $5000 handmade guitar with specially-constructed, purpose-built top and back plates designed for acoustic resonance, and Lollar pickups -
and sounds like it...
The Ibanez AF75 is a $400 Pac-Rim guitar, factory-built to a price from what amounts to glorified wall-panel plywood and equipped with $15/pair generic pickups...
Big difference - you need as much string tension as possible to get that dead-wood body into the game, and as much vibrating mass as possible to keep the cheap pickups from sounding harsh and trebly (in other words, "cheap"); as a teacher working with mostly younger students, I had to develop quite a bag of low-cost/no-cost tricks to wring the last possible drop of tone and playability from entry-level guitars (FWIW every one of my kids got a basic bridge/truss rod/intonation/string change setup job - and a "fret sprout" filing if necessary - on me), so I'm speaking from extensive experience here. With a good pro setup, the OP should have no playability issues with 12's - and a whole lot more tone to boot...