Very interesting debate and really no better proof in the pudding that guitar setup is truly not set in stone. Everyone gravitates to their own way of doing things. Frankly, cos, all these ways have their own seemingly irrefutable logic to them.
Anyway, I was getting a little spoiled with the Big Baby and now feel that the playability on my dread is way too hard (lol) so much so that I was thinking of going back to ... gasp ... light gauge strings on them. Google search came up with
this post in the AGF archives by a "JTFoote" giving his (or her?) thoughts on why you should theoretically be able to get
easier playability with mediums since you can get
lower action action with them over the lights ...
Quote:
And although this flies in the face of popular Internet forum opinion ... the facts are this: medium gauge strings can be made to be even more playable than lights.
Light strings, being thinner in diameter, oscillate more than thicker strings, forcing them to set them farther from the fret, to keep the strings from striking the fret after being picked or plucked. In other words, to avoid fret buzz, the action must be higher (or the neck has to have greater relief), and due to the smaller dimensions, are always farther away from the fret.
This means a medium gauge string can actually be set lower, and closer to the frets, without producing buzz after being struck, and the larger diameter means there is automatically less distance between the bottom of the strings and the frets. Less distance means less pressure is needed from the fingers to produce a clean note. It may not be much, but when setting up a guitar, millimeters count, regardless of how small they may seem to be to the mind's eye.
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So I guess I'll stick with mediums and do some more adjustment to the Martin.
