What gauge strings do you use?

[bufflehead]

On a long-scale guitar, 11s.
On a short-scale guitar, 12s.
As a general rule, I try to avoid short-scale guitars, which is why I answered "11" on the pole.

[Jay5150]

12 on my main standard tuning guitar, 13 on my open tuning guitar, 11 on my couch parlor guitar

[Mike McLenison]

13's but I tune down a whole step so they feel like 11's to me.

[AndrewG]

12-53, 80-20 on all. I don't like the feel of anything heavier and, frankly, whenever I experimented with various gauges in the past I didn't notice any improvement either in tone or volume-if there was any it was marginal at best. With anything lighter than 12s the decrease in tension makes the strings flop about too much for accurate flatpicking.

[llew]

I voted 13's but I do use 12's on some guitars. More 13's than 12's.

[Mandobart]

13's on my archtop, resonator and dread. 11's on the gypsy jazz guitar. Lights also on my old Ovation 12 string.

When I first started guitar in the 70's I played Martin Marquis strings because that's what the only music store in town stocked. I used extra lights then.

[j3ffr0]

I kinda use them all. I have 13s on two, 12s on two, and 11s on one, the 12-string has 10s, and the baritone has a 16. They all have different advantages and disadvantages and some sets worth better with certain guitars than others.... Also depends on what one is doing too -- tunings certainly make a difference.

[jaymarsch]

I use 12s mostly, but have done some custom gauge mixes on certain guitars for certain tunings.

Best,
Jayne

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by TBman

I'm curious. To those that use lighter gauges (10-11), do you feel the strings drive the top enough, especially for finger style?

I like to use 13s as I'm tuned to DADGAD and lower tunings on most of my guitars. I like 12s for standard tuning. I've never tried 10s as I always thought they would sound too thin. I have used 11s but not often in the past 50+ years.

Hi Barry…

Alas I cannot vote on your Poll.

I use two string weights:
.011-.052 and bump the first string up to a .012
.012-.053 and bump the first string up to a .013

Yes, I have strung my Baskin OM with .010-.047 and it drives both top and bottom adequately. Doesn't sound thin, but the projection goes way down. I had to tweak the truss rod to compensate for the lower string tension.

I did this when we traveled in the RV just to keep the noise down if I practiced at night in a campground with the windows open.

I think overbuilt guitars can suffer from thin and overly fizzy trebles with very light strings.

But, there's nothing to prevent us from trying them. Then we'll know how they perform on our guitars with us playing them.

[jrb715]

Voted 13s but:

12s on my two OMs.

13s on my dreads, slope dreads, small jumbo

[ewalling]

I play fingerstyle and use 11-52s on acoustics. I find these give the best ring and shimmer, whilst also being a little kinder on both the fretting hand and the picking nails.

On my Godin Multiac Spectrum and Godin P90 Kingpin, I use 11-50s.

On my Ibanez AM153DB semi-hollowbody electric I like 10-48s,

[Tony Burns]

Lights - and never looked back
they are not super load but they play nice and put less tension on the top

[Brent Hutto]

Originally Posted by TBman

I'm curious. To those that use lighter gauges (10-11), do you feel the strings drive the top enough, especially for finger style?

I like to use 13s as I'm tuned to DADGAD and lower tunings on most of my guitars. I like 12s for standard tuning. I've never tried 10s as I always thought they would sound too thin. I have used 11s but not often in the past 50+ years.

My guitar is pretty lightly built although not to the extreme of some high-end specialist fingerstyle instruments, it's more of an all-rounder. It's probably at its best with a conventional "light" set of 12-52 or thereabouts, that's what its builder seemed to have in mind.

I've never used anything lighter than an 11-50 set on it but thin-sounding trebles were definitely not an issue. If anything, when I've tried 13-gauge 1st string and/or 17-gauge 2nd the trebles have lost all their sparkle and the upper register kind of hums instead of sings.

I do have some doubts whether I can muster enough technique with my fingers to get a full sound with a 10-47 set or something like that. It would probably have a nice timbre but be very, very quiet if I tried.