So I guess I like high-tension strings.

[Despised_0515]

.10 - .52 floppy in drop C?
I'm only a half step above that and tension isn't flop at all but could the Floyd account for that?

 

[Johnboy_Ice]

maybe? I don't know much about floyds, but my guitar has a non locking trem (SAT-II Bridge I think? its on the Ibanez SA).

The low 3 strings were manageable for me... but I still kinda wanted them a little tighter because alternate picking is way easier with tight strings. But the 3 high strings were actually impossible to play on... bad enough to make me stop playing altogether for a few days. Trying to do a simple tapping riff on the high e (d in my case) string would end with the string going off the side of the neck and screwing everything up, which has never really happened to me...

to each his own I guess.

 

[Chickenhawk]

I just found out my 7 string in Drop G with a .58 is 30.8lbs. I had no idea it was that tight, seems a little loose to me.

You're not the only one that likes tension, apparently

 

[All_¥our_Bass]

MAYBE I WILL

Seriously though, I'm sure my string gauges would get STUPID if I owned a standard scale 7, hah.
Praise the guitar world for extended scale and fanned fret axes.

Yeah those gauges were for a 25.5" scale guitar.

I would really enjoy some extremely thin and tight strings on a standard scale length, but I'm not sure how I can go about doing that... hah

You could have Garry Goodman make you a few sets with massive cores.

Case in point, you can get a 118 from him that tunes to Bass B on a 25.5" scale guitar.

I'm more of a light top/heavy bottom kind of guy, usually use 09/46 hybrid sets in standard, add a .56 for my seven string and I'm happy. I do prefer a little bit higher tension on the low strings for my downtuned 6ers as I tend to pick fairly hard for rhythm work but I still need .09 equivelant strings for lead work. I have a light touch with my fretting hand but I'm heavy handed with my picking hand, can get interesting at times!! LOL

I like my lows to be brutally tight but I like my higher strings to feel like a set of 9's.

 

[Swippity Swappity]

I like my strings like I like my women: thin and loose.

 

[conortheshreder]

i like heavy B E A and D strings but the rest have to be quite light to do malmsteen like vibrato

 

[slayerrulesyo]

I just found out my 7 string in Drop G with a .58 is 30.8lbs. I had no idea it was that tight, seems a little loose to me.

You're not the only one that likes tension, apparently

Damn, I thought that .70 in Drop A on my 7 was good xDD
I used .62 now, anything lower than that feels loose or too small
so its now.... .10-.62 for standard.

 

[troyguitar]

heavier strings sound better (louder, clearer, punchier, more sustain)

I'm still waiting for somebody to prove that one.

I like very low tension. I prefer playing to be as effortless as possible, especially since I have mild tendonitis in both wrists. One of my 9-strings right now has a .056 tuned down to a low E at 27.5" and it's perfectly playable.

 

[blister7321]

all my guitars have dean markley blue steel 11-52 or my Drop C has the same set with a 56 and my 7 has a 60+ for the Drop A

 

[DVRP]

Im thinking of trying 56s in drop c. im currently using 54s and they feel good but i just wanna try bigger!

 

[Razorgrin]

Im thinking of trying 56s in drop c. im currently using 54s and they feel good but i just wanna try bigger!

ONE OF US

The very first time I replaced my strings on my first guitar, I went from .009-.042 to .011-.052. After that, I managed to get a set of .013-.058 flatwound strings on that thing, tuned up to E standard on a Strat-scale guitar (I think it was 25.5", but I have no idea). I'm not sure how I still have eyes, honestly. I swore by super-heavy strings for years and have only recently come back down into LTHB territory; I must be getting old.

 

[All_¥our_Bass]

I'm still waiting for somebody to prove that one.

I like very low tension. I prefer playing to be as effortless as possible, especially since I have mild tendonitis in both wrists. One of my 9-strings right now has a .056 tuned down to a low E at 27.5" and it's perfectly playable.

I don't try to press really hard or anything, but it seems like I do so unintentionally. It seems when it comes to lower guitar strings I'm a big brute whether I like it or not.

It might be something genetic, cause me and my pop will always over tighten the crap out of jar lids, among other things (without even trying), then my mom and my sis need help opening them.

This was happening even before I started playing any type of instrument.
If you handed me your axe I would probably struggle to play it as every note I fret would probably be warbling in and out of tune, and I'd even knock open strings off of pitch due to my picking.

I did pick up bass first though, so I probably got used to the way the strings feel and respond on a bass (tight, lots of sustain), and used an aggressive pick attack+low action+stainless steel strings+bright tone to achieve a clanky slap-like tone. Having the string bounce off the fretboard and snap back changed the timbre of the attack in a way I really liked.

Thus when I got into guitar I set about getting that kind of thing going on the lower guitar strings.

Another artifact of my history is that I fret with the pads of my fingers, rather than the tips, idk if that has anything to do with it though.

I like my strings like I like my women: thin and loose.

Ewww... you like "loose" women?

jk, I know what you meant.

 

[ephrion]

Thick strings FTW! I use 11-56 in D standard and 13-68 in B standard, 25.5". Anything looser is just unacceptable...

 

[cycloptopus]

I've been using the Ernie Ball Beefy Slinky's @ 11-54 and D'Addario 11-52's in drop C# on 25.5" (Ibby's) for a while. I like the tension, but I was shocked recently when I read that Fredrik Thordendal uses like .008's. I guess he got that from Alan Holdsworth for the legato techniques. Either way, the Meshuggah tone comes from thin strings and their tone kills. For me, I always broke alot of thin strings so I went thicker early on, then I realized I like the bigger tone I got from thicker strings, and on top of that I felt like I could dig into the strings better too. But now I'm thinking of going the other way with it and drop back to .010's for a bit to see if I can find a happy medium for legato and metal tone without losing too much tension.

 

[All_¥our_Bass]

^The longer scale lengths that the Mesh boys use help eliminate flop as well.

 

[Trespass]

I play .010-.046 on my Gibson V, though it has had .017-.070 in A standard (which was incredibly tight and beautiful-but the pickups couldn't handle it at all) and 11s in E standard. I really want to try La Bella's thick core 8 string set for the Agile, and get Gary Goodman to do a set of large core high tension 11s for the V.

 

[Despised_0515]

High-Tension club anyone?

 

[shogunate]

I'm with the OP, I can't do anything with loose strings. I never bend more than a step and a half, and that's pushing it when I feel like being dramatic. The wound third string sounds so much better to my ears than plains, acoustic and has that ZING to it Also, I never figured out how people say "smaller strings=speed, bigger strings=chug". My thinking and feeling is, if the string's floppy, it takes longer for the pick to push it and then twang it, whereas bigger strings you just smack it and keep going to other strings Tremolo picking is WAYYY easier on thicker strings, whether on the low end or in solos.

I also don't like short scales though, I can't play Gibsons or PRSs properly, EVER, and even 25.5" feels short to me now. 27" and 28" are perfect, the 30+ range is nuts

Even on 25.5" guitars in standard E I prefer .054s or .056s, everything else jangles around way too damn much.... For anyone looking into more tension for thinner strings, the Dunlop heavy cores are great (don't go thick enough for B tuning IMO which is why I don't currently use them) and some other company came out with the same idea this year, I forgot the name =me, but I use their acoustic sets and love it.

MOAR TENSION!!!!!!!! RAAAWWWWRRRR!!!!

 

[TomAwesome]

30 pounds? That's more than double the tension of my strings. I like the tension around 18 pounds or so, but I like the sound of thinner strings, so they're usually around 14 pounds. I hate going much thicker than .060", which isn't a problem on my 7s, but my 8 gets tuned pretty low, so my next set will probably go up to .080" just to get it feeling a bit more solid.

 

[Razorgrin]

High-Tension club anyone?

/second

30 pounds? That's more than double the tension of my strings. I like the tension around 18 pounds or so, but I like the sound of thinner strings, so they're usually around 14 pounds.

My ex-girlfriend is an indie-rock type; she plays a Tele with .009s in E standard and I could barely play the thing. I'd be bending off the fretboard half the time. Plus, I have a pretty heavy touch - okay, I kind of have a death grip - so I'd have strings all out of tune just because they'd bend under my apparently immense fretting pressure.