just wondering...i'm not exactly sure what the difference is between different gauges. i have boughten from the thinest guage for my electric guitar(which i think is a 5) to the thickest, which i believe is an 8....

are there any paticular differences between em?

The thicker the strings the better they generally sound, however a thick string has to be taut with much more tension to play in standard tuning and can be hard to play fast because of the effort you have to put in fretting. thinner strings are nice for rock and doing uber bends...
If your guitar has a floyd rose bridge, changing strings can be a bitch.

Thicker strings give you more "chunk" so they would be good for playin slow, heavy riffs such as Metallica's "Sad but True". Thinner strings generally have more "attack" so they would better suit faster riffs such as "The First Deadly Sin" from Arch Enemy (i'm reffering to the top 2/3 strings). What crypt crawler said about bending is also true.

aright, i didnt really notice anything big on the speed. i have been playing for a bit more than a year, and i dont mean to brag, but other guitarists who have been playing that long(or a bit longer) are much slower than me. and ive tried with different strings, speed never really changed for me...

but i guess i'll try with them all over again

and yeah, i was thinking of getting a guitar with a floyd rose bridge, but the strings thing is sort of freaken me out...so meh

well, be careful with the really thin strings,you need to "down-tune" them and you could get an annoying "cleeearrrng" if you hit the top 2 harder
anyone know how to counter this?maybe 2 coiled humbuckers?

@Cursed
What you mean by a 2 coiled humbucker?
Humbucker is just 2 single coil pick ups wired together wit opposite polaritires, this causes mains hum to be cancelled out (hence the name, "humbucker"). As far as i know pick up design cannot save you from fret buzz ... if thats what you refer to with "Clearrrrng" ?

whatever, i meant pickup not humbuckers
and i'm not talking about the fret buzz, but about this situation: take your guitar, downtune the high e string 2-3 steps and hit it with as much power as you can on open...if this doesn't work then you've got probably the best guitar in the world
but if it does, you should hear an annoying string buzz..i don't know why it happens
and if it STILL doesn't happen, turn off the amp

Maybe its coming from the bridge, especially on loose floyd roses... dunno

Some instruments as far as I know arent meant to be downtuned....some strings are made to sustain looser tunings, but thats usually custom made and etc. I never tune down lower than D, and thats also an exception, because it really loosened to pegs on my bass and I think contributes to string buzzing even when its in standard tuning.

the string buzz might also have something to do with your actual neck. it might be too tight, or too loose. though when its too lose, it usually buzzes around the 12th- 15th fret.

and why do you have to keep the high gauge strings lower than normal? they break easy while tuning? or they break easy while playing?

oh btw, how often should one change his/her strings? does it really matter? like, for the most part, i have had the same strings for about a ayear. the only strings that broke away, and i had to get new ones were the high E, and my A string. other htan that, the other strings have been perfectly in tune, and they sound about right. and i have had em for about a year and...umm...whow! ive been playing for a year and a half! time sure goes fast. and i play it about an hour-two hours a day. so yeah...

idk, when i had new strings, sliding my pick on my low E, A, and D strings pissed me off coz it was too high, and it sounded too clean. now that i try that, it sounds..idk..different in a better way

Grimy strings sounds much worse than new ones, i had a set of strings in my guitar for 10 months and i cleane them once or twice a month and i thought they were just fine. But when i changed strings (same gauge) the sound of the clean strings was much much better.

i generally prefer thin strings. they just are easier to play on, since you don't have to push down like you would do with high gauge bass-guitar strings
and can 3 double-coil humbuckers save you from ALL fret/string buzz? this especially applies when you're playing fast, death-metal like riffs(post-mortem,seasons in the abyss by slayer and iced earth-like stuff)
and how much does a good but cheap double-coil humbucker cost? i saw some at the equivalent of 60 bucks, i think they were seymour duncan.

I play .012s because of the tone [and the fact that I play in standard D tuning]. It is a bit harder to bend, but not that much harder, very easy to get used to.

Written by Soliloquy on 10.11.2006 at 00:05

the string buzz might also have something to do with your actual neck. it might be too tight, or too loose. though when its too lose, it usually buzzes around the 12th- 15th fret.

and why do you have to keep the high gauge strings lower than normal? they break easy while tuning? or they break easy while playing?

oh btw, how often should one change his/her strings? does it really matter? like, for the most part, i have had the same strings for about a ayear. the only strings that broke away, and i had to get new ones were the high E, and my A string. other htan that, the other strings have been perfectly in tune, and they sound about right. and i have had em for about a year and...umm...whow! ive been playing for a year and a half! time sure goes fast. and i play it about an hour-two hours a day. so yeah...

idk, when i had new strings, sliding my pick on my low E, A, and D strings pissed me off coz it was too high, and it sounded too clean. now that i try that, it sounds..idk..different in a better way

thanks a whole fukcing lot!! honestly that neck adjusting thing really helped!

Written by Valentin B on 13.11.2006 at 16:59

Written by Soliloquy on 10.11.2006 at 00:05

the string buzz might also have something to do with your actual neck. it might be too tight, or too loose. though when its too lose, it usually buzzes around the 12th- 15th fret.

and why do you have to keep the high gauge strings lower than normal? they break easy while tuning? or they break easy while playing?

oh btw, how often should one change his/her strings? does it really matter? like, for the most part, i have had the same strings for about a ayear. the only strings that broke away, and i had to get new ones were the high E, and my A string. other htan that, the other strings have been perfectly in tune, and they sound about right. and i have had em for about a year and...umm...whow! ive been playing for a year and a half! time sure goes fast. and i play it about an hour-two hours a day. so yeah...

idk, when i had new strings, sliding my pick on my low E, A, and D strings pissed me off coz it was too high, and it sounded too clean. now that i try that, it sounds..idk..different in a better way

thanks a whole fukcing lot!! honestly that neck adjusting thing really helped!

heads up though. when i was making my guitar, i didnt really know much of anything, so i gave tons and tons of scratches to my head stock. you need proper tools for it too.

humm...i'm just wondering. since i'm never really happy with the 'normal' stuff, i was just wondering, what would happen if you mix and match your strings. like for the High E and B strings, you use the smallest gauges. and for the low E, A, D, and G, you use the thickest. that way, your lead stuff would be faster, your riffs would be slower. and your guitar would be throwing both of them at you at the same time.

would that work, or would it sound like shit?

Written by Soliloquy on 15.11.2006 at 19:11

humm...i'm just wondering. since i'm never really happy with the 'normal' stuff, i was just wondering, what would happen if you mix and match your strings. like for the High E and B strings, you use the smallest gauges. and for the low E, A, D, and G, you use the thickest. that way, your lead stuff would be faster, your riffs would be slower. and your guitar would be throwing both of them at you at the same time.

would that work, or would it sound like shit?

No, that would work fine! Daron Malakian's old guitar, bless it's Iceman shape, had .60 thick strings on top and .10 at the bottom if i'm not mistaking.

ahh, fucking hell. i knew i did something wrong when i built my guitar. in fixing the action on my guitar, i messed up the screws that change the action. and now, no matter what kind of screw driver it is, i can not change the action. i guess i'll have to stick to the same action. only problem..i'll have to go back to the person i got the strings from...now that will be fun

Written by Valentin B on 12.11.2006 at 10:38

i generally prefer thin strings. they just are easier to play on, since you don't have to push down like you would do with high gauge bass-guitar strings
and can 3 double-coil humbuckers save you from ALL fret/string buzz? this especially applies when you're playing fast, death-metal like riffs(post-mortem,seasons in the abyss by slayer and iced earth-like stuff)
and how much does a good but cheap double-coil humbucker cost? i saw some at the equivalent of 60 bucks, i think they were seymour duncan.

wrote this 4 years and a half ago, and since then i've progressively moved up to heavier strings. 0.09-0.10-0.11 and now 0.12 on standard tuning. the sound is absolutely tremendous.

though i have one tiny problem: the tuning fluctuates a bit in the strings, especially the G string. any idea why this happens?

Been using Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottoms (or whatever other 10-52 gauge packs I can find) for a good while now. Pretty much does exactly what I need. Only ever really play in standard or drop D, so the skinnier top strings are great for bending/vibrato and the heaviness of the lower strings gives a lot of extra chug that I dont get out of regular sets of 10s. I usually change strings before gigs etc, but still I rarely have issues with string breakage, just hoping I can keep it that way!

Llort, I use the exact same kind. I play in Eb (for Burning Shadows). I try to change them every other gig. The one time I didn't in the last couple years I broke a string onstage of course! The 10-52 sets are great when playing Iced Earth-like riffs.

I have a 7-string, as well. One set of strings I had for it had a 52 B string. It felt so wrong to play because usually my 52 string is tuned to Eb!

When I tune to standard (for RVG) I use Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky (9-46).

I haven't figured out what bass strings suit me best yet. They're too damned expensive and I rarely restring my basses.

@Valentin B - I have the same trouble with the G string, where as all the other strings stay in tune while that one does not. Honestly, I really don't know. I have some Gibson Lights (.09 or .10 to .48, I -think-) strapped onto a Gibson Les Paul Studio. I usually play that guitar in Standard E tuning. However, I've been recording some material and I had to drop the tuning down to Standard D (ya know, all the strings down one whole step), and the problem vanished. I'm still using the same strings for that as well, which I think is a little unorthodox... But, I just adjusted the action here and there with no problems.

As to -why- the G string always went out of tune more frequently, I have no idea. The only thing I can suggest (that I haven't tried yet) is to get yourself a pack of strings with a 'wound G', which makes the G string more taut, or something of that nature.

Here's an example: http://www.amazon.com/GHS-Strings-Electric-Guitar-Boomers/dp/B000OR17O2