Light up the strings!

For the past month I have been using light D’Addario strings on my acoustic guitar. I have always been using medium strings but now I have tried some light strings (0.8 I think but I would not bet my life on it) just for getting the feeling. What I could say about it is that for soloing it feels great, I could bend the G string very easy, the same as with my electric guitar. Everything works way easier on these light strings than on my medium ones. However, when strumming, I feel frustrated, I can never get that full sound of tensioned strings, feeling that I get with medium to heavy strings. I guess folk guitar players play at least medium strings since otherwise they won’t ever get that sound for their acoustic guitars. Somebody even asked me why my guitar had no “power” in it. Well, it took me some time to explain him the reason…the strings are not very tensioned,they are light and easy on my fingers.
I have a friend which is one of the best electric guitar players in Romania at this time, (we used to play in the same band for 1 year) using electric guitar strings shifted one string up. Meaning that he used E for upper E string, an other E for B string, B string for a G and so on. What I could say is that the taping went great, bending strings was great, but there was something missing in heavy chords, those power chords that electric guitar players love…

Now, If I think about, I guess Stevie Ray Vaughan had a point when using only heavy guitar strings, only heavy guitar strings could give him that spanky sound that we all know. However, those strings were not good for his fingers,not to my knowledge or experience…

So, what kind of guitar strings do you like for your acoustic or electric guitars?

Bookmark It