Better tone and ideas

Its all in the fingers, or is it?

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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by jeremyb »

If you play in anything but standard you're pretty shot for using thin strings :(
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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by MattH »

Thinner strings might give you speed, but does it give you tone?
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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by Vince »

JHorner wrote:
handsoffmatt wrote:My point here is that trying out lighter strings than you are used to can make playing a LOT easier and can broaden your ability to pull off ideas on the guitar that you have in your head.
Conversely, putting 11's on one guitar and practicing on that one means that you get a lot of strength training out of a small amount of practice!
Yes, the usual advice is to play acoustic guitar for a while. That definitely builds up strength.
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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by Scooter13 »

MattH wrote:Thinner strings might give you speed, but does it give you tone?
Yes. :) Tone is in the fingers... If you play with more finesse and control due to a lighter gauge. If you can handle the pain to play just as well with thicker strings then do it.
I've heard professionals say they'll practice with lighter gauge but for one off large concerts they'll go up a few. Not on tour though where they're playing every night or two for two hours.

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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by Bg »

Scooter13 wrote:
MattH wrote:Thinner strings might give you speed, but does it give you tone?
Yes. :) Tone is in the fingers... If you play with more finesse and control due to a lighter gauge. If you can handle the pain to play just as well with thicker strings then do it.
I've heard professionals say they'll practice with lighter gauge but for one off large concerts they'll go up a few. Not on tour though where they're playing every night or two for two hours.
I don't get that at all. Swapping gauges would make it harder as you would overbend?

I currently have about 10 guitars (cue the shit song) some have 9's, 10's and 11's. They all feel similar in tension, apart from the acoustics. So I can pretty much gauge where my bends need to go, more importantly the prebends. fucking with gauges would be silly.
So, is that low alcohol or no alcohol at all? mmmm, no alcohol, do you want to try it? Noooooooooo.

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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by Delayman »

Bg wrote:
Scooter13 wrote:
MattH wrote:Thinner strings might give you speed, but does it give you tone?
Yes. :) Tone is in the fingers... If you play with more finesse and control due to a lighter gauge. If you can handle the pain to play just as well with thicker strings then do it.
I've heard professionals say they'll practice with lighter gauge but for one off large concerts they'll go up a few. Not on tour though where they're playing every night or two for two hours.
I don't get that at all. Swapping gauges would make it harder as you would overbend?

I currently have about 10 guitars (cue the shit song) some have 9's, 10's and 11's. They all feel similar in tension, apart from the acoustics. So I can pretty much gauge where my bends need to go, more importantly the prebends. fucking with gauges would be silly.
pre-bends i can understand, but everything else you would do by ear? That's why you can change between guitars with different scale.

But I may be a less finessed player as I normally wouldn't hold a prebend long enough for you to know I've missed, it's normally a moving note with vibrato anyway
They keep telling me tone is in the fingers, but I have yet to see a "look at my fingers" thread.
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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by Bg »

Dunno, but I've found swapping between gauges to be more complicated than swapping between scale lengths - thats never been a problem for me, perhaps I don't play fast enough for that to be an issue ;) Lately I've realised that most of the bends I do can be done with the first finger so I've been 'reconfingering' to that. With heavier gauge that would screw me up.
So, is that low alcohol or no alcohol at all? mmmm, no alcohol, do you want to try it? Noooooooooo.

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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by crowbgood1 »

Tone is in the pickups, effects, amp, speakers and room.

Don't forget where you are in relation to your speaker has a massive impact on what you hear.
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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by hamo »

Reconfingering has to be the word of the year.
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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by handsoffmatt »

MattH wrote:Thinner strings might give you speed, but does it give you tone?
That's all a matter of opinion, but there are some players commonly cited as BIG hitters in the tone world that use light strings.

Billy Gibbons 008's
Brian May 008's
EVH. 009's
Jimmy Page 008's/009's
Angus Young 009's

The biggest exponents of core electric guitar tone are your guitar amplifier, overdrive/distortion pedal, the speaker and (most importantly) your fingers.

Thinner strings have naturally less body to their tone, however they also have more pronounced harmonic content. If you're playing acoustic guitar, then picking strings for your desired tone should be paramount over playing comfort.

However, with electric guitar (particularly when played with overdrive) you have the benefit that your amplifier/pedals have EQ knobs on them that can be used to drastically alter the fundamental tone that you hear. It's very easy to add body and depth to a tone with your guitar amp....PLUS reap the benefit of the added upper harmonics that thin strings produce.

So back to the point of the original post.....which were tips for better tone and ideas. My suggestion of trying lighter strings might (or might not) enable
the OP to "open up" their idea flow by being able to play more easily on light strings. Tone can be adjusted at the amp/pedals/whatever to still sound kick-ass.

(A caveat to all of the above is if you play electric guitar with mostly clean tones .....you get less benefit of the tone shaping features of an overdriving guitar amp. Then the tonal effect of string gauge become somewhat more important.)
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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by MattH »

handsoffmatt wrote:
MattH wrote:Thinner strings might give you speed, but does it give you tone?
That's all a matter of opinion, but there are some players commonly cited as BIG hitters in the tone world that use light strings.

Billy Gibbons 008's
Brian May 008's
EVH. 009's
Jimmy Page 008's/009's
Angus Young 009's

The biggest exponents of core electric guitar tone are your guitar amplifier, overdrive/distortion pedal, the speaker and (most importantly) your fingers.

Thinner strings have naturally less body to their tone, however they also have more pronounced harmonic content. If you're playing acoustic guitar, then picking strings for your desired tone should be paramount over playing comfort.

However, with electric guitar (particularly when played with overdrive) you have the benefit that your amplifier/pedals have EQ knobs on them that can be used to drastically alter the fundamental tone that you hear. It's very easy to add body and depth to a tone with your guitar amp....PLUS reap the benefit of the added upper harmonics that thin strings produce.

So back to the point of the original post.....which were tips for better tone and ideas. My suggestion of trying lighter strings might (or might not) enable
the OP to "open up" their idea flow by being able to play more easily on light strings. Tone can be adjusted at the amp/pedals/whatever to still sound kick-ass.

(A caveat to all of the above is if you play electric guitar with mostly clean tones .....you get less benefit of the tone shaping features of an overdriving guitar amp. Then the tonal effect of string gauge become somewhat more important.)
Cool! Some interesting stuff in there! Maybe I'll try it. Not sure I can bring myself down to 8s. Might have to go 9s!
All the gear... absolutely no idea...

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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by MattH »

The only other thing to consider is that I do drop the tuning down to drop D, or even open G. Would lighter gauge strings would pull out of tune quicker?
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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by null_pointer »

All going up gauges in strings did for me was make me hit them harder (which isnt always a good thing). So to compensate I went down to .73mm picks. Which isnt always a good thing. Moral of the story is I wish I'd just stayed on 9-42/9-46 rather than my migration to 10-46/11-52, and I'm going to go back and see what impact it has on my playing moving forward (particularly as I'm actually putting in a bit of practice these days for the first time in probably 20 years...)

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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by handsoffmatt »

MattH wrote:The only other thing to consider is that I do drop the tuning down to drop D, or even open G. Would lighter gauge strings would pull out of tune quicker?
That is an important consideration and yes, they probably will (depending on how hard you play)
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Re: Better tone and ideas

Post by jeremyb »

Harder to stay in tune and harder to intonate, and harder to not feel like rubber bands :mrgreen:
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