SG String Guage

[premiumplus]

Like BB King famously said to Billy Gibbons about heavy strings, "Why you workin' so hard son?"
Back in the '70s I used 8's on everything electric, now I use 8's on my Fenders and 9's on my Gibsons.

 

[jk67SG]

Yes I got that backwards sorry all

The theme from "Twilight Zone" started playing in my head when I read your post, I started doubting everything I thought was true; Is the earth really flat? Does the sun really revolve around the earth? Was Leo Fender really design the Les Paul??? Thank god for cerebral gasket bringing me back to reality!

 

[donepearce]

The theme from "Twilight Zone" started playing in my head when I read your post, I started doubting everything I thought was true; was the earth really flat? Does the sun really revolve around the earth? Was Leo Fender really design the Les Paul??? Thank god for cerebral gasket bringing me back to reality!

Moral of the story. Try to be awake when you post.

 

[jk67SG]

8's on my SG, mainly because it's a '67 which has low frets (measurement is very close to what the 'fretless wonder' LP had, making bends more challenging than something like medium jumbos).

 

[jk67SG]

Moral of the story. Try to be awake when you post.

...and when you drive, skydive, clean your gun, handle explosives...

 

[Les537]

Like BB King famously said to Billy Gibbons about heavy strings, "Why you workin' so hard son?"
Back in the '70s I used 8's on everything electric, now I use 8's on my Fenders and 9's on my Gibsons.

That's a Billy Gibbons quote. Funny enough I was watching BB himself talk about his guitars and string gauges last night on a random video. He said he uses 10s on the bottom and very thick low E on top. He seemed pretty committed to his string gauge in this interview.

I think Billy was blowing smoke up our collected back sides.

Video starts here. It's 5 parts and I'm not sure which part it was in.

 

[Fuzzdelay]

I use Gibson Vintage Reissues 10s on my SG and 11s on my 335 and 10s on Fenders when I used to play them. The choice of string gauges, brands and materials choice involves a balance of comfort and tone shaping for each instrument.

 

[VSG]

Hi everyone, new here and this is my first post, hope everyone's good..

I generally use 11 guage strings on my guitars (Jazzmaster, Tele, old Fernandes strat) but my fave guitar is of course an SG (it's a 1973 SG standard). However, on my SG for some reason it always feels better to me with 10s rather than 11s. Of course string guages are always personal and different per player, but I was wondering if anyone else used different strings for their SGs compared to their other guitars?

Interestingly as well I like D'Addarios on my guitars apart from my SG on which I prefer Ernie Ball Super Slinkys. The Jazzmaster and Fernades have rosewood boards, the Tele is maple, and the SG is ebony - no idea if that has something to do with it.

Cheers!

Ernie Ball /09s

 

[Biddlin]

I think someone doesn't know their bottom from their top.

 

[Les537]

Bottom, top? I missed that lesson. I had a gig. I'm still calling the strings on top the top strings. I hope we can wade through the confusion.

Personally I've used everything from 8 to 11. The lower the action the thicker I like the string.

My newer '61 stopbar likes 10s. My older special which has the best fret action I've ever touched in 30 years of playing likes 11s.

My les paul likes 10s.

My strat is not played much, but it likes 9.5 which is a pain.

 

[dasherf17]

i used to use ernie ball power slinkys 11-48...but as u get older u dont want to fight the guitar much...so its 10-46 now

When I used to play on a regular basis I used 10s, considering going to 11s...lifestyle changed, put the guitars down for playing just for practice (you know how practice sometimes goes) and while picking it up again, the 10s were kinda tuff... I thought of going with the 9s that came in the kits I was building...buuuut, playing the guitars with 10s a bit more seemed to be tuffenin' my fingers up, so I'll stuck with the 10s.
Do what's comfortable, bottom line.

 

[Zman28]

I found D addario has a set of 9.5 to 44. Exl 120 +. I find they are all around good feeling on all of my guitars. This way i get a similar feel when I swap guitars .

 

[Sootio]

10-38s on both Strat, and Gibson scales. Used these since 1971. My Fender is a 4 Bolt 71 Oly Wht Strat I got new... Fender stopped making them for a bunch of years, they still made them in Bullets, but Im not much on them, so I switched to 10-38 Boomers, and like them just as much.

While I dont have an SG, I dop have a Gibson scale 59 burst replica thats same scale as an SG.

I do have my eyes on a Dicky Betts Custom Shop SG though. Ive wanted one since they came out, but put money into another Amplifier, and Speaker Cabinet/Speakers.


I did try 12-56-13-58s years ago, tuned to pitch, with my gorilla grip, and did more damage to the frets in 3 months, than I had in 30 previous years. Chewed the livin crap out of the frets. Very damaging if you have a heavy grip, and do alot of heavy Vibrato , and alot of bending.

I can see how SRV chewed up frets. It dont take long, with heavy strings, a gorilla grip, and hours and hours of playing.

I also have grooves worn into the board, but thats probably more of a product of hours of usage, along with alot of bending, and vibrato.

Duane Allman used 10-38s. Hendrix used 10-38s.

I'm in the process of switching to 10-38 on everything. The feel and the sound are really amazing. I bought a bunch of .015's so I could swap out the G string on my remaining stock of .009's and .010's, and that works nicely, but not as nicely as the Hendrix set. So far I've used Pyramid, GHS, and Stringjoy and they all work just fine.

 

[macdog]

10s on everything except where there's a floating bridge.

 

[kongssund]

10-46 nyxl on everything

 

[crashbelt]

11s for Gibsons 10s for Fenders for me.

 

[Dangerhouse77]

Ive always used 9s

 

[papagayo]

I prefer regular 10-46, Elixir Nanoweb if possible.

 

[Biddlin]

SGs and most Epi/Gibson get 9-42 (NYXL)

9-46 D'Addario Nickel lt top heavy bottom


7-38 Rev Willy's

 

[TDA1966]

What exactly is a guage? Is it a relative of the guava?