Does Acoustic String Gauge Make a Difference?

hey everybody i'm rick piatto rhett shull ken lanion so today we're going to do follow-up to the string video yes except with an acoustic this time and we're going to actually go in reverse order we're going to start with the smallest strings or the thinnest strings which will be a 10 gauge which for the record what do you normally put on your acoustics i usually use a 13 uh 13 through 56. now my guitar a 1957 country in western has a very balanced mid-range on it we should do a strumming and a picking part okay i'll do a strumming you do a picking part yeah we'll put them back to back like in the last video sound good yeah let's do it the microphone we're going to be using for this session today is an austrian audio oc-818 this is similar to a c414 but with a c12 capsule the the those are the best ones ever made austrian audio is actually run by people that used to work at akg it's a condenser mic and we're going to be running it through a bae 1073 mic pre let's check that out okay from the vocal booth we have the signal coming in to the control room it's going into a [Music] a neve 1073 bae uh preamp so it's a neve style preamp made by bae uh we're running it right now with just the preamp so that it doesn't have any eq because we didn't want the eq to influence anything we we're not running it with a compressor either we're just it's just basically the sound of the acoustic the strings we're going to be using for this take are d'addario acoustic guitar phosphor bronze 10 through 47 this is the extra light gauge i'm not endorsed by d'addario just like i'm not endorsed by ernie ball and we're going to get sounds right now that's good no eq all right so we just moved the mic one more time just so that we can get a little more low end a little more balance out of the acoustic highs and lows sounds good though okay it's the next day here and dave is at the studio he wasn't able to make it last night but he came over to check it out yeah uh the first string gauge we're going to listen to is the 10 through 47 set let's check it out [Music] [Music] playing tens [Music] gage of safety squints normally dave does the string changing but rhett actually did it yesterday how do you do uh he's yeah okay okay the next set is 11 252. let's check it out [Music] [Music] the next string age is 12 through 53 53 is kind of odd right it is odd normally it's 54. typically 54 yes okay so 12 through 53 let's check it out [Music] we're rolling well i can say that these 13s feel like what i'm used to because that's what i've always played on this guitar as soon as i picked it up i said ah this feels normal for this guitar okay lastly we're gonna hear me and rhett play through the 13 through 56 set let's check it out [Music] [Music] do [Music] okay so now we're going to listen down to these back to back i'm not sure what they sound like we haven't actually gone back and listened to any of them as we've been doing it right and we've had a considerable amount of time between each take so we kind of have forgotten because red hat changes strings and stretch them out and so we really don't know what these sound like but we're gonna find out it's like sniffing coffee beans all right here we go all right here we go these are tens rick playing tens [Music] do [Music] okay so on that i'm hearing more of the pick there the top end i think that's coming through to my ear on that is the actual pick against the string whereas before with the 11s and the tens i feel like it was more of top end coming from the guitar i feel like on the 12s i'm hearing what the guitar actually sounds like that to me is the most balanced between the top end of the low end and i feel like the the top is resonating more interesting let's hear rats [Music] do to me the difference is more apparent on the finger style play it's like the different strings are emphasizing different parts of the frequency spectrum like to me the tens are i think the most well balanced on the fingers you're playing better on the tens because all your hammer ons are even more even the last bare narrow lick is way cleaner everything is cleaner on that because you can hear the string stiffness in the other ones it's harder to actually play the hammer-ons it really is there's a can you play the first one one more time this is the tens shows even every node okay dave what do you think um i think on the lighter gauge set of strings the mid-range is more scooped and and it's a little less pronounced um the high end is a little more pronounced in the light in the lighter gauge set of strings the low end um kind of across the board to me stayed very similar except for the 13s i you know i really noticed in the low end and the 13th but um the mid-range is what changed the most to my ears yeah between gauge strings i totally agree the evenness when rhett's picking i i don't think there's as much of a difference on my strumming between the different gauges of strings no that was the most consistent but during the picking to me rhett's the lighter gauge sounded better yeah i definitely performed better on the tens because it's more way more comfortable yeah account for the tonal differences with with eq and production then it becomes about what's the gonna get the best performance right and what's the easiest to play which is we all agree the lighter gauge lighter gauge like lighter gauge strings are easier to play it's easier for me to hold down the chords and strum them yeah way easier well let's see what you guys think let us know in the comments like you did last time don't forget to subscribe here to my everything music youtube channel follow me on instagram ricky out of one follow rhett at rhett shull on youtube instagram and grand lanyan grand landing on instagram yep and don't forget to follow dave on instagram at dojo guitar repair thanks so much for [Music] watching

Channel: Rick Beato 2

Views: 360,734

Keywords: Rick Beato, Everything Music, Music Theory, Music Production, Music Recording, guitar strings, daddario strings, acoustic guitar strings, guitar string gauges, string comparison, guitar tone, rhett shull, acoustic guitar, acoustic guitar strings gauge, guitar strings change, guitar strings tuning, daddario strings acoustic, daddario strings review, acoustic guitar strings comparison, acoustic guitar strings change, acoustic guitar strings light vs medium, guitar

Id: kWqbQ5qXaCQ

Length: 11min 55sec (715 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 06 2021