You’re Probably Using The WRONG Guitar Strings

okay before we get into this video I want you to stay until the end where we're gonna do a back to back comparison of four different gauges of strings 11s tens nines and eights here's our discussion it's me Rhett shell Dave Onorato Ken Lanyon talking about whether we are using the correct engage of strings or not check it out we're talking about this idea of guitar strings does the gauge actually matter do lighter strings sound better than heavier strings or vice-versa so this whole thing came up when I was doing a talk with Dave Friedman of Friedman amps on his podcast tone talk and I mentioned how I would put a tube screamer some type of distortion pedal we would do this all the time all the time in front of amps especially when people tuned down so that it would tighten up the sound and so he said well you know string gauge will do the same thing and I said really he said yeah lighter gauge strings have less low end so they have a tighter sound right and that got me thinking that back when I was growing up everybody used eights and I started using eights on my guitar recently and a bunch of others they've been slowly Gino it's all over this I think 9s around accent odds on though when I play my last ball special or junior whatever that's got aids on at the SG has AIDS that I think those lost upon beats it did yeah so what we're gonna do here today is we're actually gonna experiment and see if the string gauge actually changes the tone now Eddie Van Halen Dave said that Dave Friedman said that he used fender bullets which is nine through 14 but tuned down a half step and the forty gauge is the gate that's really from an eighth said wouldn't it be on the originals were eight through 38 through 38 and but at a nine spillin 42 originally 42 46 but it's depending on which one you get but you'd use all 42 42 we should hear theoretically I don't know if it's gonna be audible but we should hear if this is correct a difference in the bottom end we should have a tighter sound with the lighter gauge strings now this kind of goes against what started to happen in the eighties you want to talk about that Dave Stevie Ray yeah well I mean I mean as most people know I'm in the 80s Styria Vaughn when he came out he would two and a half step down but he used a really heavy gauge so his strengths he was only 12 at one point 13 and I was good friends with his tech Cesar Diaz so I used to pick his brain about you know Stevie's right because I was a huge Stevie fan and he said that he started with 12 because he had such a heavy grip and he also used the 6000 style bass wire fret wire and all this drats so they were all huge frets super tall he later went to like more of a 6105 lorem which is a little thinner but I was still tall but he did like he loved a high-threat waar listen be good a lighter gauge he did right before he passed away he was actually using at one point actually using tens because he was starting to get ten a nine us a little bit in his hands and Cesar told me he said yeah he said we kinda experimented with it we did half and half set for a while then it would depend like earlier in the tour his hands would be a little weaker so he started with a lighter gauge and then Cesar would bump it up as the tour went along but it all depended oh he said really the last tour that he did before it passed he said he was actually he was using Levin's ID flat so essentially he was almost using the 10 gauge that's turned up when I was growing up though everyone in the 70s use dates and if you go historically Billy Gibbons Frank Zappa used even as do easels told me 7 7 & 5 yeah 7.5 yeah 238 yeah Billy Gibbons Jeff back Jimmy Page they all use everybody was yeah Allan Holdsworth Hendrix at when he used AIDS at one point you know I mean it was that was very kind of quote-unquote the rock-and-roll side yeah so it switched to tents after Stevie Ray Vaughan when did 10 stir happening you probably started at 9 I would say in the nineties because I said everything I played heavy metal hard rock in the 80s was all nines yeah so so to me it was early 90s when everybody started coming down they people couldn't get you know couldn't keep in tune there if you have a heavy tech hand technique you're gonna pull way out of tune yeah so when I when I was setting guitars up during that period it all went from eleven twelve thirteen two guys who were tuning down doing everything you know open D to open C right all that kind of stuff so that's really when the heavy gauge stuff came in so how are we gonna test this I think we should do one guitar Les Paul 1 amp 1 amp guitar straight in guitar straight in one cabin one cab you know no just straight up yeah well we'll use our two Mike thing with the Royer and the 57 that won't move and then we'll go through and we'll change the gauge strings and Dave can set the guitar up if it needs yeah I'll set it up we'll start with Elevens first and just go down the line we can each play I'll play some power chords we'll try and play the same things through each amp so you could pick a thing that we play and then we'll put them back to back in the video to see if people can tell the difference let's see if we can tell the difference okay so start with Elevens will Mike get up get the sound and then we'll just be in for 40 standard tuning yes standard tuning and we'll do direct comparisons all right all right let's do it okay the speaker cabinet we're using is a marshall jcm800 old-style cabinet with 75 watt selections I want to use this particular cabinet because this is probably the most common speaker the 75 watt selection that you'll find on back lines most people have these Enfamil are familiar with them by ear the miking shure sm57 with a Royer ribbon mic this is an AR 122 V - but ribbon mic the sm57 is halfway between the dust cover and the speaker and this is going to be picking up the rotors going to be picking up with a mid-range in the low end so let's check out the mic breeze next so the signal path today is going to be from the we have a Marshall 2000 JCM 2000 it's going into our cabinet which I believe that Rick is already talking about and we're mucking up with a Royer with a 57 and a Roy or 121 they're both side by side so the capsules are equal distance from the speaker itself they're then going into our NIMH 1032 s we're gonna do it flat so right now we're actually BAE yes exactly yes so the only thing that we're doing to it is just adding gain and trim but we're not we're not adding any EQ or anything to hype it up we just want to capture the strings the way they are no added bass no added high-end anything like that so what we're using for a guitar today we've got a Les Paul Gibson classic just a standard run-of-the-mill the only thing I've changed on this cateura I did put mission PAF Senate which are basically mid-range output PDF style pickups this one's like an 8k 7.8 and this one so they're not super hot they're very in the middle and very true to a real fifties PF so there's no nothing hot in here normal 500 K pots nothing strange in it we have 11s on the guitar I'm gonna play the same riff and I'm gonna put them all back to back so I'm just gonna play some power chords three [Music] see if this thing works next we're moving to 10 so it's 10 through 46 here we go [Music] [Music] [Music] hey Dave what are you putting on now these are gonna be nine to forty two super slinkys next we're gonna hear the nine through forty to set [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay here we are with the last set of strings they are 8 through 38 they're my personal favorite let's check them out [Music] [Applause] [Music] you might be using that might be using the wrong strain gauge on all my guitars okay so now we're going to listen through Rhett's for is it four different yes four different sets of strings and see what our reaction is this is size 11 strings [Music] all right these are size tens [Music] okay size nines [Music] already pretty solid reference there yeah these are the eights [Music] all right I'm convinced I did not expect there to be that much of a difference I noticed the biggest difference between the 11s and tens right oh yeah but the nines and eights are the best in the low-end and mids they mic in my opinion for me I like the nines bed to me the mid sound better on the eights I like that yes they're more focused they're more direct especially with the Les Paul humbuckers that would sit in a track great with you I kind of like the nines better because I feel like it still has the low-end you can hear for me I could hear the look noticeable low-end drop out just a little bit going to the eights from the nine but a lot of that is the control if you haven't played eight seven before you don't play with the same kind of confidence yeah yeah that I definitely felt that because I'm I've never play dates before and I felt like I was overpowering the guitar even with my right hand I was like digging in too hard and it kind of causes it's like if you hear yourself too loud and your monitor mix or something it causes you to lighten up and Weis me like yeah yeah yeah I mean to me it rings a lot better is it beautiful clarity to that hates anything wow I always thought I don't know why I thought this but in my head lighter gauge strings just worth thinner it's a Stevie Ray Vaughn effect yeah I always thought heavier strings are better but that's just one of those things that people just always repeat right because yeah and truth be told right before he died he went to an 11 gauge set at a flat which is basically a 10 okay if the next morning and I just listened to all the examples in my car and you should do the same I'm gonna play the four examples that I played back-to-back show you what gauge of strings I'm playing so that you can hear them 11s 10s nines eights and they go back to 11 [Music] [Music] that's all for now please subscribe here to my everything music YouTube channel if you're first-time viewer don't forget to ring the bell if you're interested in the be out of book go to my website at wwlp.com you can find it there that's always support the channel follow me on instagram at rick piata 1 the newbie otto ear training program is out go to be outer ear training comm and check out the introduction video and don't forget if you want to support the channel even more think about becoming a member of the be auto club thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Rick Beato

Views: 1,801,480

Rating: 4.8918672 out of 5

Keywords: rick beato, everything music, rick, beato, music, music theory, music production, education, guitar strings, ernie ball, bass strings, guitar string gauges, guitar tone, string gauges, stevie ray vaughan, electric guitar strings, guitar setup, guitar tutorial, daddario strings, string gauge, string sets, what strings should i buy, what strings should i use, Rhett Shull, Dave onorato, Ken Grand Lanyon, jhs pedals, Mashall Amp, Gibson Les Paul, humbucker pickups

Id: wGXj_NQONYM

Length: 16min 10sec (970 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 24 2020