Which string gauge do you prefer on your Jaguars???

Rox · Post by **Rox** » Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:39 pm

10-48 or 11-49. 11-49 on the Stang ... 10-48 on the Toro

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:53 am

Use these on my AVRI Jaguar with a Mustang Bridge. I also use them on my Mullet-stang, Telecaster, and Musicmaster. I have heavy .12s on the Comp-stang.

black6host · Post by **black6host** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 1:35 pm

honeyiscool wrote:
gypsyseven wrote:I never ever tried 9Â´s on any guitar soo far, but i makes me wonder how that would feel.....
It's a bit low, really. Basically, the rule of thumb is that on 24" scale, the string tension is roughly 0.5 gauge off from the 25.5" scale. So like 10 gauge on 24" feels like 9.5 on 25.5". So 9s on 24" feels like 8.5s on 25.5", and a lot of people use 8s and thinner on Strats and Les Pauls.

9s are the most popular gauge of strings, I heard. I use 9.5s on longer scale, 10s on short scale.

Your "feels like" comment is interesting. I play 9's on my Strat and 10's on my Les Paul. Got any insight with your "rule of thumb" regarding a 22.5" scale? Currently I've got 10's on my Duo-Sonic and I've read conflicting things on what string gauge to use. 10's were about in the middle and since I had some on hand and the old strings were rusty, I put them on. Feels ok to me, except just a bit sloppy. Anything suggesting 11's would be too much?

gypsyseven · Post by **gypsyseven** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 1:50 pm

10.5Â´s...

......

ultratwin · Post by **ultratwin** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 2:12 pm

Thom wrote:Medium top, Heavy bottom:

Agreed.

Best balance in my book with less-than-impossible double stops and nice thumpy lows.

black6host · Post by **black6host** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 3:35 pm

gypsyseven wrote:10.5Â´s... ......

Thanks, I'll give them a try. Wouldn't mind putting them on my LP as well....

endsjustifymeans · Post by **endsjustifymeans** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 4:17 pm

ultratwin wrote:
Thom wrote:Medium top, Heavy bottom:

Agreed.

Best balance in my book with less-than-impossible double stops and nice thumpy lows.

Same, though I've been considering going with normal .11's. My schecter came with .10's on it, and I have to say I found the skinnier strings somehow refreshing.

louis · Post by **louis** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 12:23 am

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 2:45 am

aparently its not red label any more? fuck sake. when you play flats you never have to put new strings on for years

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 2:48 am

i really want to try a set of these. but i have never seen a pack in a store. ever.

[quote]Description
EHR360's combine the playability of a traditional 13-56 Jazz Medium set with the benefits of an exclusive "Half Round" manufacturing process.

D'Addario Half Rounds Electric Guitar Strings are round wound with stainless steel and then precision ground leaving the outer surface smooth and "semi flat." The result is a string with the tone and tension characteristics of round wound strings, with a smoother feel, similar to flat wound strings.

D'Addario's popular jazz medium gauging with an exclusive semi-flat surface
Centerless ground stainless steel delivers round wound tension with a flatwound feel
Environmentally friendly, corrosion resistant packaging for strings that are always fresh
Made in the U.S.A. for the highest quality and performance
String Gauges: Plain Steel .013, .017, Stainless Steel .026, .036, .046, .056

serfx · Post by **serfx** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 3:13 am

robroe wrote:i really want to try a set of these. but i have never seen a pack in a store. ever.

Description
EHR360's combine the playability of a traditional 13-56 Jazz Medium set with the benefits of an exclusive "Half Round" manufacturing process.

D'Addario Half Rounds Electric Guitar Strings are round wound with stainless steel and then precision ground leaving the outer surface smooth and "semi flat." The result is a string with the tone and tension characteristics of round wound strings, with a smoother feel, similar to flat wound strings.

D'Addario's popular jazz medium gauging with an exclusive semi-flat surface
Centerless ground stainless steel delivers round wound tension with a flatwound feel
Environmentally friendly, corrosion resistant packaging for strings that are always fresh
Made in the U.S.A. for the highest quality and performance
String Gauges: Plain Steel .013, .017, Stainless Steel .026, .036, .046, .056

i really like those i bought about 5 sets of them a couple years back, but then the store has never had them ever again
since then i've been buying the 12 - 54's or 12 - 52's w/ wound 3rd.

Post by **dots** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 3:58 am

Ever since I got a (long since solded) new american strat years ago with a set of fender super bullets on it, I have been addicted to them. Great price ($3 a set for the longest time on musiciansfriend, recently up to $4 and change), durable, and the best tuning stability in my experience. Like robroe's alternate up there, it is hard to find my preferred gauge in stores, so I nearly always have ordered them online. 11 - 49 seems to be my sweet spot on the jags, but god damn guitard center's website sent me tw packs of 12s and two 11s when I oordered four 11s. I never buy from them (this would be why), but I had a gift card to burn. I will try them on the hh jag. The avri has flatwound 11s at the moment, and I am kinda diggin them...

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Thu Feb 02, 2012 4:35 am

you put them on there for me.

<3 you

moore65 · Post by **moore65** » Fri Feb 03, 2012 6:39 pm

I used to use 9-46's on my Strat and now I use 10-52's. I will use 11-52's when I get a shortscale guitar. My friend has 9-46's on his 24.75" scale Danelectro and they sound and feel great, but I like to tune to Eb so I need a heavier gauge. I have used 50-105's on my Bronco bass mostly, though I tried 60-115's and they're pretty weird when it comes to tuning stability. I use only D'Addario's for my guitar, basses, and classical guitar. Ernie Ball bass strings are so lifeless from my experience, though I have never used their guitar strings.

The Dead Ranch Hands · Thu Feb 09, 2012 5:12 am

Labella 12 flats

Ankhanu · Post by **Ankhanu** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 1:29 am

I picked up a set of d'Addario Chromes ECG24 a while back to test out with my Jaguar (MIJ '66 Classic), and just put them on this week. After putting a little time on them, I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about them.

On one hand, I LOVE the way the feel. I've tested Chromes on my fretless bass, and hated them, ultimately choosing Rotosound TruBass 88s for it, but, the guitar strings feel pretty sweet under my fingers. They're smooth and feel like, if I could move my fingers really fast, the strings would help them move really fast... but since I can't, it's kinda irrelevant

On the other hand I'm finding them a bit dark. Yes, I know they're flats, and flats are dark, that was understood going in... but I thought maybe the inherent brightness of a Jaguar might bring me to a nice place anyway. Let's look at the lead circuit: The neck gives some good punch, it's powerful, it's dark, but kinda lacklustre; neck+bridge articulates that powerful sound somewhat, giving it some of the life the neck alone loses moving to flats; the bridge alone actually sounds pretty good... this is a setting I almost never use with roundwounds, but it sounds pretty good with the flats, bringing a bit more girth and dulling it's normal razorblades. The high-pass filter works pretty well with the flats in all positions really, perhaps more pronounced than effect than with rounds. The Rhythm circuit kinda becomes almost useless, though I suppose you can get some decent jazz type sounds, even with the tone at 100% I'm one of the few people here who likes and uses his rhythm circuit with my rounds.

In essence, the flats kind of shift the useful positions of the pickup choices, instead of Rhythm: dark, Lead neck: strong, Neck+bridge: jangly, Neck: unuseable, it shifts to Rhythm: unuseable, Lead neck: dark, Neck+bridge: Strong, Bridge: jangly... essentially making the Rhythm circuit superfluous.
Ultimately, I suppose the verdict is still out. I have yet to play them with my band, we'll see how they work in that setting.

Sobriquet · Post by **Sobriquet** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 6:01 am

I've been using the Fender flatwound 11-50s that came with my Johnny Marr Jag. I like them a lot, but they're my first flatwounds. I'm kind of hooked on flats now, so I'll check out some other brands when I have to switch them out (which is a long time from now, apparently).

honeyiscool · Post by **honeyiscool** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 9:16 am

black6host wrote:Your "feels like" comment is interesting. I play 9's on my Strat and 10's on my Les Paul. Got any insight with your "rule of thumb" regarding a 22.5" scale? Currently I've got 10's on my Duo-Sonic and I've read conflicting things on what string gauge to use. 10's were about in the middle and since I had some on hand and the old strings were rusty, I put them on. Feels ok to me, except just a bit sloppy. Anything suggesting 11's would be too much?

There's a simple formula on D'Addario's website. It basically goes:

T = UW * (2 * L * F)^2 / 386.4.

T = Tension (pounds)
UW = Unit Weight (pounds per linear inch)
L = Scale Length (inch)
F = Frequency (Hz)

So basically the important thing is T is directly proportional to UW while proportional to the square of the scale as well as square of the frequency.

When you go up in string gauge, you change the unit weight. As you go up in gauge, say from 0.010 to 0.011, your unit weight is roughly directly proportional to the squares of the diameter. Soo... you'd expect the unit weight to increase about 21%, and also your tension.

Since unit weight is proportional to the square of the diameter, it means that to keep the same tension, diameter of your strings, length of your scale, and frequency (tuned to what pitch?) are pretty much all inversely proportional to each other. So it's really simple in that sense.

From 25.5" scale to 24.75" is roughly a 3% drop in scale length, and from 24.75" to 24" is another 3% drop in scale length. From 24" to 22.5", however, is slightly greater 6% drop in scale length. So you have to recover that 6% by either increasing your string diameter or by increasing your frequency, i.e. raising the tuning.

Every time you change the tuning of your guitar a half step, you're changing your frequency about 6%. So by tuning a half step down, your frequency decreases 6%, and so on and so forth.

Meanwhile, this is very rough, but every time you go up or down a step in gauge, usually you're doing about a 10% change in diameter. So going from 10s to 9s, you're decreasing your tension 11%... from 10s to 11s, you're increasing your tension 10%... from 11s to 12s it's about 9%, etc. So you can basically think of it as 10%. Most manufacturers also make half gauges, so that's where you can achieve a 5% difference instead of 10%.

So you know that age old "wisdom" about 9s on Strats and 10s on Les Pauls for equivalent tension? That's complete BS and the math does not support it. 10s on Les Paul has 16% more tension than 9s on a Strat. Meanwhile, 9.5s on a Les Paul has about 5% more tension than 9s on a Strat. So when people think 10s on a Les Paul are easier to bend than 9s on a Strat, it ain't because of string tension. Really, the 3% scale length difference is not enough that you need to really make a string gauge difference. Meanwhile, from 24 to 25.5" you have about a 6% scale difference, so it makes sense to go up half a step. So really, when people say shit like "YOU NEED TO HAVE 11S ON MUSTANGS" you can mostly ignore that advice unless you think you'd never put anything below 10.5 on a Strat because that's mathematically equivalent to 11s on a Mustang. It's true on some instruments that 11s just don't work on Mustangs but it's not because of the scale, it's because of the bridge. With a shimmed neck, which increases the string pushing on the bridge, I've had fine luck with 9.5s on a Mustang.

So in conclusion, here's a simple formula you can use.

(Your favorite gauge on guitar A) * (Scale of guitar A) / (Scale of guitar B) = (Gauge you should use on Guitar B if you want to match string tension with Guitar A)

Soooo... plug in that math for 9s on a Strat to 22.5" scale Duo-Sonic and you get 10.2. Meanwhile, to match your 10s on a Gibson scale, the formula says use 11.25s. Now I tend to round up on these things because ultimately I think it's the safe thing to do because at the end of the day, I think shorter scale guitars can use a little more tension in general. So I'd suggest somewhere between 10.5s and 11.5s. Maybe something with a wound G? That's a good way to increase string weight and usually string tension.

Thom · Post by **Thom** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 12:57 pm

Good post.

Gabriel · Post by **Gabriel** » Sat Sep 08, 2012 1:19 pm

Thomastik Swing are probably the best flatwounds I've ever tried. Most of the guys over on jazzguitar.be agree that they're the best flat.

D'addario halfrounds aren't that sweet - the GHS Brite flats are nicer.

Chromes are ok and last ages, but they're a bit bright for a flatwound string.