I might go back to 9s on my guitars

iaresee

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My last two, new guitars have come setup with extra light guage strings and I think I prefer them to the EXL110s I've been stringing my guitars with forever now.

Is that crazy?

They're just easier to play. I'm not struggling to do anything on these guitars. I feel like I can move around with greater ease on them.
 
10s sound slightly more balanced and strum better imo. but it's such a small difference It's not worth giving up the ease of 9s that I'm used to. the looser feel of the 9s also add their own flavor I actually like, it just takes a more delicate touch to control.

you'll adjust much quicker going lighter than going heavier unless it's only strumming and chording.
 
Hi iarsee,
I know what you mean about 9s ...crazy easy .

Dunno - i normally put whatever strings are recommended by the manufacturers. This leaves me with various guitars with various gauge strings. I got a 2013 les Paul and it’s 10s....such a tasty guitar, I played it exclusively for months. Then I picked up a tele with 9s, and nearly bent the strings past the binding they felt so thin. The point I’m trying to make (and reading above you wouldn’t think so!) is that it’s the guitars with thicker strings that give you the strength to feel 9s are so easy. If you put 9s on all your guitars, in a couple of years you may have slightly weaker hands, and the 9s will feel just like your 10s do now.
Thanks
Pauly
 
I use 8's- Always have...
When it's plugged in there's no tone difference between any of the strings- and all the hype about heavy strings are a myth- why work harder?
Interesting. No issues breaking on bends? I bend a lot.
 
Anything I can do on 10’s, I can do better and more confidently on 9’s.

I practice on 11’s. I play on 9’s. (9-46 actually. I find the low strings a bit too floppy on 9-42’s.)
 
For me, it’s always been 11s or gtfo... I bought a new guitar awhile back that came with 9s and it just served to make me realize how way too heavy handed and hamfisted I am for anything under 10s.

When I hear about folks like BB and Billy Gibbons supposedly using 8s or 7s, I can’t even imagine a string that light and me not knocking every chord out of tune. Though on that same token, I hear about Stevie Ray Vaughn’s 13s and that seem masochistic to me, easpecially for the bends he’d do, I tried 12s for awhile in my youth and I couldn’t do more than a 1/2 step bend with ‘em.
 
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I’ve used 9a and 10s on 25.5” scale lengths but I’ve switched to custom gauged 9.5s from Curt Mangan.

They are balanced from string to strong tension-wise and are perfectly between 9s and 10s.

No one else offers the same gauges as he does and they last pretty long too for an uncoated string.

I’ll post the gauges later. They are amazing. Best strings ever.
 
Been using Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky's 9-46 for a while on most of my guitars. I keep 10's or 11's on the semi hollow bodies and 11 flat wounds on the hollow bodies .
 
Standard 9s are horribly unbalanced string to string, especially the B and low E. They're too loose compared to their nigher pitched neighbors,
 
I use standard 9s ....9-42
The 26-36 option seems too “out of place” to me. But I think I’ll revisit as it’s been years I tried that set.

I ordered .0095 last week ....singles

Didn’t think I would need to adjust the others?

I break .008s easily...all the time ...like I can’t feel them under my fingers lol.
 
Been using Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky's 9-46 for a while on most of my guitars. I keep 10's or 11's on the semi hollow bodies and 11 flat wounds on the hollow bodies .
EB sends me strings from time to time and I’m embarrassed to admit that I just can’t get along with Slinky’s. They’re...too loose? D’Addarios have been right for me for a long time.
 
D'addario 9.5 on most of my guitars for years now. Just cuts the difference between 9 and 10. Plus, since PRS scale length is in between Fender and Gibson, why shouldn't the strings be the same? ;-)
 
Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky's .009 - .046 here. Was thinking about going to .010's, but my Mom gave me 20 sets of strings as a Christmas present a couple of years in a row. Looks like I will be staying with the 'Hybrid' set for a while...:D
 
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