Lighter string gauges

[roger bayliss]

I was wondering about the Shads and their use of lighter gauge strings and when if at all they had used the 'Slinky sets' as put together by Ernie Ball around 1962

See this webpage... I know a lot of American artists got it first but when did it come to the UK ... note the Ventures used Slinkys according to this..

http://el-guitars.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/ernie-ball-electric-guitar-strings.html

I believe Chuck Berry was one at least who used the Banjo top string on his early recordings so it had been known about in the USA before the Ernie Ball Slinky came about.

So any ideas about the Shads and lighter stringing and when ?

[JimN]

Around 1969-1971, queries about Hank's guitar string preference (eg, in the weekly "Any Questions?" feature in Melody Maker) would invariably be answered to the effect that Hank was using Fender Rock'n'Roll strings. Slightly later (around 1971), the answer was expanded to include the Fender strings on one guitar and Gibson Sonomatic Light Gauge (12-52) on another.

[cockroach]

I think a few of the statements in that article could be challenged.

UK firm Rotosound were selling light gauge strings in the UK by about 1966, plus Fender, LaBella and others, so EB wasn't the only maker by any means

Also, I doubt that his shop was the first electric guitar shop .

I would think the Shads wouldn't have used light gauge strings until at least the late '60's.

Lots of folk used to 'understring' their guitars- I started doing that myself in 1965.

It says he knew Leo Fender well- his son Sterling when interviewed for a book that Leo hated light gauge strings and refused to fit them as original equipment- which is why his dad Ernie started offering light gauged sets to younger players.

[dave robinson]

An interesting read, I didn't get to hear of Ernie Ball until the late seventies/early eighties but we were using 'strung down' sets late '64 early '65 to get the bending. I used Fender Rock & Roll, Gibsons in the orange box and Gretsch in the round plastic box until we began messing with banjo strings for the first and throwing away the sixth. I do remember the Gretsch strings very well, they had coloured woolly bits at the ball end for some reason, but seemed to last longer and were a tad lighter than the Gibsons. The Gretsch were slightly more expensive too. In about 1966 we began messing around with Roto-Sound as you could choose from a large box of different single gauge strings. I found that they didn't last as long as the others and went back to Gretsch for as long as I could get them before they kind of disappeared. The Gibsons in the orange box later offered a slightly lighter option so I used those until they too disappeared. I remember being frustrated at no longer being able to get them as the shops were telling me the could no longer get them, but the truth was that Roto-Sound had taken a strong foothold and probably were cheaper for the shops to buy in. I used Clifford Essex strings for a while as well as Fender, buying up odd Gibson and Gretsch sets as we toured the country and visited loads of different music stores all over the UK. I'm certain that many of us at that time had similar experiences in not being able to find the strings we were used to as the market was changing. I remember some of the guys settling for Roto-Sound and changing them a lot more frequently, but I came to loath that brand because they were bad value. Today I use Ernie Ball 10-46 and can recommend them for their stability and tone, rarely having a problem or breakages. They can last a couple of months gigging five times a week or as I have found during my illness the past eighteen months I still have the same strings on all my guitars from 2012 and I do play as often as I can - I will change them when I begin to gig again.
I experimented during the 'THAT SOUND' debate with Gibson Sonomatic 13/56 and D'Addario heavy flatwounds as well as a few more brands and heard a massive difference in tone and power, but went back to the comfortable Ernie Ball gauge that suits me. I was contemplating lighter gauges to make it easier to get back playing again but thus far have resisted.

[cockroach]

Dave

I also usually use heavier gauge playing live, as I tend to get wound up and play harder. I always keep another guitar on the bandstand. I restrung one of the guitars with lighter strings recently, but after the first set I went back to the heavy strung one- as the lighter strings were giving some tuning problems.

[ecca]

That whole article seems a bit too neat and fanciful for me.
Cathedral strings were the ones I used, they had a free first that I would fit along with the other one and chuck away the sixth string.
That was about the best I could do with downstringing and that not until 65-66 when I also went to wirewound strings, having used exclusively tapewound until then not from choice but because that was what we used, full stop, no million choices then.
Perhaps it was different for anyone nearer the metropolises but that's how it was for me in liddle ole Bloxwich.

[dave robinson]

I agree with Ecca regarding the first strings we used. On my first guitar, an Egmond acoustic it would be Cathedral, then my Vox Duotone it was always Monopole flatwounds through 1961/2. Not until early '63 did I try Mohawk & Black Diamond roundwounds which appeared in the shops, graduating to the Fender, Gibson and Gretsch when my first Strat arrived in '64.

[roger bayliss]

Around 1969-1971, queries about Hank's guitar string preference (eg, in the weekly "Any Questions?" feature in Melody Maker) would invariably be answered to the effect that Hank was using Fender Rock'n'Roll strings. Slightly later (around 1971), the answer was expanded to include the Fender strings on one guitar and Gibson Sonomatic Light Gauge (12-52) on another.

Thanks again Jim as usual you are a mine of information.

I think the web page does have some questionable facts thereon but I used it to spur the debate a little and found the Ventures starting to use lighter stringing early on (1962) as an interesting point. How true I know not.

I recall reading a listing somewhere of the strings and years used by Pete Townsend and he used Gibson Sonomatics well into the 1970s.

James Burton does not get a mention but I think he was one of the first to string up lighter and of course he was the man whose guitar sound the Shads had tried to follow when they ordered the First Strat not knowing it was actually a Telecaster JB was using.

Ecca recently bought a guitar that had been lying in a loft for years which was believed to have the original strings on it and guess what they were Tapewound/Flatwound and guitar is estimated to be from around 1961-2 I believe.

[JimN]

Correction:

Gibson Sonomatic Light Gauge (E340L) strings were gauged 11-52, not 12-52, as I stated above.

[dave robinson]

Correction:

Gibson Sonomatic Light Gauge (E340L) strings were gauged 11-52, not 12-52, as I stated above.

I think that those may be the ones that I discovered second time around, the first ones available were 13-56 .