Electric strings on acoustic

Ray

Looking at the D'addario site seems that they exert less tension. I went to PB .13's but I got a bit scared even though all over the place people said it's OK because I sometimes tune to open E and I've also got a PL014 on high E. When I'm in standard tuning or open G I'm not too worried. Anyway I went back to .12's. A bit of a problem is the soundhole magnetic pickup. Gets OK when you adjust the polepieces way up on the wound strings but still doesnt get the same sound as the 2 high strings. So, I'm thinking to put on the electric strings nickel wound. I dont use the soundhole pickup all of the time so I'm going to have to see if I enjoy the sound.

Bob-Dubery

Ray wrote: Looking at the D'addario site seems that they exert less tension. I went to PB .13's but I got a bit scared even though all over the place people said it's OK because I sometimes tune to open E and I've also got a PL014 on high E. When I'm in standard tuning or open G I'm not too worried. Anyway I went back to .12's. A bit of a problem is the soundhole magnetic pickup. Gets OK when you adjust the polepieces way up on the wound strings but still doesnt get the same sound as the 2 high strings. So, I'm thinking to put on the electric strings nickel wound. I dont use the soundhole pickup all of the time so I'm going to have to see if I enjoy the sound.

Firstly what pickup are you using? A Markley right? THere are different models, the more sophisticated/expensive ones offer individually adjustable pole pieces. As do things like the Sunrise (not easily available here) or the Baggs M1. All of these (and any other decent in-soundhole pickup) will be built to work with the types of strings typically used on acoustic guitars.

I'm not sure that switching to electric strings will solve the problem - I think it's more to do with the distance between string and pole piece.

As regards PB 13s and tuning up, it's more a question of wether or not the instrument can take them. The maker will be honest with this, they don't want their guitars to get a reputation for being fragile when the real problem is that somebody fitted strings that the guitar was never built to take.

When I got the Morgan I e-mailed the factory. They told me they build their guitars to take 13s - which doesn't mean that you have to use 13s, just that it will take those strings with no problem and, in their opinion, sounds best with those on.

I asked Lowden about this. They hummed and hahed... they said they build for 12s, but 13s probably will be OK, especially if you are using slack key tunings.

Taylor will tell you straight up - and this is not a criticism - that you don't want to go heavier than 12s on a Big Baby.

The plain strings on a PB set are the same as the plain strings on an 80:20 set. Only the wound strings differ.

Ray

It's a Seymour Duncan Woody XL and has adjustable poles. Hey I've turned the lower 4 string poles way out and it helps but still not quite right. You know, as much as I love my Yamahas I have had such a hassle getting in touch with them. First of all Keira gave me the US contact addy. So I mailed them. They got back quick but they got back and said I must contact the global bunch. So I contacted the global bunch. They got back quick but they told me to contact the SA bunch. So I contacted the SA bunch. They didnt get back for a long time. When they did get back they didnt say much except they werent sure. So I asked on the UK Yamaha forum. And they said but of course .13's are just fine but they are so rabidly enthusiastic and loyal about Yammies that I still worried a bit. So, when I was just playing in standard and a bit of open G I put on the .13's. And all seemed OK. Then I got a new hero. Actually two new heroes, Sonny Landreth and Roy Rogers and they both gooi it in open E. So, I thought I was calming down for a while but then I got all excited again. There are things that I like about .13's but went back to .12's. They say all the Yamaha acoustics are shipped with .12's. But I still put the pl014 on the high E. PL014 is the same across all D'addarios steels. And the B string as well btw.

Bob-Dubery

Well open D and open E are just about the same thing. They're a tone apart, but the chord shapes etc are the same. So if you don't want to tune up to open E then tune down to open D.

Ray

Well I put some nickel plated strings on and it sounds different. Not bad just different. On another forum I asked this question and some oke pops up and says he thinks it's going to produce some good sounds with the sycamore B&S's on my Yamaha fg 750s. Either I dont know a damned thing about my guitar or something that i've missed but as far as I know this guitar has laminate B&S. If it is laminate then the sycamore is like just such a thin little layer that it cant have any effect hey? Anyway, I said nothing because I dont think he meant bad by it. But that's just btw hey.
Anyway, back to the different. I quite like it. I dont know what the right terms are but to me it sounds like sharper and clearer. Your low notes arent as "thick" and the higher ones come out a bit more. Now mind you, the top two strings that is high E and B are just the same as the PB's set (being not wound) so that is the same. I'm talking about when you fret the other 4 strings.
Now, as mentioned above, the quest is to get a better relationship going with the magnetic soundhole pickup; the Seymour Duncan with the adjustable poles which I had wound way out of their little holes when the PB's were on. So when I put these strings on I wound them way back home again. It did the trick.
It's actually quite a gas messing about with different things like this. Sometimes you find something that turns you on and sometimes you find out something that may have been obvious to someone else but always is good to say : gave it a bash, didnt work, now I know, move on.

AlanRatcliffe

GHS used to have a set of acoustic nickel-wound strings in acoustic gauges. IIRC, they were called "Top Star" and they didn't say they were nickel, but called it "White Bronze" (I smell marketing department). I quite liked them.

Adrian Legg used to use .010 gauge electric strings on his Ovations (check out Guitars and Other Cathedrals). I absolutely hated his tone then, but some amazing playing.