Any tonal differences d'addario 10-46 and 10.5-48 ?

Sassafras

If only they made 10.25s.

EricTheWeary

Gagaryn said:

tone1 said:

  

Those two blethers need to learn to edit - one an hour to tell us whether string gauge matters?

I couldn't bring myself to watch it. Actually I watched it a bit and Mick uses 10.5s sometimes and his big issue with string gauge was that with light strings if you are at all heavy handed you can just end up sounding out of tune from either left or right hand technique. They also talked about Billy Gibbons and BB King who got big sounds out of pretty thin strings ( 7 to 38s in Billy's case). I really didn't get as far as them trying to see if there were tonal differences ( and via YouTube and my ipad it's pretty f*****g academic). 

IIRC Yngwie said there are no tonal differences in unwound strings so he uses light top, heavy bottom ( 8 to 48). I don't know if that's true but I'm prepared to accept he might have more idea than I do. 

I think there probably are differences if you carefully A-B different gauges but I think they would be pretty small. The examples given above of Parfitt and Young maybe it's part of their sound but they were also quite hard hitting so if they'd sported 9s they'd have been out of tune and breaking strings every five minutes. 

dindude

Almost skipped it too, maybe I was just in that mood, but it was actually a good watch.

Roland

I used 10.5s for a while, and thought that they gave better tension balance than 10s or 11s. 

sweepy

Both of those guitars have terrible "fizz" due to no neck relief or slack playing 

Voxman

All this 'thicker strings = better tone" stuff is complete & utter nonsense!! The reverend Billy Gibbons uses 008's (with a 007 top E!!)...and you don't get much thicker/fuller sounding guitar riffs than ZZ Top.  Jimmy Page & Peter Frampton use 008's (have you heard those great guitar tones from 'Frampton Comes alive'?).  Hendrix 009-038, Eddie Van Halen 009's...nuff said?  Make it easy on your fingers and go 10's or 9's. I use 009-042 on all my electrics. 

https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/String_Myths_Part_1

sweepy

Heavier strings have more magnetic mass in the field of the pickup, they will sound different, its whether you notice it or not that matters to you 

skinfreak

Speak as you find but tone is subjective. My PRS Tremonti SE just had 11-49s to match my DGT. Now it doesn't sound or play like the dgt but it certainly plays better. Does it sound better? I think so but it could be that I enjoy playing it more with the heavier strings. It's got a different width neck and lacks the dgt's jumbo porno frets. As a result I may go slightly lighter (10.5!) but I could never play it with stock 9s.

And the magnetic induction difference is pure physics. Thicker strings have to make an impact on the resulting sound. Whether you hear it in a meaningful way is the debate.

TTBZ

I don't know if there's any tone difference but I've used 10.5s for a while now, to me on my SG tuned to Eb they feel nicer than either 10s or 11s.

WezV

Acoustics - an undeniable difference and I would definitely say heavier is better from a purely tonal point of view.  You need the mass to drive the top.  Of course this goes out the window if you have a very light top but it still works as a general rule for most factory guitars.

Electrics - An undeniable difference, not necessarily a better or even noticeable one - but the difference must be there, physics says so

If you want to understand any tonal difference between amplified guitars you have to consider the relationship between the string and the pickup.  For example, if you want to consider how body wood or hide glue affects the tone, you have to ask whether it can influence the way the string or pickup reacts to the forces applied to it.  

Changing the mass of the string must have a very direct impact on that relationship between string and pickup.   The real question is "how much do I need to increase/decrease the mass of the string to hear a tonal impact?".   is a 5% increase enough?    Do you still think you would not hear the difference between 8's and 13's?

Playability is affected a hell of a lot more and that brings its own tonal differences.  As others have pointed out with examples of ZZ top and the like, there are many other ways to achieve a big sound.  It doesn't stop with that string/pickup relationship.  Its just one factor at the beginning of the chain

RocknRollDave

After playing 9's for donkeys' years, I went up to 10's and whilst I'd say the tonal difference was minimal (or possibly psychosomatic), the increased tension and the resulting improvement in tuning/ intonation stability were definitely welcomed.

I'm a Telecaster player and no string swapping will ever come close to filling out the tone the way that generous adjustment of my amp's EQ does, however.

guitars4you

I think there is less of a tonal difference between string gauges and humbuckers than there is with string gauges and single coil pick-ups - Thicker strings with a single coil to me sound bigger - Granted there are many great players with a big sound who use thin strings, but many are h/bucker players - Billy Gibbons, Santana, EVH

I dare say those with a better understanding of the laws of physics might explain why, but on a single coil pick-up I assume the thicker string  via the magnetic field of the magnet/pick-up in turn induces a bigger current - Somehow the greater mass or vibration creates more energy for the pick up to produce the appropriate goodness

crunchman

As others have said above, the big issue is playing feel.  There is a fine line.  11s are definitely too much for me on a 25.5" scale, but if I use 9s I'm too heavy handed and it sounds out of tune.  You could probably get used to lighter strings eventually though.

However, I'm not sure it was an entirely fair comparison as they left the pedal and amp settings untouched.

In reality, if there is a difference in tone, then the settings they use for 10.5 or 11 gauge strings won't be optimal for the thinner strings.  After the string change they probably should have tweaked the settings to get the best sound they could with the lighter strings.  If nothing else there should be a Fletcher-Munson type effect to compensate for.

Intuitively, you would expect bigger output from the pickups with heavier strings as there is more mass of string - a lot more more mass.  If you take the extreme that they did on the Les Paul where they went from 12s to 8s (if I remember correctly), you are more than halving the mass of the top E for given length**.

If that is the case, some of the perceived loss of tone will be down to reduced volume.  It won't be that simple though.  For the same pick attack, you would expect that the thicker strings will have less movement.  That would reduce the size of the signal which is dependent on the speed of movement.  In reality they are probably digging in a lot more with the heavier strings and getting more output as a result - which will definitely result in a Fletcher-Munson type of thing going on where it sounds better just because it is louder.

I don't think there are easy one size fits all answers.



**Mass is volume times density.  Volume for a cylinder is Pi r squared h.  In the antiquated units we use for strings, radius of the 12s is 6/1000 of an inch, against 4/1000 of an inch for the 8s.  6 squared is 36, while 4 squared is 16.  That's a 56% reduction in mass.


Edit:  just saw the post by @guitars4you after I wrote this.

Kebabkid

Telejester said:

Kebabkid said:

I'll tell you in about a week or so when I get my *Fender RC Strat  back from my repairer (fitting a baseplate) and I've decided to try D'Addario 10.5s.

I normally play 9.5s or 10s but the *hardtail Strat that I recently bought came with 11s and I love the sound and general feel of it as they don't feel like too taught 11s but like the OP, I couldn't bend the high E 11 comfortably and swapped it for a 10, but that still didn't feel right (too slinky). Hence, the 10.5s.

I know when I swapped to 9.5s a few years ago, I could feel the difference and thought it a good compromise but tonally, it was negligible.

I'd be interested to hear if the 10.5 is or isn't as unwieldy as 11s on 25.5 inch scale

The 10.5s on my hardtail Strat have worked a treat. Just enough tension to not rattle around and be great for rhythm and feel substantial and big sounding and easy enough to bend without being too slinky.

So far, I like them  

Adji

10.5 will not sound drastically different to 10s.
What you are basically getting is slightly increased tension. Between 1 and 2 pounds per string. 2lb is a very noticeable difference, 1lb is a bit more subtle and most noticeable when you reach towards the top of a bend for me.

I think one of the things that makes players think 'tension = tone' is not that the tone is DRASTICALLY different but that the tone and pitch of the string is more stable.
For example, using 9s, as soon as you hit a chord hard all of the strings momentarily move out of tune and then drift back in. I suppose this can cause a sort of pitch shifting / phasing effect of sorts.
With heavier strings and more tension the pitch drift is greatly reduced so the 'purity' of the pitch is greater.

This is based on zero science and one hundred per cent opinion.

That said, I definitely hear a difference when using extreme gauge jumps, such as from a 9 to a 13, but if you increase the gauge incrementally (9, 10, 11, 12, 13) the effect becomes less noticeable.

Grumpyrocker

I normally play D'addario 10s. But I've bought some 10.5s for my LP scale length guitars today - hoping it'll give me a similar feel to my longer scale length guitars. This is the suggestion on the D'addario website.