How to choose a right string gauge for an acoustic guitar?

 

Choosing a right set of guitar strings is very crucial step for maintaining your guitar's overall performance.

But, many of them neglect this part. And this may affect negatively your guitar's tone and its life.

In this blog, we will see how we will discuss how to choose a right guitar string set for your guitar.

But before that, we first need to understand "What does string gauge means?" And "What are the different gauges available in the market?"

What is mean by string gauge?

String gauge basically refers to the thickness of the strings.
It is measured in thousandths of an inch...
I.e.  1/1000th of an inch.

For example, if a set of guitar strings has written 10 gauge. Then, it means that it's first string (High E) has a thickness of 0.010 inch thickness.

In the case of D'Addario strings, it is mentioned in  1/1000th of an inch.

Based on the strings thickness they are bifurcated into various types such as super light gauge, extra light gauge, medium gauge, heavy gauge.



Guitar string gauge chart

In this blog post we will take D'Addario acoustic strings which are most preferred brand among the guitarist.



Why it is necessary to select an correct gauge?

Well... the answer is to safeguard your guitar performance.

If you choose a light gauge strings then it will be easy for you to play the guitar as it requires less force to hold any chord but it might not be able to produce a bright sound.

Also, if you choose a very high gauge strings, then you might gain a bright sound, but a high gauge string means high tension on the neck of the guitar and this might damage your neck or maybe your bridge too.



Also, if you are more into fingerstyle then I would suggest you to go for light gauge.


For strumming it is ideal to go for medium gauge.


Also, this preference totally depends upon the guitarist and how he/she plays guitar...

How to choose a correct gauge strings?

At this stage, you might have a clear idea about the guitar string gauge.

Now let us see which string gauge is suitable for a particular guitar.



1) Guitar with no truss rod.

Guitars in which truss rod is absent should go for super light gauge as the main problem with this type of guitar is that it's neck easily bends because of guitar strings tension and can't be straightened once it is bended. So it is preferable to use a light gauge string.

Mostly, this types of guitars have cheap build quality and cannot withstand the high tension of the string so with this type of guitar you should go for super light gauge or may be extra light gauge.

2) Guitar with truss rod.

Guitars with truss rod should go for light gauge for may be medium gauge. As this type of guitar have posses truss rod in the neck so it can withstand the tension of the guitar string.

As we go further with premium guitars than they use heavy gauge strings like 11 gauge or may be 12 gauge.

But some people find it difficult to play with high gauge strings and so they move to 11 or 10 gauge.

So, this was some guidelines that might help you to choose a correct string set for guitar.

May God bless you.