Darryl Hattenhauer
Venerated Member
Treem,
I almost always use 11's on my flattops. I think it gives me the right balance of playability, sound, and stress on the neck. To me, they sound almost as good as 13's and are a lot easier to play. But 10's seem to have a huge drop off in tone and playability. They just flop around like silk and steel strings.
Since your others are 12's and 13's, what is it you like about the 11s?
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Bill,
Here is the page for those La Bella 9's at juststrings.
http://www.juststrings.com/lab-700t.html
You're a mind reader about Nick Reynolds. I was crazy about that 8-stringer of his. I saw him play it live a few times. You can see what it looked like on a few of the tv vids that are around. And it sounded great on the recordings. I think it was an 00018t customized at Harmon Satterlee in San Francisco. I think it would have been even better if he'd used a smaller body because it would have sounded more like a mandola and less like a twelve string. Whenever Stewart played the 12, Nick put away his 8 and played his 4.
He tuned his 4 and 8 the same: like the top four strings of a six string. He could play a six string, but they wanted a contrast to Shane's bassy D28, so he used smaller bodied guitars, capoed them way up, and got even more highs by tuning it (DGBE). Doing so made the wound strings a lot higher than they would have been in any other tuning.
Because I know some mando chords, I tune my F30T like an octave mando (GDAE) and my Greco tenor like a mandola CEBG.
http://www.elderly.com/vintage/items/80U-2044.htm
At 20 3/16, my Greco has a scale length in the mandola range, so I'm thinking of converting it to an 8. Since it's a starchtop with a trapeze tp, there would be no bridge mods like the ones you'd have to do on a flattop. I'm thinking of using two sets of La Bella 9's to reduce stress on the neck, but those might just be too light. Standard mandola strings are 12's.
I almost always use 11's on my flattops. I think it gives me the right balance of playability, sound, and stress on the neck. To me, they sound almost as good as 13's and are a lot easier to play. But 10's seem to have a huge drop off in tone and playability. They just flop around like silk and steel strings.
Since your others are 12's and 13's, what is it you like about the 11s?
----------------------------------------------------------
Bill,
Here is the page for those La Bella 9's at juststrings.
http://www.juststrings.com/lab-700t.html
You're a mind reader about Nick Reynolds. I was crazy about that 8-stringer of his. I saw him play it live a few times. You can see what it looked like on a few of the tv vids that are around. And it sounded great on the recordings. I think it was an 00018t customized at Harmon Satterlee in San Francisco. I think it would have been even better if he'd used a smaller body because it would have sounded more like a mandola and less like a twelve string. Whenever Stewart played the 12, Nick put away his 8 and played his 4.
He tuned his 4 and 8 the same: like the top four strings of a six string. He could play a six string, but they wanted a contrast to Shane's bassy D28, so he used smaller bodied guitars, capoed them way up, and got even more highs by tuning it (DGBE). Doing so made the wound strings a lot higher than they would have been in any other tuning.
Because I know some mando chords, I tune my F30T like an octave mando (GDAE) and my Greco tenor like a mandola CEBG.
http://www.elderly.com/vintage/items/80U-2044.htm
At 20 3/16, my Greco has a scale length in the mandola range, so I'm thinking of converting it to an 8. Since it's a starchtop with a trapeze tp, there would be no bridge mods like the ones you'd have to do on a flattop. I'm thinking of using two sets of La Bella 9's to reduce stress on the neck, but those might just be too light. Standard mandola strings are 12's.
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