Tone report, GHS Medium Silk & Steel on DC5E and D35

Guildedagain

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Finally got a rainy day and restrung both the 1996 DC5E and 1973 D35 with GHS Silkie Elevensies. The DC still had great sounding strings on it, almost a year old GHS Lawrence Juber .012's that have the gold plated treble strings, looks really nice on guitars with gold hardware like the DC, a nice touch.

The D35 still had great sounding strings also, John Pearce .012's, a lot of authority and really great straight up dread tone, didn't really want to change anything about it.

Stretching these might be a little different than stretching steel strings. Also using a Stretcha now, something I just found out about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8f0hhLAsWM

The strings take a little bit of playing and retuning to start sounding decent, and they do sound different, so you have to give them a chance... but when you get used to them and they start sounding good, the guitars sound amazing, a little mellower, nice deep bass, very clear trebles, and super easy to play! I can blaze through the House of the Rising Sun with an ease that feels like I just advanced a whole year of hard playing. The C chord becomes strangely effortless and intonation is very good. Country bends are so easy now, I left the Tele at home and played an all night local full moon bash in the woods (Sat night) with the DC5E.

I didn't even start playing til 1am, and when I took it out of the case (probably in the 40's and damp), it was in perfect tune and stayed that way through a two hour instrumental set, I can't even say how impressed I am by that.

I had a hunch they would be magic on the DC because it doesn't need to be loud, because I can plug it in, so whatever acoustic volume you lose by going to the S&S strings you hugely make up for in playability.

Two hours of playing to a pretty wild audience, and I don't remember my fingers being anything but happy. Wish I could could have said the same about hips and knees...

I'd already had S&S on my '71 F30 Aragorn for quite a while now, but never really realized what the sound was really good for. It's much different from a dread which is my favorite tone, and then one day, I pull it out of the case and start noodling on it in a totally different way and then it dawned on my, it sounds KILLER for Blues, just awesome!

But that is probably largely because of the S&S strings, they will turn your box into a great blues machine, the tone and playability are there.

Turns out GHS also make Silks and Bronze, and that might be worth investigating as well.

Also to note, if you have a person in the house who says things like "do you have to play so loud" etc... they'll be overjoyed just to know you put quieter strings on your guitar (for them :), the placebo effect alone is worth the price of admission. But truthfully, I like quieter guitars that you can play after your significant other has gone to sleep, which on spring farm days like these, can be really early. Anyway, happy wife = happy life, if you can stand marriage, and sometimes the end of the day is the only time I can find to play.

Happy playing ;-)
 
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adorshki

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I'd already had S&S on my '71 F30 Aragorn for quite a while now, but never really realized what the sound was really good for. It's much different from a dread which is my favorite tone, and then one day, I pull it out of the case and start noodling on it in a totally different way and then it dawned on my, it sounds KILLER for Blues, just awesome!
Don't know what kind of strings Mississippi John Hurt used, but we know he played an F30....
MississipiJohn.jpg

hqdefault.jpg

:friendly_wink:
But that is probably largely because of the S&S strings, they will turn your box into a great blues machine, the tone and playability are there.
Even something as unlikely as a maple-bodied F65ce (please excuse the shameless self promotion, but there may be folks who haven't seen this yet)
Anyway, yeah I agree on all counts.
:biggrin-new:
 

richardp69

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Don't use the GHS Silk but do use the GHS Medium Gauge Non Steel Strings, I'm a big fan. It gives me a nice big sound (helps cover up all my inefficiencies) and they last a long time between changes.
 

Westerly Wood

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John Pearse also has a great pb steel and silk string, very easy on fingers and not too different from the regular 600Ls. they were my favorite string for a while.
 

dreadnut

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+1 on the Phosphor/Silk - I have GHS on my Loar guitar, Martin and Pearse also make them.
 
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