heavy or light strings for ventures?

[babiuk]

Hi everyone,

I´m playing for a lot of years and using heavy gauge strings, 0.12 and 0.13 sets, flatwounds and roundwounds.
I'm always trying to get the sound I´ve listening in the late 50's & early 60s LP's (surf, ventures, Bo Diddley, Steve Cropper...) and in all this time I have found that the heavier strings the more near to this sound(at least it seems to my ear). ANother things that contribute to it are flatwounds and minimum possible sustain (for that I always have the strings very far from the body).
I find these tricks very usefull for my guitar approach to the 60s sound, and my playing is very influenced by this factors, I attack the strings very hard with hard picks. At the begining it was very hard to do, the bendings were difficult, but with the time I ended getting a good playing and I feel very comfortable with this setup.
I play(always clean, with no pedals) in a very purist 60's garage band and the sound of my guitar it´s very good for that. But lately I'm into Ventures and I find that this setup is not the best for this. Of course, I can play the tunes, even with the bendings, but I think that it´s not the way that Nokie did. I think that maybe they used lighter gauges for that millions of bendings and I´ve tried it but the sound with the lights strings is very far from the sound with heavier strings.
I don´t have a Mosrite, I have Vox phantoms and strat and for that I'm using the strat(more near to surf anyway). I know that it´s impossible to sound like the ventures this way, but it´s true that with heavy strings the sound is much more close(of course, as close as a strat can be) than with the light ones. Also my hard playing is not very friend of light strings, I´d have to re-learn to play for them.

So I would like to know what kind of strings you use when play ventures or when you try to sound like ventures.

Any advices will be welcome, cos I don´t know if I must try light strings for ventures(and re-leran to play) and heavy for the rest.

Anyway thanks in advance and sorry for this extensive post.

[pigihangeev]

Hi Babiuk, you'll get for sure lots of advices on which strings choose from experienced people here in the forum. I personally use different gauges according to the guitar I'm playing, for example 011 on the Jaguar (I used also 012), 010 on the Mosrite, 009 on the Hallmark Sweptwing etc...
Btw which garage band are you playin with? I Know lots of bands over there.

Pigi

[Veenture]

My Hallmark 60 Custom came with 10/46 and I always use 10/46 on my Strats also. Don't forget a good TUBE amplifier is a huge part of the Ventures sound also! Vintage Fender tube amps are ideal but some of the reissues will do the job too.

If you switch to lighter strings (I believe Nokie Edwards even uses guage 9) bending of course becomes much easier and you can always crank up some more bass in your amp setting...

The thing is, most of those "heavy" sounds of the Ventures come from the bass- and rhythm section but in the end, it's really up to the player how he prefers to achieve his (lead) goal.

[eltuce]

Maybe it's my horrible playing but it seems I need to use 11s on all my Mosrites. Anything lighter seems to bend and slip all over the place. A friend of mine was playing one of mine once and commented that I needed to put 11s on. He didn't believe that was what was already on there.

[Veenture]

Maybe it's my horrible playing but it seems I need to use 11s on all my Mosrites.

Naw, you're OK friend; every guitar player has his own style and uses his own technique ...and has his own unique anatomy!

I tend to play with a rather brisk attack myself but when I watch Nokie Edwards or Gerry McGee perform, they appear to have a very gentle touch, making any tune seem so easy...

Again, the choice is up to the individual player. Do some experimenting and try to discover your personal liking but do remember, changing to a different guage string can have a significant effect on the curve of your (Mosrite) neck!

[gplayer]

It seems I've read several times that Nokie used .009's. I use .010's & .0105's on most of my electrics. After play my acoustic for the last month or so, even the .010's feel like rubber bands.

[101Volts]

It may not depend on the string gauge but what the strings are made out of. Have you tried Pure Nickel Roundwounds? They sounded closer to The Ventures tone compared to nickel wound strings when I tried them. The strings made my LP copy sound sweeter too, Even if it has a plywood body.

http://accessories.musiciansfriend.com/ ... ings&Nty=1

Austin

[pigihangeev]

It may not depend on the string gauge but what the strings are made out of. Have you tried Pure Nickel Roundwounds? They sounded closer to The Ventures tone compared to nickel wound strings when I tried them. The strings made my LP copy sound sweeter too, Even if it has a plywood body.

http://accessories.musiciansfriend.com/ ... ings&Nty=1

Austin

Great to discover it, thanks Austin! Never heard about it before, I'll search them next time I need new ones!

Pg

[babiuk]

Thanks to everyone for your replies, they are very usefull.

I think I´ll give a chance to light strings for the Venturesques tasks and will do reserve the heavy strings for the rest.
Who knows?... perphaps I become bi-guitar too! !!!

By the way, answering to Pigihangeev, my garage band is from Spain and it´s called The Del Shapiros, www.myspace.com/thedelshapiros

And I agree totally with 101Volts, the pure nickel are greats and sound very vintage, much and much more than standards. Personally when it comes to roundwound I do prefer the Pyramid Pure Nickel Set, but anyway the flatwounds are my favs.


Another question:

I have the pickups very close to the strings in order to get more volume from the strings and minimize the sustain, and it works fine.
But... what do you think about it?
How close to the strings do you have the PU's?

[eltuce]

Maybe it's my horrible playing but it seems I need to use 11s on all my Mosrites.

Naw, you're OK friend; every guitar player has his own style and uses his own technique ...and has his own unique anatomy!

I tend to play with a rather brisk attack myself but when I watch Nokie Edwards or Gerry McGee perform, they appear to have a very gentle touch, making any tune seem so easy...

Again, the choice is up to the individual player. Do some experimenting and try to discover your personal liking but do remember, changing to a different guage string can have a significant effect on the curve of your (Mosrite) neck!

Most have been set up for 11s anyway so I should be fine there. For the most part I'm self taught so I definitely have my own "style" of sorts. Been messing with guitars for nearly 20 years now and just realized the other day that I hold the pick somewhat stupidly so I'm working on fixing that. I also tend to do some stupid hang onto the bridge with my pinky thing whenever I attempt any leads, probably not the best habit but I suppose whatever works, right?