Hard Tension on Les Paul Standard - Help

[capmaster]

... - but, for me, the degree of pitch-control available from pure nickel is better than that which I'd previously experienced from strings of a different compound.

 

I thought that this info might be useful to the OP.

 

Pip.

You hit it. By theory and my own experiences, pure nickel is the most flexible wrap wire and coat on plain strings as well. Pure, non-alloy nickel adds practically zero stiffness.

[rct]

Seems to me you might be confusing preference and necessity, but you know that, you wind up merchant. I can play any guitar with any strings within reason, doesn't stop me having a preference for the guitar/neck/pickups/strings/insert any other variable of my choice.

 

Now stop being belligerent, and that's coming from me. :D

 

No. My admonishment to not make guitars easy to play with (to me) ridiculous specifications was met by Mr. Pippy comparing it to pickup use. Therein lies the preference/necessity problem, not from me. Being a strong, controlling, competent guitar player that thinks less about the composition and "looseness" of his strings than he thinks about the weather is a necessity. Pickups are a preference. You should be able to play through whatever strings are on whatever guitar you are using, as well as any pickups, within reason. If you just plain old choke up because the strings are "too stiff" you might as well just quit.

 

rct

[Megafrog]

Hello, OP, are you out there?

[SteveFord]

I had to same problem with an 07 Les Paul Classic.

It took a good week of fooling around as the fret wire was really tall and once I got that buzzed down and polished a bit I had to keep screwing around with the truss rod to get it just right.

Perseverance paid off but I know exactly what the OP is referring to.

The strings and string height is not what's causing his problems.

[kaicho8888]

Practice, practice, and more practice!

 

On a Gibson scale, perhaps start with 9 gauge and work up to 10.... 11 if you like the finger fight for a little more tone. A little higher action also help the finger grab the string for heavy bends.

[pippy]

...Pickups are a preference. You should be able to play through whatever strings are on whatever guitar you are using, as well as any pickups, within reason...

Well, rct, of course I agree with this statement. I would have hoped that by now you'd know me well enough to have realised that I wasn't being completely serious with regard to the p'ups. Like Farns said regarding his own case previously; I can pretty well adapt to any guitar and string set-up and can still play pretty much how I always play.........although I'd still maintain that a wide range of string types is offered to the public for good reason...

 

 

...If you just plain old choke up because the strings are "too stiff" you might as well just quit...

..or else keep practicing? We don't know what age the OP is; nor for how many years he has been building up finger- and wrist-strength. As mentioned earlier; when I was young I played much lighter gauge strings and went up gradually as I developed more control. No-one is born with the ability to play .013s with any degree of comfort. It takes time and effort. If the OP tries the same gauge of strings in a different form and finds them to be better-suited to his technique then he would be crazy not to use them. IMO, of course. I know some players - Gary Moore for example - prefer a guitar which 'fights back' a little. Not me. I like to have things nice and friendly between my guitars and myself.

 

Pip.

[RockyA]

Try this, first adjust your neck until it is as straight as you can get it, capo 1st fret and hold down 16th fret where the low E lays flat or nearly flat on the frets. Then back off counter-clockwise the truss rod nut 1/8 of a turn. Adjust action low E 5/64 at 12th fret between top of fret and bottom of string, high E 3/64. Do it in playing position. Then measure low E string saddle from front of the nut to center of the saddle and adjust to 24-3/4". Set the A 2/32 in front of the E and D 2/32 in front of A. Set low E saddle center of bridge post and set B 2/32 back of E and G 2/32 in back of B saddle. Do this with new strings. Then fine tune intonation with a good tuner after stretching strings good. Hold down strings at 22nd fret and adjust neck pickup from pole piece to bottom of string to 3/32 bottom both E strings. Do the same with the bridge pickup but set it to 1/16 both E strings.

 

Try that and it should play fine.

[Golden]

You should be able to play through whatever strings are on whatever guitar you are using, as well as any pickups, within reason...

 

although I'd still maintain that a wide range of string types is offered to the public for good reason.

 

 

And guitars and pick-ups, its no secret most of us started on inferior beginners instruments which is a common path but quite clearly it filled a desire.

 

 

All of it is reduced to "want and need" and for good reason of pragmatic and reasonable thinking. Its a separation of wants and needs from a pragmatic reasonable view. Two people could argue for hours about whether a given product is a need. Obviously, circumstance and frames of reference are important in this discussion. What one person needs, another person wants. Also, there are a variety of ways to meet a need or a want.

 

 

For example, we all need to eat. But does that mean we need to eat a filet minion with fresh vegetables and a nice glass of wine? While at first glance it's easy to assume the difference between wants and needs, when you really start getting into it, the differences can be difficult to articulate.

[pippy]

...Trying to make the guitar easy to play will never have a good result...

...Strings could very well affect(verb) your playing if you let them....

...Making it "easy" is much different than getting the sound you like...

I really don't wish to keep on disagreeing with you, rct, but with regards these three snippets;

 

Why won't making a guitar easier to play ever have a good result? I really don't agree with this at all. Why is playing a difficult-to-play guitar - a guitar which doesn't let us express ourselves due to mere technical drawbacks - better than playing a guitar which allows us to perform the phrases and sounds we hear in our heads without having to struggle with completely unnecessary physical difficulties?

 

I come to this quandry from the other side of the equation; Strings should be mastered so they do what we tell them; not what they choose to allow us to do.

If a player finds some types of strings allow them to do achieve the former and other types of strings don't then, given the option of both, they should never use those which don't. Seems pretty sensible to me.

 

Agreed. But getting the sound we like shouldn't be made more difficult to achieve just because of a stubbornness and refusal to accept that better-suited equipment - and strings count as better-suited equipment in this situation - are widely available to the general public and could be the only substitution required...

 

It's very rare indeed that I disagree with anything much that you say, rct, but IMO ignoring the fact that there might be a set of better-playing strings out there for some particular player to buy is irrational.

 

Clearly none of this has any forceful bearing on old dogs like you and me; we can, it need hardly be said, play old watering cans strung-up with a varying selection of Beelzebub's pubes and yet still manage to sing like angels.

 

But I'll still buy the first bottle of bubbly when we meet-up!

 

 

Pip.

[Golden]

But I'll still buy the first bottle of bubbly when we meet-up!

 

[rct]

I really don't wish to keep on disagreeing with you, rct, but with regards these three snippets;

 

Is ok, you can disagree with me all you want!

 

Why won't making a guitar easier to play ever have a good result? I really don't agree with this at all. Why is playing a difficult-to-play guitar - a guitar which doesn't let us express ourselves due to mere technical drawbacks - better than playing a guitar which allows us to perform the phrases and sounds we hear in our heads without having to struggle with completely unnecessary physical difficulties?

 

This is the first post:

 

I have a 2013 Gibson Les Paul Standard Golftop that I can’t find a way to make the string tension to be more loose. I’ve tried other Les Pauls with the same string gauge (.10) and tune half step down that feel very nice to play but mine feels like I’m tuned to 440. My guitar is tuned half step down but the strings feel very hard. I already tried the top wrapping and it felt the same. The action is a bit low too to help with the problem but nothing. Is there anything else I could do?… thanks for all the help

 

Total newb stuff, to me. Tuning down half a step, top wrapping, low action, all things new people do to deal with a "problem" that doesn't exist. To me, that is. If this was my student I'd pat him on the head and tell him that in a year or two when he has some idea what he's doing we'll address this "problem", which really means in a year or two he'll have forgotten about it and figured out how to make a guitar work, regardless of the strings, within reason. In the meantime, might as well get used to guitars being hard to play, callouses, aches and pains, whatever goes along with it. It isn't easy, it takes practice and practice and practice, and it takes want. What good is making it "easy" for a new person?

 

I come to this quandry from the other side of the equation; Strings should be mastered so they do what we tell them; not what they choose to allow us to do.

If a player finds some types of strings allow them to do achieve the former and other types of strings don't then, given the option of both, they should never use those which don't. Seems pretty sensible to me.

 

I agree, but didn't think this player was far enough along for that. If you don't know what you are doing, you can't put on a guitar and scoff at the strings because they aren't right. I would want a student to get to that point too, but they would just motor on with it until it was right for them. I took it not as being unable to achieve something but as a way to make it not so hard. Could be the grouch in me, could be the way I read it, and it could be true.

 

Agreed. But getting the sound we like shouldn't be made more difficult to achieve just because of a stubbornness and refusal to accept that better-suited equipment - and strings count as better-suited equipment in this situation - are widely available to the general public and could be the only substitution required...

 

Sure. But when you have a student who is a month in, and they are complaining because this guitar is harder to play than that guitar, you tell them "Don't do That, do This" until they are good enough to not be bothered by that. You also don't take someone with 6 months or a year of playing and start dikking around with pickups with them because it is a lost cause going nowhere. They don't know jack about how to sound like anything yet, much less how to sound like they want to. Better suited equipment is an excellent way to say it, but it takes time to understand the vagaries of all of the better suited equipment available. I took it as a beginner question, so that's where I was comin from.

 

It's very rare indeed that I disagree with anything much that you say, rct, but IMO ignoring the fact that there might be a set of better-playing strings out there for some particular player to buy is irrational.

 

Very true, I would agree with that if the post was contexted such that...

 

Clearly none of this has any forceful bearing on old dogs like you and me; we can, it need hardly be said, play old watering cans strung-up with a varying selection of Beelzebub's pubes and yet still manage to sing like angels.

 

...the poster was somewhere along the way that the very subtle differences in string heights and gauges and top wrapping etc would apply to what he could conceptually grasp, but I didn't see it that way, which makes me the grouchiest guitar teacher here.

 

But I'll still buy the first bottle of bubbly when we meet-up!

 

You kiddin? I'll have one under each arm when I get there!

 

rct

[pippy]

...You kiddin? I'll have one under each arm when I get there!...

Oh Yeah?

Well I'll have THREE! One under each leg.

 

 

Pip.

[rct]

I lol'd. l'd ol. Hard.

 

rct