Hey there y'all,

I'm looking to build a guitar for lead work that has real nasty, ear-splitting distortion but with more emphasis on the high-end/treble than on the low-end.... i.e. fingers on the chalkboard as opposed to the low "chunka chunka chunka" bassy stuff. I currently have a Strat with HSS configuration, and I want to upgrade the p'ups... although I may have to get another guitar and possibly get custum-wound p'ups. I would be looking to use passive pickups through a tube amp, of course.

Well, I guess most guitars made for 'metal'... like, thrash type stuff, have really skinny strings and you're supposed to go at it with a soft pick.

I like playing with a thick pick... or sometimes I'll take two medium picks like Dick Dale (the surf guitar god) would do and go at it that way. I have an aluminum "Firecracker" slide that's very biting, brash and abrasive compared to brass, stainless steel, or acrylic. I also like to do fingerstyle... using my index, middle, and ring finger and sometimes the thumb.

I guess I would need thick strings! Whenever I pick up an archtop built for jazz or something, for some reason I can play way better on it than on my Strat when it comes to fingerstyle, which is my absolute favorite way of playing. I guess it is because of the thick strings typical to the archtop type guitar. Also, I've been a bassist for far, far longer than I've been a guitarist... I have a 5-string fretless with narrow string spacing that's meant for aggressively and rapidly working chords and harmonics with three fingers at once instead of just one or two. It's a technique meant for accompanying someone aggressively working a double pedal on a fusion bass drum... not like death metal blast beats so much but more like weird erratic mathematical type beats like you might hear in experimental hardcore/metalcore/noisecore or with certain harder-edged progressive/oddball jazz fusion. Anyways, I digress.

I'm worried that if I put such thick strings on my Strat, that 1) they would foul up the bolt-on neck (I've been told that Zakk Wylde's signature strings are so thick and heavy that they'll destroy anything short of a neck-through guitar if you try to put 'em on), and 2) the tone would get all warm and jazzy/bluesy as opposed to the uber-distorded, ultra-bright, high-end fingernails-on-the-chalkboard sound I am trying to achieve.

Well, I already asked my tone questions in the tone forum... but I guess here I can ask about what happens when you put thick strings on a guitar with a bolt-on neck... what brand of strings might be good or bad, and so forth.

So yeah, this thread... is all about the strings!

Your action may have to be raised if its close, you may need super glue for the holes in your fingers, if you have a tremlo your spring tention will need adjusting. You may also be mistaken for a bass player. Those thick strings get old fast as far as comfort goes. You may be having to readjust settings when you go back to lite. I myself get a dam good metal sound out of lite strings, actually I perfer extra lites, much tighter action I think, and they rock. It really comes down to your equiptment, amp, effects, pickups. That where the heavy sound is. I also think a heavy pick is limiting in the things you pull off with playing styles. I would find a happy medium between heavy picks, and thin to give your playing more range of techniques. Rock on dude metal rules

Well, am I correct in presuming that heavier/heaviest gauge strings are more appropriate for fingerstyle? :confused: My fingers can take the abuse, I know that much.

to an extent...thicker strings generally have more "meat" in their tone...so you lose that plucky twang sound that you usually get with fingerpicking. I play most of my electric fingerstyle parts or a baritone that has heavy heavy guage strings on it...it sort of mellows the sound down a bit.

Hmmmmmm... I will have to experiment. Thanks for the info.

Light strings = more string tension = high tones

Heavy gauge strings = les string tension = low end tones

Also... finger picking will give you a lower end tone as well.. because the surface of your fingers are much softer than that of a pick... your flesh will actually slightly take vibration out of the string because its not a clean pluck. Picks will give more biting tone...

As for pickups... I don't want to go all the way to your post in the tone section... so I'll post it here... If you want sheer biting tone... I suggest the Dimbucker by Seymour Duncan... or a pickup with a ceramic magnet. Ceramic magnets usually have higher output than any other passive pickups and give the most high end tone... I would suggest equipping a Dimebucker in the bridge Humbucker position and a pickup with a softer tone in the middle... then for the neck go with the highest output single coil you can get... that way you can always select the brigde and middle... and neck and middle if you want to keep your high end and push in some lows as well... Good luck.

Light strings(9's or 10's) work just fine in standard tuning(not that they don't sound good in dropped tunings).Thick strings serve a better role if your always tuned down to C or something where the slack allows the string to move and feel about as loose as light strings at standard tuning.

Your pickups play a role in how thick or thin/shrill the sound is.Your neck pickup will give a warm thick sound where the bridges will give a treble/midrange sound(and works better to produce crunch when using distortion).I personally like using my necks pickup for lead since it gives an almost keyboards/piano like tone.The setback is that natural and artificial harmonics won't jump out as easily...anyway,point being,your pickups do matter as does the rest of you rig.Thicker string will give you a thicker sound..light gauge will be more bright.