Will Strings Fix This Guitar's Tone?

Will a simple string change reduce the nasal tone of this guitar?
(00:50) What we're gonna do- sound and feel
(02:45) Our test strings:
Stringjoy Foxwoods in .056, .042, .032, .024, .017, .013
(05:33) A/B
(09:10) Observations
(11:22) Nine Pound Hammer A/B
(13:20) Lonesome Fiddle Blues A/B
(16:10) More observations- right hand feel
(19:08) What's up next?
(20:30) Billy in the Lowground vs Billy in the Low Ground
----------------------------
Playlists:
Guitar Comparisons- • Guitar Comparisons
Evaluating Guitars- • Evaluating Guitars
Guitar Repair Technique- • Guitar Repair
1970's Martins- • 1970's Martins
Shop Tools and Layout- • Shop Tools and Layout
Questions and Answers- • Questions and Answers
Just Playing- • Just Playing
Instructional- • Instructional
Mandolins- • Mandolins

[@Big.E]

Enjoyed it 👍🎸

[@Warren-wb8vz]

I am a user of Martin mediums on my dreads. As I listen to this I do find a reduction in what you described as the compression in the bass. I find the string joys suit this guitar more as they offer a more pleasing balanced sound.

[@Bryankimsey]

Awesome. Thanks for the comment. Did you hear a change in volume?

[@earlsinstrumentsandtunes9732]

Light guage strings on my 1961 D18 make a huge difference. It sounds lots better and difinitely plays a whole lot easier. It is just a much better guitar with lights on it.

[@timr2618]

Hi Bryan, my experience in strings is(are?) that you need to take them to a session, guitar needs to 'warm' up and top and body need to start moving, things change at a session, what I find feels tight and stiff to play at homw, becomes different and sometimes easier at a session with other players.Strings warm up as well and I think become more-flexible? Its worth doing your experiment here, but in my own experience a 'real world' environment works better to evaluate a string gauge, also depends on the style of music and other musicians,and even the weather! A lighter gauge is maybe ok for solo singer, but a loud session with banjos, accordians,pipes and fiddles that I get to play with changes things, and light doesnt work-even though I would prefer them. Just my thoughts. I have great respect for the time and effort you put into these videos for us. Best wishes from Ireland.Im 72 now and been playing over 50 years, acoustic and electric guitar and bass. john

[@Bryankimsey]

I agree but it's hard to record from a session, ya know? In a real life playing situation "feel" is gonna matter to me even more. I actually did jam on this D-21 for an hour or and the strings turned my fingers black and shredded my calluses. It was time for something else. :)

[@robertnewell5057]

I believe string changes are the easiest and cheapest way to experiment with changes to a guitar's sound (apart from personal variables such as hand position, nail length, position against the body). I did a whole series of blind tests different brands of strings (hard to arrange, believe me), and the difference in tone was clear. Subtle, but repeatable. I did not compare different gauges, simply because I value the comfort of a particular gauge. I believe Tony Polecastro has made such a comparison, and concluded heavier strings were louder and projected more, but lighter strings were more resonant (about as you would expect), but I cannot recall the video. Sorry.

[@Bryankimsey]

I did that for Flatpicking Guitar Magazine in '99 or so. But again... I'm equally focused on feel as I am sound so I commented on how they felt to me. I used a dozen or so brands and a control guitar. I put strings on, compared them to the control guitar, and continued on thru all of them. Then I put them back on and left them for 2 weeks. At the end of two weeks I again compared them to the control guitar. They were all full mediums except in cases like Thomastik-Infeld where they used an oddball gauge of .060" low tension.

[@cugir321]

I have a yamaha I just bought that has a couple frets that don't ring as nice as the others....I solved it with another yamaha by refretting it and gluing them in but wondered if there's any other things that may make them ring better without redoing the frets? Just put some martin flex core mediums on another guitar....so bright....the low E was shimmering which was terrible....I replaced it with a Daddario XS low E and they seems to be okay now....do play easier as advertised. It's loud as a mother but fights me a bit..the top has huge tension. ..the flex core did help. I play with a bunch of guys with expensive martins sat mornings....it blow even the D45 away.

[@ninephammer5893]

The Stringjoys seem more articulate and definitely brighter than the Martins.

[@Bryankimsey]

Whoo-hoo!!! Actual feedback! :) Glad you heard that.

[@DamenJoost]

The eternal question... because you can never play your guitar with two sets of strings at the same time it's impossible to be quite certain without some real research and recording.. I find it hard to judge through youtube clips. For me in particular, because I play with pick sometimes but prefer to play with just fingers, this complicates string selection even more. My 2010 D28 is at a luthier now because it was starting to sound... dull. Compared to my scalloped Atkin D37 (amazing guitar.) The luthier's eyes went wide when I brought it in... he said: the strings are dead as can be, it needs to be intonated, half the frets are done for. That's what I get for doing minimum maintenance for 14 years and playing tons...

[@Bryankimsey]

First, I worked as a research biologist and statistician for 4 years for a team of PhD's. I'm a little bit familiar with experimental design. If you are testing a drug trial, you're going to use double-blind, placebos, and dual-replications. If you just want to compare guitar strings, you use a control guitar on which no changes are made. Compare the test with the control, make the change, re-compare. It's good enough. But in this case, I wasn't really testing strings per se. I was looking for specific improvement in a specific area and I was looking for sound AND feel and simply using a different string (and gauge) to see if I'd get there. "Feel" is a highly personal thing and the bottom line is simply "do I LIKE these or those better?" I said that numerous times in the video. The Stringjoys come in an orange package (I like orange) with an outdoorsy sounding name of "Foxwoods", therefore I like them better. Anything you pull from the A/B comparison is YOUR perception and that's totally fine. This is music. We're allowed to deal with feels.

[@DamenJoost]

@@Bryankimsey Of course I didn't mean anything rude by my comment at all. In fact I enjoyed the content and am jealous of the guitars you get to play. Maybe that came to the surface! What I was trying to express is that I find it frustrating to compare string types and therefore haven't really experimented that much with them. Similar to experimenting with electric guitar pickups... an endless rabbit-hole. But that's what keeps us engaged too.

[@Bryankimsey]

No offense taken. A control guitar is your key! But, yeah... pickups offer so many possibilities.

[@dwoodinnyc]

So what are your thoughts on the pick? I honestly think that the picks can make a big difference in tone for me. The difference between a Dunlop jazz 3 and my trusty TP-48 is staggering sometimes!

[@Bryankimsey]

My thoughts on the pick are 1) it has to feel good in my hand. Since I can get good tone out of a dozen different kinds of picks, everything else is secondary. If it DOESN'T feel good in my hand, I can't play with it so I don't care how good it might sound. Picks: kzbin.info/www/bejne/lYG2p6CXj8ehl5Y

[@keithhunter3910]

@@Bryankimsey That's exactly how I feel about necks. If it doesn't feel good in hand, I am not going to play it well, so what difference does the tone make?

[@Bryankimsey]

@@keithhunter3910 I am _totally_ in the same camp. I've said over and over that the neck is, like, 75% of the guitar for me. Playing feel is just so crucial for me.

[@KASKASM]

Lucky you were able to get back the guitar. I bet it felt like reuniting with a long lost friend, faults and all are still there but you still love em.

[@Bryankimsey]

I'm just working on it... he's gonna get it back. But, yeah, I sold it to him because I knew I'd see it again.

[@Life-of-Bluegrass_Music]

Yes strings can fix tone, bone pins, wood pins, bone saddle, all can change sound a lot. A nut very little. Martin strings sounds sounds the best on that guitar, but I like Martin strings best of all stings.