michael messer string guages

[tigercubt20]

i use mm 15 to 56 phos bronze strings on both my reso guitars, a round neck wood body spider, and a metal round neck biskuit.

i tune to open d, open d minor. and sometimes open d6. highe action and slide combined with fingers. on my yamaha acoustic i tune to open d and play without a slide, slightly lower action.

my singing is pretty bad, but capo my yamaha to open E and it seems to suit my voice better. none of my heroes use open d, they all seem to favour open E.

so i could try open E on my resos, but not with a capo, it lowers the action and reduces available frets. so to tune to open E the advice is use the light guage MM set of strings.

HERE IS the question. 15, 17, 26, 36, 46, 56. thats the ones i use for open d. 13, 17, 26, 36, 46, 56. thats option 1. 12, 16, 26, 36, 46, 56. thats option 2.

ime confused, ive always been confused. the MM sets differ in the first case by the first string, and in the second case by the first and second string. these are lighter sets for open E ?.

i am wary of light first strings, on my acoustic light first and second strings tend to give a thin sound. but  on my resos it seems the lighter guage for open E involve 4 0r maybe 5 of my heaviest strings of

my open D set being taken up a full tone. i would have expected a lighter guage set for open E across the 6 strings, not just on the first and second. maybe they are magic strings and the pitch can be increased

without increased tension ??.  any unconfusing gratefully received, years in engineering have given me a strong grip, but not a vice like grip.

[purpleorange]

I posted a similar question on the forum and while ago and Michael advised me to go for a set of custom MM newtone strings 13 16 24w 34w 44w 54w for playing in open E.

You can order custom strings directly from newtone, there is a minimum order of four sets of strings at a time and a 5 to 6 week turn around time. I have a few spare sets of custom strings that I can sell at cost price if you want to try them.

[seagristle]

What scale length is your guitar?


Check out the McDonald Universal String Tension Calculator.



www.mcdonaldstrings.com/stringxxiii.html



You can put in your current string weights and tuning,

then try to match tensions with new string weights and tunings

[tigercubt20]

thanks purpleorange. that guage set sounds more sensible and matches the advised guages from national quite closely.light guage for e 12, 16, 24, 32, 42, 53. your choice of guage set sounds better.
they advise tuning down between playing sesions, which sounds wrong to me. constant sress reversal is bad engineering practice.

thanks seagristle. usefull guage calc,tension. the biscuit is a 12 fret. the spider is 14 fret.

[Michael Messer]

Hi Tigercubt20

You should not tune a guitar down in between sessions. It is not practical and it is not good for the guitar.

To answer your question properly, can you tell me what type of resonator guitars you are asking about? If it is a well built guitar, I would feel quite confident in tuning up to E tuning with MM strings.

Shine On
Michael