Putting 13's on an acoustic?

I'd expect any acoustic guitar built for steel strings to handle 13s in standard tuning just fine. Those are standard medium acoustic strings.

Of course, if it comes set up for lighter strings, it may well need a truss rod adjustment. That's no big deal.

medium? I always thought 13's were the heaviest used, theres heavier?

Yeah, they're still called "Mediums," though heavier ones are now uncommon. Strings used to be heavier than they are now.

D'Angelico sells a .014-.060" set, and for dropped tunings heavier ones are commonly used. I have .016-.056" Martin Bluegrass Resonator Guitar strings on my Tricone, which is normally tuned in Open D, Open G or some variant thereof. I've tuned those strings up to standard tuning, Open E and Open C without breaking anything, but it scares the willies out of me to do it. That guitar's got a really beefy neck, though!

I see, so as long as I have the guitar set up for that guage, it'll be fine. Now, do thicker strings really have a better tone? Are 13's noticibly better sounding than 12's?

I am a bit confused about this post generally. Surely, you need strong hands to play an acoustic, not an electric? Everything I have ever read has suggested that this is the case.

If I were you I would rethink this. I remember reading an article (I think on the Rolling Stones Keith Richards) and his one tip for budding guitarists was "use lighter guage strings!".

My worry is that by putting heavier strings on, you will not get the most out of your acoustic and will therefore defeat the object of the exercise.

Why not start on lights, and try a slightly heavier guage once you've been playing it a while?

Also worth remembering that some acoustics do not like a big change in guage.

Cheers

Matt

This is a case of YMMV. Each person uses what works best for him/herself as far as playability goes. In terms of tone, it also depends upon the sound one likes, but the guitar itself is a factor as well. Some acoustics seem to sound better with heavier (actually medium) strings -- tighter bass and strong mids ... and then some have an "ethereal" sound when strung more lightly. Usually a guitar does one tone/timbre best and there are gauges and types -- and even brands -- of strings that bring this out most effectively.

BTW, medium electric gauge is not the same as medium acoustic gauge.

As far as the difficulty of playing goes, one's hands do get stronger. So unless the guitar/string combo is a real cheese slicer, one usually gets used to playing it, especially if it has a great timbre. The other thing newer players often don't realize is that a different feeling guitar will often inspire one to play differently. This is one reason I have a small collection of different types of electrics. Each one works best for certain playing styles. Same is true for acoustics.

Boring, but on-point story: When I first started playing, one of my friends (also new player) had his acoustic strung with lights. We thought it was a great guitar -- easy to play; nice and clear for fingerpicking. We played in the church folk group (mostly to meet girls), and the guy who led it was a 35-year-old singer/songwriter type with a strong booming acoustic style and a voice to match. When he heard my friend's guitar, he couldn't stop himself from telling us how weak and thin it sounded. And he was right. We were more concerned with ease of playing than the actual sound of the guitar. Of course, I now realize the choir leader was playing a Gibson Hummingbird -- it was tough for my pal's lesser guitar to complete with that.

-Greg

There are a lot of good points in this post. I can summarize from my experience and see if that helps.

I had the same thought that if I made the acoustic tougher to play it would make the electric easier. So I put 13's on it and made the necessary adjustments (nut and truss rod). Initially it made the electric "feel" easier to play but two things happened.

1) I started having trouble fretting the acoustic around the first and second fret and especially with barr chords. By the way, the height at the nut was good.

2) I started playing the electric too hard and actually caused it to go out of tune pretty quickly plus it did not sound good. Kind of like doing constant bends.

So, what I did was went from 9's to 10's on the electric and back to 12's on the acoustic and both sound good. I did lower the action on the acoustic also but just to the point where I was not loosing sound level and intonation which means it is still pretty high compared to the electric. By the way, the 13's impacted the intonation a good bit on the acoustic also which is not easy to adjust.

I just found a reasonable compromise between the two so transition does not take too long.

If you really want to strengthen your fingers and increase their dexterity, take up piano. My guitar teacher's a pianist first, and he can do things with his pinkies on a fretboard that absolutely amaze me.

Heavier strings will sound louder on an acoustic, especially at the low end. This is just physics. Sometimes this will make the guitar sound "fuller" or better somehow, but it's really just louder and "different".

My $0.01...

-Laz

My thinking was that if my hands got stronger, playing electric would become easier, because It would'nt require as much strength on an electric with 10's. I'm not getting an acoustic just to strengthen my hands, but its a nice side affect from playing it. I don't think I'll run into the problem of pushing the strings to hard on electric because I plan to play both everyday. Sound good?