I seem to recall reading something once about the strings in the 50's and 60's. I think it said that they were made of something that made it harder to get distortion. I wonder if that made a difference in the sound of Link Wray or The Kinks for example. What kind kind of strings do you use?

im kinda wimpy i use ernie ball super slinky 9-42's caus my soloing style is very rudimentery and 50s/60s influenced and uses a lot of  half and full tone bends and unison bends and i just cant do that on any thing thicker ,that said my avon has a 10 for the high string as the 9 in the pack was broken

Blue Steel seems to work well for my Strat and Tele ( light gage) I also use them on my acoustic. My biggest problem is my wammy on my strat, If I break a string it's instantly out of tune "Big time" :( It always freaks me out if it happens on stage.

I don't know what kind of strings the old guitars had but I know some of the amps were lower in wattage (volume) and alot of bands thought distortion was cheap sounding. I remember reading somewhere that some guitar players would actually cut a little into their speakers so it would vibrate and make a distortion sound. The speakers seemed to be paper like more so then todays speakers.

P.S. I know a great string (New but broke in) seems to have more sustain than dull worn out strings. They may have rubbed something on them at the factory as to protect them from tarnishing etc. so that way the strings may have had a duller sound. One time I had a set of strings that had too much sustain and I rubbed wax on them and it seemed to dull their sound

Personally I'm thinking of changing guage too

I play of an epiphone '56 gold top lespaul (P90s)

it's strung with ernie ball regular slinkies (10s)

and i'm thinking of going over to Ernie Ball Power Slinkies which have the 1st three strings a little thicker

do you guys think that this will beef up the higher notes? I'm trying to play stuff like Fell in Love with a Girl and Have Love Will Travel and I think that the 1st 3 strings could be louder and just have more tone or whatever

thanks, g

In the 50s it was all, as everyone is saying, flat wound strings, very heavy gage.
Those do have that sort of plonking sound you hear on records from that era but are hard to play and might even warp the neck of a guitar without a real solid truss in it. Funny you should be talkin' about Harmony Rockets...I've had a SERIOUS jones for onr of those lately. Right now, I have a Hagstrom Swede and a really solid LP Junior copy (Japanese).

Mines a 64 Rocket, the heavy strings are a bit much, especially on the neck pickup, 10's are just right, nice clean crunch through a fender twin, although 11's sound OK but a bit more distortion though. I guess it depends what sound you want...

Yea I got to say i I don't think i'll use any 11's on my harmony either.

Thee Shame Club posted these in Psychotic Reactions. http://www.broadwaymusicco.com/harmony26.htm http://harmony.demont.net/ I'm trying to get an H15 from a friend of mine. It's the Jaguar-type guitar.

What kind of Harmony? My buddy picked up a 65 Rocket that's got flats on it... they're pretty heavy strings - would guess they were 12's. They sound freaking great though those old pickups.. no problem getting distortion on it... hard to get a good clean tone though ;)

I dont think the heavy gauge strings will work on the harmony, I tried 12's then 11's but settled for 10's as they had the best balanced sound, but ever guitar is different. fenders do suit heavy strings as that is what they were designed for, especially the jaguar which will sound crap with anything less than 11's. My vox has 11's but would probably sound better with 12's but its a killer trying to get blues bends on 12's, hard work. To get those vintage tones try high gauge vintage re-issue type strings as mentioned above, that should do it, never use less than 10. I used a set of 9's on my hofner galaxie to calm it down a bit as the pickups are so hot it growled too much, but as i'm used to 11's & 12's I just broke em all (3 in one gig), playing and bending way to hard : )

Sounds like I need to try some higher gauges. That's gonna be quite a difference if I get my Harmony with the thick neck. I use Ernie Ball. I'm gonna try find where I read that about the strings and distortion. Thanks for the help guys!

Hmmm - When did wound strings make their way into the market..? I know lots of the surf guys used Flat Wound Jazz style strings... Dick Dale was playing on 16 gauge flats... I play out with 2 guitars.. a Strat with 13 gauge D'addario Chrome jazz flats playing over EMG 81's, and a SG with 11 gauge D'addario nickel wound playing over 490 Alnico magnet humbuckers. I play the flats four our surfier / darker sounds are great for tremolo picking - and all of our rock punk garage stuff through the SG.

Jamie,
Go for pure nickel strings. I like Ernie ball "Rock and roll" pure nickels. Currently I use 10 gauage strings but think i'm gonna step up to the plate a put on some 11's for the Tele. Back in the day they used heavy gauge strings like 11's. Trust me those 11's are gonna make difference in your tone. There were no 9 or 10's until ernie ball thought of various gauges, thats at least what Mr. Detemple told me.

I use Rotosound Trubass black nylon strings on my PGW Phantom bass. They make the bass sound like a double bass.