My acoustic got its annual restringing. I had to go a gauge lighter and was pleased to find there was still a wound G. See on acoustic, lighter strings are pretty meaningless for most people. If the guitar is set up right, it’s no effort at all to depress them the millimetre or so you need to get them down in good contact with the fret. That’s not to say beginners don’t struggle with barre chords, but as you get the technique it needs very little effort. With electrics you bend strings and use a lot of heavy vibrato. So then light strings make a big difference and the last thing most people want is a wound G. But I like the sound and feel of a wound G finger picking on an acoustic. It’s nice to have the thicker string and the different resonance.
Acoustics sound weird to me with new strings. All jangly. Makes me think of ‘praise and worship music.’ But they’ll settle in about a month and then they’re good to go for about a year.
Of course, if I could have got medium gauge strings I needn’t have wondered. But guitar strings are extortionately expensive and I had to buy the cheapest 3-pack of Ernie Balls on offer. It’s only a matter of time before someone discovers which cheap Chinese strings are good and the American string market will collapse In South Africa. Let’s not kid ourselves… if China can make iphones, they can make guitar strings to equal those in the USA. The trouble is knowing which ones. This isn’t really about American companies. Their strings are pretty affordable in the USA. It’s by the time they get to South Africa that we get fleeced for triple the price.