13s are definitely available in flatwound for standard tuning as I have a set. You can certainly put your 14s on your guitar but the tension might be all janky requiring all manner of truss rod adjustment.

I played 12s for a while.

No doubt Dick Dale benefited from 16s but that’s because he was Dick Dale. I had two problems with the 12s: 1) as string gauges increase without increasing scale length, the strings begin vibrating more like a bar and that made playing up the neck sound plinky; 2) playing heavier gauges is freaking tiring - especially if you’re playing barre chords for rhythm. And also you need your nut filed and then replaced if you wanna go back!

So my suggestion is absolutely do it and report back!!!

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Last edited: Aug 18, 2023 20:44:47

You prolly need it set up for the heavier gauge (nut slots widened, truss rod adjusted, intonation adjusted) if you’re gonna keep it that way. But you can prolly throw them on the guitar and futz around. It won’t be great but you’ll get an idea how the heavy strings play.

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I’m going to play the skeptic here, and question why heavier strings would make tremolo picking easier. I don’t consider myself one of the world’s great tremolo pickers, but I can do justice to the third verse of Honky Tonk, even when played at a good clip, and I’m using 9-42s, or 10-46s. I don’t think that it makes much difference.

The one thing that I’ve found to improve tremolo picking is to have a fairly heavy pick. I use a V-Picks Van Zen, which is 4mm thick, for tremolo picking, and it helps me to relax my grip. YMMV.

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Last edited: Apr 01, 2024 08:55:07

psychonaut wrote:

If heavier strings make it easier to tremolo pick, then how come I find it just as easy to tremolo pick on the high E or B strings as I do tremolo picking on the low E? If anything, heavy strings make it much harder and tiring to play guitar overall.

That’s pretty much my thinking. I spent years, even decades, using very heavy strings on my main axe, and somewhat lighter strings on whatever solid-body I had. By “somewhat lighter”, I mean 11-49. Then I bought a Tele that came with 10-46 strings, and realized that I hadn’t really lost anything, and had gained a lot. Since then, I’ve tried lighter sets, and have pretty much settled on a 9-44 hybrid set, using . 023, .033, and .044 Thomastik flats on the bottom three strings and .009, .011 and .016 plain steel, up top. These work perfectly for Surf. I’ve even been known to use .008, .010 and .015 on the top three, and I usually have Tele setup that way, pretty much strictly for heavy string bending. This is a complete 180 from the 13-56 sets I would run on my Johnny Smith.

For my larger archtops, I use a hybrid set of .027, .037 and .050 Thomastik flats on the bottom and .010, .013 and .017 up top. For my smaller archtops, I use .025, .035 and .047 up top and .010, .013 and .017 up top. Either of these sets gives me a very solid feel. I don’t feel any great degree of difference when it comes to tremolo picking, and if anything, I prefer the lighter sets for tremolo. I routinely play Surf on even my archtops, and sometimes I may whip up a Surf tune on even the lightest string Tele.

simoncoil wrote:

I think it's a mixture of string gauge, stiffness of the pick and attack. A lot of people seem to combine heavy strings with thinner more flexible picks (e.g. 14s and a 1 mm nylon pick), while other people favour lighter strings and stiffer picks (like 10s and a Dunlop Jazz III).

I’ve spent a great deal of time, and more than a few bucks, experimenting with pick gauges. I am not naturally graceful and was exceptionally clumsy as a child. It took more than slight effort, on my part, to learn to do anything requiring precise coordination, and developing good guitar technique was living hell, but it paid off. During this period, I started using heavy picks, and for years the Dunlop Jazz III was my pick of choice. In fact, the Jazz III seemed a godsend when it first came on the market.

Now, it the era of boutique picks, I tend to use some of the smaller V-picks, and feel that the 4mm thick Van Zen is as good as it gets, for my tastes and needs. I hate to even think of how much I’ve spent on V-Picks, over the years, but I have found, consistently, that medium sized picks work the best for me, and the thicker the better, because the thicker the pick, the easier it is to grip. My favored Van Zen pick is medium sized, somewhat pointy, and although 4mm thick, it’s tapered and has thin edges.

But there’s a downside to that thickness, when it comes to Surf; because that Van Zen gives an exceptionally warm sound. I’ve done A:B tests, using a Van Zen vs. lighter picks on the third verse of Honky Tonk, which requires tremolo picking, and the difference in sound is profound. For Honky Tonk, an old school, warm sound is alright, even desirable, but Surf, or a bright Blues, such as Hideaway, I want a brighter sound.

For Surf, specifically, I’ve found that lighter picks tend to make it easier to get reverb drip, but once again, there’s a downside, and it relates directly to tremolo picking. My experience has been that light gauge picks can flex too much, giving a “slappy” feel that introduces a bit of latency. Simply put, when a very light pick strikes a string, it takes a little while for the pick to snap back to shape and stabilize. My personal solution is the Dunlop Gel 486 pick, in medium light. For my purposes, this offers great drip and is still very stable in feel, but it would hardly be my first choice for tremolo picking.

As always, there is a compromise, and for me, that would be a Dunlop 205 which is a fairly thick Jazz pick, but not as warm sounding as the V-Picks Van Zen, and excellent for tremolo picking. Because I have googled very little since the lockdown, I have had the freedom to experiment with different picks without the time pressure of keeping a set going. If I was on a gig, I’d probably just use something middle of the road, and stick with it. In fact, on gigs, I frequently use a thumbpick, which I grip when I need speed, and use as a thumbpick when playing fingerstyle.

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psychonaut wrote:

If heavier strings make it easier to tremolo pick, then how come I find it just as easy to tremolo pick on the high E or B strings as I do tremolo picking on the low E? If anything, heavy strings make it much harder and tiring to play guitar overall.

It's the tension that makes all six strings stiff, so your logic doesn't take that into account.

In my experience it is possible to tremolo pick with thin strings, but you can't really hit the strings very hard. The same is obviously true for thinner picks. Dick Dale and myself both love to slam the strings super hard, which absolutely will not work with thin strings. I hope this helps.

Daniel Deathtide

DeathTide wrote:

psychonaut wrote:

If heavier strings make it easier to tremolo pick, then how come I find it just as easy to tremolo pick on the high E or B strings as I do tremolo picking on the low E? If anything, heavy strings make it much harder and tiring to play guitar overall.

It's the tension that makes all six strings stiff, so your logic doesn't take that into account.

In my experience it is possible to tremolo pick with thin strings, but you can't really hit the strings very hard. The same is obviously true for thinner picks. Dick Dale and myself both love to slam the strings super hard, which absolutely will not work with thin strings. I hope this helps.

I see where you are coming from, DD. One of the greatest variables in the world of guitar playing is RH technique. I would consider myself as a fairly strong picker, but I have worked very hard to have consistent technique, so the variation between the strength of pick strokes, upstroke or downstroke, is minimal. I wasn’t always so careful, with my technique, but after I spent nearly a year concentrating on technique, it seems like everything started to work better, and I pretty much quit breaking strings thereafter.

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When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Ariel wrote:

weird_oh84 wrote:

I was just told that Dick Dales 16-60 gauge strings helped him with his tremolo picking…

I don't think that's a completely accurate premise. Sure it didn't hurt his tremolo picking, but he did state clearly in multiple interviews that the sound he was looking for is imitating Gene Krupa's percussive impact, but with guitar. Basically how I interpret it - louder across all strings, tighter, less emphasis on sustain but more on attack, generally - more violent. He treated his guitar like a drum kit. Bigger! Stronger! Karate!

With the dual 15"s it creates quite a massive sound altogether, that applies across the board, not only for leads that break your skull, but for chords too, those loud overtones, screams and weird pinches and stuff. We may come close on the low E with relatively thin sets, but notice how tiny, weak and miserable sounds the high E tremolo run of Miserlou on anything less than .013 gauge.

As for tremolo picking prowess itself, plenty of heavy metal (and Bouzouki...) acts prove that it can be done masterfully and amazingly fast with thin strings, but as stated, it's not the same.

Dick Dale liked handling powerful things like surfboard vs. waves, women, lions and instruments, while still retaining dynamics which allowed him to go soft once in a while, therefore increasing the observed impact. Relatively clean guitar with lots of reverb and huge strings achieves exactly that.

Great write up!

yes , I think we too often credit the gear for the sound when in fact it’s a combo of Player+Gear, Player being the most important factor.

I’ve heard the original Miserlou and Shake and Stomp Dick recorded BEFORE he added reverb and it still has roughly the same impact as the one we all know and love.

https://dickdale.bandcamp.com/album/singles-collection-61-65

I'm not sure about Misirlou... could it be no reverb, or just minimal? There's something in the attack that seems like a tank between guitar and amp, but otherwise it doesn't seem to be much reverb/tail. Shake and Stomp on the other hand is definitely 'dry' in the single version included on the Singes '61-'65 comp.

Also, my personal experience tends to agree with the give/take between string gauge and pick thickness. There seems to be a sweet sport between pick flex and string tension. Thicker strings are kinder to tremolo picking further away from the bridge and or thinner picks. Lighter string gauges benefiting from picking closer to the bridge or/and thicker picks. Everyone will have their own equilibrium, I think.

Of course, depending on song tempo, rhythmic pattern, and frequency (how much I'm playing tremolo picked parts at any point in time), I can readily find counter point examples to the pick thickness/string gauge trade-off continuum concept.

Hows that for a committed non-committal comment!

Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

psychonaut wrote:

If heavier strings make it easier to tremolo pick, then how come I find it just as easy to tremolo pick on the high E or B strings as I do tremolo picking on the low E? If anything, heavy strings make it much harder and tiring to play guitar overall.

For me it’s really difficult to tremolo on high E, especially when it’s less than 12 gauge. I am constantly struggling. Low E is ok and the thicker it is the smoother my tremolo.

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