One last trip over stringalong falls.
I have used a lot of different gauges on different guitars over the years. Somewhere back in the late 70s and/or early 80s I became enamored of something called a "bluegrass" gauge on whatever acoustic guitars I was playing at the time. That gauge is still out there, and is similar to the Elixir Medium-Light gauge. Any differences I will attribute to manufacturers' whims. Most of those differences seem to be in the D and G strings, and then only by '.001'.
This all changed for me when I got my J200. If memory serves me correctly, it was strung with light gauge Gibson strings, which I shortly changed out for a bluegrass set. Turned out I didn't need any bass boost, and the treble sounded left out. So since then, it's been mostly medium gauge on that guitar, and started using lights on others. So a quick fast forward to my current Taylor-centric guitar view, including Taylor's change to Elixir HD lights on GCs and GAs as factory standard. Found out I liked using them a lot, and I now use them on my GCs for all string changes.
So while I get that what works for any given person can be unique, it is important to try different things to arrive at the correct destination. And just as important to keep an open mind on new things. In fact, I will soon be checking out some new Santa Cruz strings, which I think contain the word 'parabolic' in the description. My hands do not seem to 'gunk' up strings very much, so constantly changing strings is not a problem.
Just by way of sonic comparison, I almost exclusively play fingerstyle using my nails as picks. (Sometimes I use a pick when playing my current 12 string, a Taylor 355.) I have no doubt that any resulting 'sound' may have a lot to do with my choice of string gauges too.
And I really like a '.013' as the treble E string.
De gustibus non disputandum.
Don
