My pride and joy is my Yamaha LL-16D: All solid wood with abalone bling out of the wazoo. This guitar is a freaking canon and has amazing tone. Can't sing its praises enough. Retails for $999.00, but I got it off of some kid on Craigslist for $500.00. He bought the guitar to learn how to play, and a couple months later it sat in it's case for the next 10 months. When I bought it it still had the plastic protective sheet on the pick guard. Love this guitar. My others are: Dauphin DS-30 (all solid wood classical guitar hand made in Spain) Washburn D10-CE Xaviere XV-500 - My "Tiger Guitar" below. The plan is to change all pickups and hardware to be gold: My 2 amps are both modeling amps: Peavey Vypyr VIP 3 Line6 Amplifi TT
OK, I change the strings. There was a fret buzz at the first fret of the low E string as soon as I finished. I took it to a guy at a local music store and he set it up for those strings. Apparently light strings don't put enough tension on the neck to hold it where it was set for heavier strings. It's OK now but if I go back to heavier strings I will have to have it readjusted. It is now much easier to make bar chords and I can make chord changes quicker than with the heavy strings. It still sounds good but I don't think the quality of sound is quite as good as it was with the other strings.
What's the model number? You should be able to go on the Takamine website and see what gauge it shipped with. I'd also search in acoustic guitar forums to see what other players recommend. I bet the question has been asked and discussed before.
They were heavy Elixr strings. I didn't buy it brand new but it was 2 years old. The guy I bought it from hadn't played it that much and the strings still looked new. I doubt that he ever changed them. Most of the posters on forums seemed to favor the heavier gauge strings. I have already changed them. When I made barre chords with the heavy strings there were dead spots because I would have had to put a lot of pressure on it to hold them down properly. With the lighter strings it's as easy as it is with my electric. My guitar teacher was the one who recommended the silk and steel Martin's. He said he had been playing for 10 years before he bought his first acoustic and he almost gave it up because of what the heavy strings were doing to his fingers.
i always preferred lighter strings. the guy i bought my acoustic from recommended going with mediums though. said most acoustics are setup from factory with heavier strings. said if you go too light, you may need to make adjustments to guitar itself to make up for the lack of tension.
Thats what I had to do after I changed to the lighter strings. What's important is that I play better with the light ones.
Like I said, it's already been tweaked. An hour after I changed strings I went to a local music store and the guy there adjusted it. I was expecting to pay $25 or more but he only charged me $10.
