What is String Gauge?
Guitar strings are really thin in diameter. So thin, in fact, that companies need to give us a quantifiable measurement for us regular players to understand. The smaller the number, the thinner the string. The higher the number, the thicker.
For example, a .008mm string is extremely light and would generally be used as the thinnest string on an electric guitar. A .056mm string is very thick and would likely be the chunkiest on a six-string electric guitar.
Lots of companies refer to their packs of strings by the thinnest string. The most common you’ll encounter are 9s, 10s and 11s. Some brands give generic names to their string sets like light, medium, or heavy.
However, different brands will vary the thickness of equivalent strings in a pack. For example, you might see Ernie Ball make a set almost identical to D’Addario, but one set’s third thinnest string is .018mm, while the other is .016mm. That is why it’s important to understand what you’re buying and what’s changing when you string up your new set.

Why String Gauge Matters
Guitar strings determine more in your music and how you approach the instrument than you might think. Different gauges provide a variety of sounds and affect both fretting and strumming hands. Let’s compare two sets of strings:
.009 .011 .016 .024 .032 .042
.011 .015 .018 .026 .036 .050
The first set is thinner across every string than the first. That means, in general, they’ll be “easier” to play for many beginner guitarists, because they require less finger strength to fret and bend. They don’t require as much force to move, but do require more accuracy for a delicate vibrato. Thicker strings hold more tension across the fretboard, making them feel taught and deliberate to strum, but tougher to bend. They’ll build up both picking strength and endurance in your fretting hand the more you use them. You’ll also have to adjust your string height if you’re replacing thin strings with thick strings, as you’ll probably experience fret buzz from the larger strings hitting the frets in front of the one you’re playing.

Thick strings are great for rock and metal music, which usually favour bassier tones and incorporate drop tunings; keeping tension higher as you allow slack for the lower notes. Thinner strings are easier to bend, pick without increased resistance, perform legato and arpeggios and add flavour to your playing. The downside is they don’t sound quite as chunky or produce as much power as their thicker equivalents, especially in lower tunings. There are ways to get around this with hybrid packs, which we’ll get into later.
String Gauges by Music Genre
It’s worth stating that string gauge preference is extremely subjective and you could use almost any gauge for any genre. However, there are some general guidelines you can follow if you want to create the type of sounds you hear from your favourite musicians.
Thin Strings
Browse Thin Strings
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