Electric guitar strings on Acoustic guitar

[RatFink81]

I have been playing guitar for 14 years and i have owned a wide variety of guitars from cheap beaters to really good brands. i currently own a 12-string accoustic electric Dean (Exotica body style). wish i would have waited until now to buy it tho...bought it for almost 900 bucks when it came out.
anyway, i had this little accoustic one time. had a flat finish on it, a dark mahogany color. when i bought it, i got it at a pawn shop for like $50. it had electric strings on it when i bought it and it played like a champ! i have never played a guitar that sounded that good with electric strings on it. Granted, it didn't have great projection like accoustic strings would, but the sound was absolutely phenomenal. I ended up giving the guitar to a kid who wanted to learn how to play but his foster parents wouldn't buy him a guitar. i thought i was going to have to beat him off with a stick, he was so ecstatic!
I'm going to try electric strings on my twelve string and see what that does. But the answer to your question is simply that it depends on the guitar. Some guitars will sound really smooth with electric strings and some will just sound tinny and really crappy. For informal settings, electric strings generally work well on accoustic guitars. it's easy on the fingers and if, say, a buddy came over that wasn't great at guitar and wanted to plunk out some tunes, he could do so with ease. in a more formal setting where you need a louder sound or more projection, stick with your accoustic strings (unless it's an accoustic-electric like mine lol). But switching strings will always sacrifice volume for playability.
I would say that if you try them and you like the sound, then by all means! stick with what you like. that's what being a musician is all about, expressing yourself through music. It's about finding the medium that works best for you. Hope that helps!

[MisterMan]

This is how I've set my 3 different Guitars up...

Acoustic - Martin SP .10/.47 (MSP3000)
SemiAcoustic - D'Addario XL .10/.46 (EXL110)
Electric - D'Addario XL .9/.42 (EXL120)

Hope this helps someone. Happy playin'

[Lindy Wise]

I need to know if it is ok to put light gauge (.9/.42) electric guitar strings on my acoustic/electric guitar. If it's ok, do I need to take it to the shop to have it set up? Thanks, it's been a long time.


(This is someone else's quote, but the answer is mine, AND really happened.)

P.S.
"Are we really ALL out of the band?"

The answer is no...I told management I was keeping you and now I am out of the band.

[spiral]

Originally Posted by Lindy Wise

I need to know if it is ok to put light gauge (.9/.42) electric guitar strings on my acoustic/electric guitar. If it's ok, do I need to take it to the shop to have it set up? Thanks, it's been a long time.

You will need to adjust the truss rod if you are changing the tension the neck. As an aside, you get less volume with less mass and less tension on the guitar.

I recently re-tried D'Addario Chrome 13's on an Eastman oval hole archtop and they were just made for this guitar. Bronze had been sounding abrasive but the Chromes have definition, big body, and feel nicer to play. This guitar never sounded better. I kept trying Bronze strings because i thought i "had to" but am loving the Chromes.

[Rockon89]

I put some electric strings (Ernie Ball Super Slinkys 9-42) on my Fender acoustic today to try it out after reading this. I was looking for ways to avoid rsi in my hands so started looking at much lighter strings. I'm used to very heavy ones 12 -56 because I read that one of my favourite rhythm players uses heavy ones (Malcolm young from AC/DC).

Anyway, the result's not bad - I like how you don't have to fight with the strings, and the "harsher" tone form the electric strings works well for playing rock (I usually play a lot of electric guitar styles on my acoustic - odd I know but hey why not). It's true what they say about changing to light electric strings - the tone becomes smaller and the volume goes down, but as I said, I like the slight harsh edge to the sound. If you're thinking about doing this, I'd say just give it a try and see what you think. I know I'm converted.