Do you put acoustic or electric guitar strings on an old archtop electric guitar?
Tagged As: Electric Guitar String Question: I was wondering about the old archtops. Not the semi hollow body electrics that came later, but the real old big beefy archtop electrics, basically just acoustics with pickups. What type of strings do you put on these? Answer: Steel. Ditto, but keep in mind you really have to use heavy gauge strings if you want that classic jazz sound. Using lighter gauges will give you more of a Steve Howe type sound. I have a 54 Gibson ES 150 ‘thick’ body archtop & a 57 Gibson 125T ‘thin’ body archtop. They both have electric strings on them. I normally play my Strats with 9’s on ’em, and put either 10’s or 11’s on the ES’s. The 54 came with 12’s on it originally, I think, but that’s just too stiff for my tastes. You should put acoustic strings on them if you really only play it acoustically, but bronze coated strings won’t really drive your pickups very evenly like steel will. If you mostly play the archtops electrically, put electric strings on them. Pret
