Lighten up

I'm kinda over using heavy strings. As a teenager I played absurdly heavy flatwound strings. I still have my Hagstrom electric -- it won't even set up properly with the original bridge and anything short of some stupid heavy strings.
Right now most of my guitars are 10's with heavy bottoms. But it seems that the "heavy is better" thing is a myth (one that I bought into just because I was very used to hard-to-play instruments.) Billy Gibbons, Jimmy Page, BB King, Brian May, I mean a lot of guitar players known for their guitar sound use(d) pretty light strings.

And of course it is impossible to do a double-blind comparison. But it seems the biggest difference is feel anyway. Of course, one big difference between me and (say) BB King (the only difference, really) is that he was a vastly better guitar player than I am.

Cat is unimpressed as long as I'm not using cat-gut strings.

Okay. Do it again.

Sustaniac.
Rich's recommended strings for Stratocasters.

Inspiration 

Stew Mac on cutting inlays.
Squire Classic Vibe Telecaster with Alnico III's is $400.

The Banana Bass

The Art of Story YouTube classes.
Mike Verta Master Classes.
David Denyer Music.
Footnotes -- outside punctuation.
Thomastik Infeld guitar strings.
If you are insane you can try to find the measurements for fanned frets with this online fretfind tool.

Nuts To You

I have spent way too much ink on these pages on guitar strings. But good golly it makes a difference.

But now I've made a video where I demonstrate 3D printed compensated nuts with uncompensated bone nuts, and Martin vs DR strings. Oddly, I'd completely forgotten that I'd already decided I didn't like Martin strings.

The Epiphone Allen Woody

I test a couple different kinds of strings on the Ephiphone Allen Woody.

Thinking about basses

My Squire 5-string Jazz bass just isn't speaking to me the way I wish it would. I'm thinking it may be time to replace it. I'm interested in a short-scale bass.

The Epiphone EB-0 is cool. The Interwebs says it has a terrible stock pickup though. People seem to like the DiMarzio Model One as a replacement pickup for it. And, honestly, one might want to replace both the tuners and the bridge. So a $230 guitar becomes a $425 guitar. But still, short scale, and very nice looking (I have a bit of a "thing" for Gibson style rather than Fender).

What's likely even cooler is the Epiphone Allen Woody Wildcat bass.

People seem to like the pickups. And quite honestly they're in a more reasonable position than the pickups in many Gibson/Epiphone basses. People still like to replace the bridge, maybe the tuners. But they seem to dig the pickups. This is a $450 bass.

Jazz Bass Strings

So let me talk to you about drum pedals.

But first. Bass strings.
These Thomastic-Infeld flat-wound Jazz Bass strings are probably the most expensive bass strings there are. No, I take that back, I'm sure somebody's found a way to come up with more expensive ones.
But that's not the point. The point is that they are freakin' fantastic bass strings. If you want flat-wound strings, these are for you. Spectacularly low tension. And allegedly they'll last forever.
I think I wanted flats because on a very old bass of mine (or perhaps my high-school chum Scott's) had flat-wound strings and I was feeling nostalgia.
These TI's feel and sound great.
There. Thank you for listening.

§

Huh. Looks like I did not bring up drum pedals at all.

Strangs

Prague Spring now has a complete Bandcamp page with all our material on it.
+++++
Words on strings from Ethan:

I'm a fan of DR strings in general, but have never tried their acoustic sets. For Gibsons, I've always preferred D'Addario 11-52 and for Martins I always used D'Aquisto 11-50. D'Aquisto responded to my affection by going out of business. Now I'm in the market for new strings. Word on the street is that the D'Aquisto employees did a buyout and are only selling wholesale.

My feeling about the DR strings is that they feel, somehow, harder than the Martins I had on my acoustic. Is that because they're at a higher tension? Or maybe a lower tension? Who knows? Feelings. They're vague.
Via.

Stings

You'll recall, because you are deeply fascinated by this, that the last set of acoustic guitar strings I put on my Martin were, in fact, Martin strings.
And with the Delicate Cutters coming to town they needed to borrow an acoustic guitar because they absolutely could not fit another instrument in their van (I helped load the van, they seriously had zero room for an acoustic guitar.)

New strings, aren't you excited?

And I felt bad about not putting new strings on the guitar I lent them. But if I put new strings on it the day of the show they might have trouble staying in tune. Also, they could be too bright. So I didn't, then. But I did, just now.
The DR's I've now put on sound very good. And they seem to stay in tune very well so I needn't have worried (also, Janet from the Delicate Cutters has a preternatural superpower wherein her guitars just stay in tune... this is a power I simply do not have as I must re-tune at the end of each song (sometimes in the middle of a song.)
The strings might be a tad bright for a flat pick. That's a "might" be. And if you used the internal pickup in the guitar they'd almost be "electric-y". So it was maybe a good choice not to restring. I dunno.
Martin has a "care and feeding" guide  for acoustic guitars. They suggest a temperature of 72-75 Fahrenheit (which seems a bit hot to me) and 45-55 percent humidity (which seems a bit dry to me.) But that's just me.

Acoustic Guitar Strings

Mandolin Brothers says that Martin and D'Addario strings are basically the same. And they're about the same price.

I bought a set of Martin Marquis strings at Carmine Street Guitars. That's what we'll use on the Tyrannosaurus Mouse Album then.