G&L Tribute Legacy HB Strings?

[RCSBlues]

This post is also in the Introductions topic:

From my brother's estate I was recently awarded his 2004 G&L Tribute Legacy HB with the blade pickups- in near mint condition;
It was delivered by UPS this past Monday evening 11/29/2010;

I will change the strings and try it out immediately and give a report;

I want to change the very heavy strings to either .010 - .046 or .009 - .042 -
What does anyone recommend for string gauge?
I'm thinking more of the .010 - .046 set.

This G&L Legacy Tribute HB has 2 sets of switches, apparently a 3 way and a 2 way; I hope I can figure it out;

The instructions for the switches are something like this according to a fellow musician who knew my brother:

In his own words -
If I remember correctly: the 2-way adds the bridge to the neck p/u. when the main switch is in neck position.
The 3-way is for the bridge p/u only: 1 setting full on in seriel (normal setting) another setting is parallel (brighter-less mids, not quite as loud) the last is "split" which on a normal humbucking p/u would be only one coil on (strat-like) even less volume. On that p/u, however, it's 2 humbucker sets, so if You "split" it, it's still in noise cancelling for the "strat" sound
, much the same as the other 2 p/u's are hum cancelling. W/o trying the guitar out, all I can tell you is that on the 3-way, loud/fat- series/full on, not quite as loud/less fat- parallel, less volume still/ strat- "split".

Upgrades:

Replaced the top nut to metal roller bearing type.
Replaced tuning gears to self locking.
Replaced pickups to blade type pickups. No hum with on the single coils. The bridge pickup is a humbucker with split coil taps and added an extra switch just for that. I'm not sure if it has an out-of-phase switch setting. I'll try to find the email regarding the switch.
The pickguard may have been upgraded due to the pickup upgrade.

Here are recent pics:













Thanks in advance for any help.

[Craig]

Check out the G&L Knowledgebase, sub-forum General G&L Questions.
There is this post: What gauge & brand of strings does G&L use on their guitars?

I personally prefer the .10-.46 string set on my G&L's.

Hope this helps.

[RCSBlues]

Logged and noted.

RCSBlues

[Muleya]

Nice looking guitar, congrats!!

I used .10-.46 for a long time, but then I was convinced that due to all the bending I do, my frets were taking a lot more abuse than they would with .09-.42, since I was putting that much more pressure on them to do the bends. However, since the Legacy HB I'm ordering from the factory will be plekked with the .10-.42, I may have to deal with that as I suspect putting on the lighter guage strings may mess with that a bit. Hmmm....

[RCSBlues]

I changed the strings last night to a set D'Addario .010 - .046; this thing
really came to life; great action, intonation, and tone; I also figured out how the micro switches work.

For now I will stay with these.

Thanks to all.

[sirmyghin]

Nice looking guitar, congrats!!

I used .10-.46 for a long time, but then I was convinced that due to all the bending I do, my frets were taking a lot more abuse than they would with .09-.42, since I was putting that much more pressure on them to do the bends. However, since the Legacy HB I'm ordering from the factory will be plekked with the .10-.42, I may have to deal with that as I suspect putting on the lighter guage strings may mess with that a bit. Hmmm....

That is something I never thought of, but I doubt it would make much difference, the smaller strings may be 'sharper' due to the small radius on the bottom. (Just to approach the problem from a slightly different angle).

[Muleya]

I was thinking more it may affect neck relief due to different tension? But I'm not sure about that.