Today I went into Reid Music and picked up my Rev. Willy strings that I ordered,I haven't put them on a guitar yet but intend to put a set on my Jimmie Vaughn Strat tomorrow. They are pretty thin,the gauges are: .007,.009,.010,.020,.030,.038.With strings this thin I should be able to play longer before my hands start to fatigue,cramp up,go numb or start giving me excruciating pain.I doubt if they'll sound thin or wimpy because Billy Gibbons designed them-or came up with the specs-and uses them and his sound is anything but wimpy.I've been using .008s to .038s for years and haven't lost any tone,in fact they allow me to do deeper bends and really give the strings a good bashing because they are so thin and malleable that they just spring right back to the way they were.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Enjoy them. Hurtin' hands is no way to go.

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I have some Fender gear.
(Telecaster, Jaguar, Villager 12 String. Mustang l, Bronco, SCX2, Rumble 350, HRDIII, Rumble 2x8 Neo Cab)
http://www.reverbnation.com/modwiz

I switched to the Rev Willy's Mexican Lottery strings last summer...I bought two sets of 9's (my usual gauge; I admit I got them solely due to my ZZ Top addiction), put one set on my Strat (which needed a restring anyway) and was so pleased I bought another dozen sets from Musician's Friend...they're rockin' all my axes except the G&L F100 (which is set up with 10's; I just haven't bought any of the heavier Rev Willy's in that gauge yet).

Let us know what you think of the tone and feel...I was very pleased--I hope you are, too.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

I remember using a really light gauge string years ago Derek, Gibson's super ultra light, I looked at their site and they say that they're 8's I was sure they were smaller but maybe just my fuzzywudley mind, anyhoo those at the time felt like they were made of spiders web, great for big bends, hope those 7's work out for you, and a decent amount of comfort and enjoyment returns in your playing.

Yeah good luck with the new strings. I'm thinking of going back to 9-42 from 10-46. I don't like heavier strings anymore, everything seems much harder on them. They say they sound thicker but IDK about that look at a lot of the guys who used thin strings; Jimmy Page, Tony Iommi, Billy Gibbons, EVH and those guys don't sound thin to me. It's the ease of playing i'm after, i don't like playing to feel like a physical struggle.

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Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

Today I gave the Rev. Willys a real good workout,I played "Voodoo Child(slight return)" and was able to nail parts of the lead breaks that I haven't been able to play for months. I also ran through" I Don't Live Today" and parts of "Changes" and was able to even get through some of the finger knotting parts that have been impossible for me for many months.Even though the strings are incredibly light I still get cramps in my hands but now the pain is more confined to the base of my thumb on the palm of my left hand.I'm still not able to get through "Angel" without stopping but it seems that songs with lead and rhythm combined such as "Foxy Lady" and the 3 aforementioned songs on this post.

The strings sound just incredible and you'd never think that they were one of the thinnest sets under the sun.I played "Are You Experienced" on my Jimmie Vaughn and it absolutely nailed the Strat tone from the album.Even though Jimi is said to have used a Marshall for that song-and all the other cuts on that album-the AC-15 captured the original tone so well that it was uncanny,it took quite a bit of twiddling and fiddling with the tone-cut and EQ controls but I was finally able to get the "Are You Experienced" tone that I wanted.Tomorrow I'll have to adjust the vibrato mechanism to get the strings to come back to their original position without going out of tune.This is pretty difficult to do when you want your bridge "decked" and takes a good bit of trial and error but it's worth it in the long run as it sure beats having a guitar go horribly out of tune mid-song and mid-set during a gig.

I am pretty well sure that these strings are keepers-at least for some of my guitars.I love the brilliant tone and the long sustain that they have which really makes them well suited for doing Hendrix covers especially.I could sit and listen to the "quack" of real clean Strat tones for hours or just with a "Leslie" effect from my Tech 21 RotoChoir it's almost hypnotic and songs like "Little Wing" really sound sweet with these strings.Now the next test will be to see how long they keep their clean and super bright tone.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Very cool Derek, that gauge strings works for you and apparently some famous guitarslingers as well. I'm still using 14s, lol, my grip is too tight for the lighter strings, for now anyway, when I play any of my Bros guitars, mostly 9s a few 8s and 10s, it's a an out of tune experience

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.