I do deep bends and behind the nut bends and a fair bit of Whammy I have used 8-38s exclusively on all my electrics for more than 40 yrs and get great tone.String guage and brand is a matter of personal preference. Stevie Ray got great tone using strings like telegraph cables yet Jimi Hendrix used extremely light guage strings and we all know the tone that he got.

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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.

The only time I really notice a huge tonal difference between .12's and .11's is either when I'm popping the strings (think Albert Collins) or when I'm playing directly into a clean amp with no effects at all. But the rest of the time they sound pretty much the same.

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i am used to 10s but wanted a lower sound for my top 3 strings so i put ernie ball slinky tops heavy botos so its 10,13,17 then a jump to 30,42 and 52. its awesome its a fricken bass string sounds beautiful now.

I went through the whole srv string gauge phase and Im back playing 9s and I love them.. Elixir nanoweb 9s are my string of choice now.

wow. i just jumped from 10's to 12's due to an intonation problem that was giving me fits. i tried the 12's as advised from a kind person here and she's back. need to do slight filing on the nut. (insert joke here). honestly, i thought i'd hate 12's. but, i saved 40 bucks on a set up and i'm digging the piano wires. all other guitars have 10's. it's all about preference.

I never cared for the Bullets, but then again I stopped using Fender strings in 1975 and only tried the Bullets twice when they first came out. They don't hold up well for my style of playing and go dead very, very quickly. I've been using D'Addario 10-42 ever since Dean Markley stopped making their Light top Heavy Bottom High Output strings.