groups

well in another post pete was wonderin what they meant by banjo strings .. and its just an old trick to get the lightest gauge strings on your guitar that you could .. i'm not sure if black diamond is still in business anymore or not .. i haven't seen them anywhere in years and years so i'd assume not .. maybe they changed their name?? or maybe they just became obsolete because they didn't see the trends and go with them .. i'm not sure what the lightest gauge set was that they sold but if my memory serves me right it was probably about an 11 or a 12 .. maybe even a 13 .. them guys came from the days of no amplifiers or not much of an amp so you really had to have the most string that you could get to get any kinda sound out of your guitar .. but when the 50's came around the electric guitar became different .. it was no longer a hollowbody acoustic that you slapped some kinda pickup on . by 1950 leo fender had already invented the telecaster which was solid thru and thru .. and it didn't catch on overnite .. but by 1952 gibson finally took notice and said we gotta make a solid body too .. get that les paul guy back in here .. you know the guy with the broomstick with strings .. and the les paul was born .. and little by little the amps started gettin more and more powerful .. and guys started noticin it wasn't the strings that gave them the power and volume they needed .. it was the amp.. so some guys started buyin banjo strings and usin the skinny strings on the high e and b and sometimes g sting so they could play the guitar easier .. by the time the mid 60's came around the beatles hit and everybody had to have a guitar .. and some companies tryin to capitalize on that were gonna sell you anything to do with rock and roll .. i think fender had a set of strings called rock and roll thins .. labella was really cool in that they gave you an extra 1st and 2nd string in their sets cause you'd snap em .. darco too .. but i think darco owned labella .. and then along came ernie ball with his super slinky strings.. and i've tried so many different brands and most of them are pretty close in quality .. if i'm not mistaken at one point back in the 80's there was maybe 6 string manufacturers that made all the strings you could buy ..just slap a different name on the package and bada bing .. who knew ?? most people don't .. i'm not sure if that number has grown or shrunk since then but in these economic times grown is probably not the way its goin .. and i could tell you use these strings or these other strings but in fact they may be the same strings .. but i've always had good luck with d adario strings and the ernie balls too .. the ghs is also not bad .. my preference is the nickel strings .. i tried the steels but they just don't sound right to me .. and i like to use the lightest gauge i can .. i use the 9 to 42 sets.. i tried the 8-38 and i like the way they feel and the tone isn't that bad but i do a lot of bendin and i snap em so its the 9's for me .. i know some guys love the 10-46 a lot and that might be the most popular .. i'm not really sure .. i don't know too many people that use 11's tho .. and that brings me back to the black diamond strings .. i don't ever recall them makin a set of light guage strings .. if you were usin black diamond strings you had a heavy duty set of strings buddy ..which may be why you don't see them around anymore .. lead follow or get out of the way .. well they didn't do either and got run over .. but there was a time when black diamond strings were everywhere .. everything in life comes down to 2 words .. pay attention ..