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I use extra lights on all my guitars, @Kim-Fitz . I even use silk and steel extra lights on some of them. People talk about the sound like it’s not as good. Well, if that’s the case, then why would anyone ever play a nylon string guitar? The sound is softer, mellower, but it’s not a huge difference like nylon is. It’s still a steel string guitar with the typical “steel string” guitar sound. All that crap about string gauge. Go listen to all your favorite artists and come back and tell me what string gauge they’re using. Good luck.
The lighter the string gauge, the easier they are to play and the easier they are on your finger tips. If you started playing as a child, yeah, go play a Martin Dreadnought with 13 gauge strings like Molly Tuttle. But if you started as an adult, especially an older adult like I did, then forget all the advice about sound and just use extra lights. No one ever said to me in the VOMs: “Oh, you must use extra lights on all your guitars. Your sound is always so low and weak and just not like everyone else’s sound.” We’ve had discussions on the VOMs about string gauge. No one ever knows what gauge someone is playing until they tell us. If you were playing in a bluegrass band with a bunch of other instruments, then you’d know because you’d be drown out if you weren’t using 13 gauge and a dreadnought. I had a dreadnought with extra lights on it for a while. It was very difficult to balance my voice and my guitar because the thing was so loud. You always had to sing loud to compete with the guitar.
Anyway, I’ve gone on far too long. I hope this helps.
MG 😀