Hello, as such an amazing guitarist I would be very grateful and much appreciative of any help you could offer me in choosing a string gauge as it's a decision which has been slowly driving me insane for a good while now. At the moment my guitars' are strung with D'addario gauges .009-.042 but I can't decide whether to go back to gauges .010-.046 or even heavier to .011-0.49. One technique I'm having trouble with is tremolo picking. I'm wondering if the lighter gauge means the strings bend to much as I strike them thus slowing me down a little but I'm also worried that a heavier gauge will make vibrato's and bending to difficult - possibly causing slowness when bending strings during fast solo's as apposed to the lighter gauges which are much easier to bend. And to make matters worse I've just found that not only do they do a nickel plated string (which is what I've been using) but also stainless steel ones to! Do you have an opinion on which is best? I like the feel of nickel plated but I've never tried stainless steel (didn't even know they existed until today). In which lies another conundrum - if I switch to stainless steel will that bring me full circle to my original question - what gauge to use? Please, if you could help me make a decision and save my sanity I would be very grateful as this is really making me crazy! Many thanks. (Sorry if I've posted this in the wrong place. I'm not sure whether it's 'personal' as I'm asking your opinion and advice or whether it's 'gear' as it relates to guitar hardware).

HI Paul, Nothing matters less than string guages. Save your energy and stop think about it. Use any kind and play along with as much music as possible. For the record I use D'Addario 010-052, I couldn't tell the difference between steel and nickel if you paid me...Best of luck!