I feel like I’ve heard that holding tuning and even intonation may be better the heavier you go, though. I haven’t played nearly long enough to know myself. True?
(Not that that’s gonna trump tone considerations, if you hold like Beato and company. Or picking, for that matter, as the original post is concerned with. But just wondering what the upside of heavier gauges is thought to be…)
Always been 8’s or 9’s for me depending on guitar. Anything higher than 9’s feels like too much hard work lol. A lot of players with amazing tone also use light strings.
As for picking - I believe (as mentioned above) Yngwie is a light gauge player.
I played with 9s when I was younger, moved up to 10-46 in high school cause it’s all my local music store had.
When I started apprenticing in Lutherie the guy I worked for (world renowned but won’t say his name) insisted on putting 11s on our guitars unless a client asked for otherwise so I switched. I played 11s for 4-5 years and made the switch back after I realized while he is an incredible builder, he’s not a player. Whereas I much more identify as a player and am focussed more on feel and tone then on what a computer program or science says “should” feel and sound best.
I stick to 10-46 in Eb on my primary guitars because I LOVE to really fucking dig in and smack those strings and 9s require a softer touch I don’t like to use when I’m really grooving.
I also still play with 12s in drop C lol. Hasn’t slowed me down at all.
I know I always went heavier because I heard that’s what SRV did. I think Rick Beato specifically mentions that as a driving force in the trend. I know a lot of players are looking for a fatter sound, so the thinking that thicker strings would contribute isn’t terribly off base. After watching the Beato video, my ear heard the heavier strings they used as sounding muddier as compared to the lighter strings, so I dunno. It’s all very subjective.
For me, It was also a macho thing. It was cool passing my guitar around pre-gig to guys in the other bands and they’d say “Whoa how do you play on strings this heavy???!!!”. Pretty silly, looking back on it. I think the most important thing is to feel comfortable with the gauge you’re playing. Others on this thread have pointed out that even though lighter strings can be ‘easier’ in ways, sometimes it takes time to get used to them if you’re coming from heavier strings and they can actually make things more difficult.
I used to play 9.5 gauge, which were pretty great. I moved up to 10s and found that things sounded better. My bends were better too (although harder).
I might go back to the 9.5s to see if if really is any better.
I should try them out. I have a guitar with 9’s that feels too light and another with 10’s that I like, probably because I’m used to it. Maybe 9.5 would be the goldilocks set!
If I remember correctly I they were D’addario EXL 120+ but I imagine that other brands do similar?
Will probably be a bit opposite of many opinions on here and though I appreciate Rick Beato I have not seen that vid, I have my own opinions about string gauge though I am not alone in my opinion.
First, I like thinner gauges on electrics 9-42 and my preference is firstly based on TONE. Not feel. In fact it is easier for me to pick on thicker gauges as the tension is more taut and there is less back and forth play on the picked string. That last part isn’t opinion, it’s science, though I really feel once you are used to either it isn’t a huge deal as I will also sometime pick out over the neck pup where tension is looser.
But the tone of a thinner string is different than a thicker string and in my opinion, better. I personally do not like the sound of thick strings on electric. This opinion is shared by many people I know and also guys like EVH (RIP) used 9-40 Fender Bullets on early Van Halen and I read where he said he preferred the tone of lighter strings. Andy Wood talks about this exact subject here on this site in his interview. Billy Gibbons swears by lighter strings, uses 7s and 8s. On acoustics I like 12-53 but it’s a different beast, you need to get that top vibrating to produce the best acoustic tone and volume. And I find it easier to pick fast on acoustic because of the thicker strings.
There is a vocal, singing quality to thinner strings as well as a spunky tone to the wound strings of the thinner sets as they are more prone to a secondary bounce off of the fret producing a brighter attack, great for rhythm and producing a harmonic which is also great for long notes.
I personally believe it is the more pronounced bounce off the fret which helps produce a harmonic and the tone that many like from using thinner gauges.
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All of these points are the heart of the “results” of the pseudo scientific study Rick and his friends in the video performed. Pretty sure when they compared the recordings to the riffs they played between all the gauges that most everyone liked the sound of the thinner strings. I don’t know that everyone preferred 8’s over everything else but I don’t recall anyone saying the heaviest were their favorite sound. They were all presently surprised they preferred a thinner set’s sound than what they expected they’d like. I should watch it again to make sure, but I think that’s the conclusion. But anyway, you’re definitely not alone, as you rightly mentioned 
I had to take a class in college called “Sound, Music and Hearing” where they explained vibrational properties of different materials. Strings and rods vibrate differently. The thicker a string is, the more it starts to resemble a rod. It’s the reason we have ‘windings’ on the thicker strings. But yeah I’d think this could yield more of a presence of the higher partials when using a thinner set. That jives with the more singing and brighter quality the thinner sets produce.
Very interesting, never thought of that!
If you missed the vid, yeah, Beato and company all favored 8s and 9s over 10s and 11s. Wondering if that explains the following…
Doug Redler is a highly respected ‘tech-to-the-stars’ who had a Hal Leonard book out a while back. He claimed that ‘99%’ of the guitarists he worked with strung D’Addario 10s - and he specified .10-.42
The D’Addario 10 sets pretty much all have a low E of .46. I asked them if they used to do sets ending in .42, and they told me no. Could it be that a lot of guys were mixing 10-set trebles with 9-set bass strings?
I’m wondering especially since Beato and crew felt that with lighter gauges, mids were more middy and bass had less of a muddying effect. I’m not nearly as into gear as a lot of you, but for those who are - does it make sense that mixing sets like I describe above would accomplish the same thing (plus give the advantage of trebles strings that would stand up to heavier picking)?
…Okay, gotta’ admit that was inadvertent ‘fake news’ on my part. Got a really nice response from Redler by e-mail; he said that .10-.42 was a typo, and that really he meant .10-.46. So much for my theory. Give me points for honesty, at least;)
(and I did find at least one other guy on the internet who was mismatching strings to get the effect I was talking about. so maybe my theory’s not out the window after all.)
One other thing worth mentioning is lower tunings. The lower you tune your guitar, the heavier your strings will need to be in order to maintain a similar feel and playability.
Even someone who likes .08’s in standard tuning will want something much thicker if they’re playing in say drop B, their .08’s would be flapping all over the place 
Lighter strings have way more real “zing” (aka sustain) to them simply because the mass is less—which allows the sustain to hang around!
And, the kinetic aspects of lighter strings reap super great bending possibilities and are far easier on both hands than the heavier gauges are. This is my experience with strings. However, gauges will vary on each application a particular instrument is used for. Just saying!
I would think you could use a 10-42 set and get the gauges from picking out singles. But, that configuration (10-13-17-24-32-42) is rather strange and unbalanced IMHO. I used to use a hybrid set on my Telecaster than was 8-11-14-24-32-42. That was a lotta fun actually. Now I go 9-11-14-24-32-42 & this works well on maple fingerboards. On Gibson guitars I use either 9-42, 9.5-46 or 10-46 (on the 335, Les Pauls and Les Paul, Jr. respectively) and then 13-53 for the big arch top (Super 400 CES). Lower alternate tunings might require a bit of experimentation depending upon what kinda sound effect you desire to get in the end.
sustain and lowered tunings on the plus side for lighter strings, right. tone-wise, Beato also liked the EQ balance better going light. plus easier on the hands. but better tuning and intonation a plus for heavier ones. plus there’s more to dig-into with the pick.
is that a fair summary of what i hear everyone saying so far?
I mainly play 25.5" guitars and since 8s are hard to find regularly at local music shops I use 9-42 primarily, if I plan on using Drop D on that guitar I will go with 9-46
Then
Eb - 9-42
D standard - 10-46
C# - 10-46 or 9-42 if I want that super slinky feel
C - 10-46 or 11-52
B - never really found gauges I liked for this tuning the g string always presents a problem cause the feel of wound is weird and unwound at proper thickness lose their ability to bend and return to pitch and ruin the feel for me.
why’d you string your Tele this way?
At the time (back in 1983-84), I bought one of the first Fender ‘52 Reissue Telecasters. Since it had a maple fingerboard, I needed it to play effortlessly where crazy bends were easier to do. I was also a closet country guitar fan, so this 8-42 hybrid gauge was so perfect for that sound I had in my head. It also had to be the exact opposite from the heavier 12-54 gauges that I used on my Super 400 CES that I rarely bent strings on…
Try the two sets that are 9.5-11.5-16-26-36-46 or the 9.5-11.5-16-24-34-44. They both work great on Fender or Gibson applications. For the Gibson’s (with the 24.75” scale length), I use the 9.5-46 while on one Telecaster Custom I use 9.5-44 there as the scale length is the longer 25.5” scale length).