GibsonLes Paul

11-49 on Les Paul — Gibson-scale shorter neck makes 11s feel like 10s on Strat.

SG 11-49 adds body without 11-52 stiffness — classic SG Gibson gauge.

11-49 on SG Junior adds body to P-90's raw voice without going heavy gauge.

EXL115 on 335 — classic Gibson-scale 11-49 for blues/jazz crossover.

EXL115 on LP Studio — Gibson-scale 11-49 the Studio was voiced around.

EXL115 on LP Classic — Gibson-scale 11-49 adds body to ProBuckers.

EXL115 on SG Special's P-90s — 11-49 for more body without 11-52 tension.

EXL115 on Standard 24 — medium gauge for fuller mahogany body response.

D'Addario EXL115 11-49 on the Fender Telecaster is the closest off-the-shelf proxy for Andy Summers' documented heavy-Tele spec — Summers ran D'Addario custom gauges (.012/.015/.018/.028/.038/.049) on his heavily-modded 1963 Tele Custom across The Police's entire catalog: 'Roxanne', 'Every Breath You Take', 'Walking on the Moon', 'Message in a Bottle'. Summers used D'Addario across all his instruments — electric (custom), acoustic Phosphor Bronze, and EJ45 Pro-Arté nylon. Conventional wisdom: every Tele thread defaults to 10-46 Slinky for that bridge-pickup country snap or 9-46 hybrid for blues-bend articulation. Editorial logic: EXL115 11-49 in StringTune's catalog is the closest 11-49 family-of-strings to Summers' .012-.049 custom — slightly lighter top + bottom but preserves the heavy-gauge approach Summers needed for his arpeggio-heavy jazz-meets-new-wave Tele voicings (the 'Message in a Bottle' add9-arpeggio that defined post-punk guitar). Best for Tele players doing arpeggio-driven new wave + jazz-rock fusion in the Summers vein; skip if you want classic country 10-46 snap or modern shred light gauge.

D'Addario EXL115 Blues/Jazz Rock 11-49 on the Parker Fly Deluxe is the Vernon Reid / Living Colour signature setup — Reid, the Brooklyn funk-metal architect behind 'Cult of Personality' (1988) and the Black Rock Coalition co-founder, played the Parker Fly extensively across decades and developed the Parker Vernon Reid Signature model. He strings his Parker guitars with D'Addario EXL115 Blues/Jazz Rock .011-.049 — the heavier 11-set is what gives the Fly's hyper-modern carbon-fiber-back / piezo-bridge architecture the chord-attack and bend-stability his eclectic vocabulary demands. Conventional wisdom: Parker Fly threads default to Ernie Ball Regular Slinky 10-46 for the modern shred-feel that the lightweight composite body invites. Editorial logic: Reid plays across funk-metal-jazz-fusion-noise simultaneously — the .011 top + .049 wound bottom of EXL115 lets him hit the percussive funk chord-jabs of 'What's Your Favorite Color?' AND the sustained jazz-line work of his solo records ('Mistaken Identity') without changing strings between sets. Best for Parker Fly Deluxe owners chasing Reid's genre-fluid vocabulary; skip if you want the standard 10-46 shred-default for technical-metal work.