Total noob on acoustic guitars

[ZiqBassist]

Heloo there, I got this question about acoustic guitar and their strings. I'm currently using factory acoustic guitar strings gauge (12-53). My question is, can I use nickel wound strings on an acoustic guitar? I find that my acoustic guitar does not sound bright enough. I think its because my guitar has indian rosewood fingerboard. I know that nickel wound strings have brighter tone but isnt it normally use on electric guitars?

If I can use nickel wound strings on acoustic guitar, I'm thinking of using Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottom gauge (10-13-17-30-42-52). Will I have to set up my acoustic guitar or will it be fine without set up?

 

[Victor Gwee]

I'm not sure about your heavy bottom gauge. When I used electric guitar strings for my acoustic, the intonation was off because it was designed for a wound 3rd string. Electric guitars usually have unwound 3rd strings. Not sure about yours though. So yeah if you want to use nickel strings you'll have to replace the 3rd string with a wound string.

About set-up, the only thing that needs to be adjusted (probably) is your truss rod. If you can adjust that yourself (quite easy but it's fragile), then go ahead but be careful. There are many videos/instructions online on truss rod adjustment. If you want play safe, can send for guitar set up.

 

[ZiqBassist]

I'm not sure about your heavy bottom gauge. When I used electric guitar strings for my acoustic, the intonation was off because it was designed for a wound 3rd string. Electric guitars usually have unwound 3rd strings. Not sure about yours though. So yeah if you want to use nickel strings you'll have to replace the 3rd string with a wound string.

About set-up, the only thing that needs to be adjusted (probably) is your truss rod. If you can adjust that yourself (quite easy but it's fragile), then go ahead but be careful. There are many videos/instructions online on truss rod adjustment. If you want play safe, can send for guitar set up.

So, now my acoustic E, A, D, G are wound. The B and e string is unwound. So this means that I cant use it then?

 

[Vax]

You can use it, no problem. It's just a caution that the intonation on the G string might be off because acoustic bridges are not designed to take unwounded G strings. Intonation may not be too bad if you don't dig too deep or strum too hard.