Okay that sounds like a strange question, but hear me out. I could swear that when medium gauge first appeared that it meant heavy gauge on the bass side and regular (light) on the treble side. Can anyone verify that medium now means (for each string) that its gauge is between heavy and light?

The reason I ask is because there are things I like about heavy and things I like about light and was thinking that medium (a true medium) might give me the best of both worlds. I had been running lights for a while now but last time I changed strings, turned out all I had was a new heavy set. I need to order strings soon and am either going to go back to lights or (maybe depending on the answer to this post) give mediums a try.

I am certain of this as I played light gauge since I started and only switched to medium gauge in 2010. I really like medium gauge and have been playing with the idea of heavy gauge string for my next setup.

Light gauge takes a delicate touch, I had no idea until I switched to medium (tip of hat to JRJ).

Hmm. As I'm a bit ham-fisted, perhaps I really will find myself at home when I start using mediums. This will be interesting.

Emmett introduced Heavy strings as an option in January of 1995, and mediums sometime after that (it's not on the timeline of Stick advancements, so I don't know exactly when)

Heavy was heavy and light was light. Some players (like me) mixed light melody with heavy bass, something you can still do.

Originally, the medium set had the same two low bass strings as the heavy set, but all the other strings were between heavy and light. This was because Emmett could not find a string that behaved as well as the heavy bass strings. You can't just use off the shelf strings for tapping and get as good a result as Emmett does, the low bass string tend to be "clunky"

Fast-forward a few years and Emmet eventually did find strings that were true "medium" bass strings.

My current preferred set is medium all the way across (Baritone Melody for the 10string and Classic 12 with a high bass 4th for the Grand).

Greg, thanks for the answer and the history lesson. Now I know why I was confused about this.