I personally started out on some stupidly heavy strings after making my transition from bass to guitar 13-80's i believe and that allowed me to hone my technique on bending as i am having to work more to reach the required pitch and it allowed me to focus on a wider range on tunings, until i get another guitar... people often say that the thicker strings have a 'fuller' tone but as the rest have said.. try different ones out and see what works, or even make your own custom gauges by mixing different size strings together you could end up with something like 008, 010, 016, 026, 046, 059 As far as brands go, i have tried out, martin, ernie ball, gibson, fender and d'addario, and i am personally sticking with d'addario as they are the strings that have put up with my love of the tremolo for the longest XD