Many people ask me what the best approach to take with changing strings on the guitar. My suggestion is to change them according to use. If you happened to be a professional guitarist doing many gigs change them at least once a week. I try and stick to the same brand, therefore staying with the same gauge as well as metal type.
This also saves a lot of time when making action adjustments. There are many different kind of metal strings, they all react differently with varying tension, some are heavier than others and some wear out sooner.
The cheap or lower cost strings are generally not recomended as they wear out sooner so are really just false economy. I personally use a 009 (first) to a 042 (sixth) on my Hank Marvin custom strat.
I feel you should play around to achieve the type of sound you want. I know Hank used heavier strings on his recordings back in the sixties but that is when string bending was not that popular.
As far as I can tell many of the heavy metal bands are using lighter strings, even lighter than 009. Just experiment and play around until you get what you are after. New strings are are usually very consistent, they tend to be more harmonically correct, they are easier to tune where an older set will suffer from fret wear, they will sound dull and are a lot harder to keep in tune.
Another trick is to wipe the strings down after use, use a dry cotton cloth as it will help eliminate corrosion from perspiration etc.
You may choose to use coated strings that are less prone to corrosion but of course they are more expensive again. now remember I am speaking of electric guitars at the moment so make certain you always use electric guitar strings. I know this sounds obvious but if you use acoustic guitar strings they are not suited to an electric guitar as they are not designed for use with a magnetic pickup. By the way another good point about sticking with one brand name is they are usually fully consistent over the full range of gauges.
I also find that I was able to reduce string breakage by keeping a thin lubricant on the contacts of the saddle. I use that very light sewing machine oil.Lastly I also suggest changing one string at a time rather than whipping them all off and reducing the neck tension. This is more important if you happen to be using a vintage guitar.
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