John Scofield: D'Addario heavy gauge with a plain bending G, decoded

John Scofield is one of the most-cited D'Addario electric jazz guitarists, playing a custom .013 to .052 set with a plain (unwound) .022 G string he can bend. Heavy gauge in the EJ22 lane with a critical bending modification.

John Scofield Trio · reviewed by the Change Your Strings editorial team · 2026-04-30

John Scofield is a long-running D'Addario artist who plays a custom heavy-gauge electric set: .013, .016, .022 plain, .032, .042, .052. The headline detail is the plain (unwound) .022 G string. Most jazz electric players in the .013-.056 gauge territory use a wound third (D'Addario EJ22 is the lane), but Scofield modifies that template specifically so he can bend the G string. The result: jazz-medium heaviness on the bass strings, with bending capability on the upper strings. The set has anchored his tone across the Miles Davis quintet years, Überjam Band, Combo 66, and his entire solo catalog.

At a glance

Role

Guitarist

Active

1970s–present

Based

New York, New York

Genres

Affiliations

Miles Davis (1982–1985)
John Scofield Trio (leader)
Überjam Band (founder, jazz-fusion)
Combo 66 (current touring quartet)
D'Addario artist roster (long-running)
Ibanez signature artist (AS-200, JSM100)

Notable credits

Miles Davis, Star People (1983)
Miles Davis, Decoy (1984)
John Scofield, Time on My Hands (1990)
John Scofield, A Go Go (with Medeski Martin & Wood, 1998)
John Scofield, Past Present (2015)
Pat Metheny / John Scofield, I Can See Your House from Here (1994)

Official media

Sourcing5 citations · reviewed 2026-04-30· by Change Your Strings editorial team

Who John Scofield is

John Scofield, born December 26, 1951, is one of the most cited working jazz-fusion electric guitarists of the post-1970s era. He played with Miles Davis from 1982 through 1985 (Star People, Decoy, You're Under Arrest), recorded extensively with Pat Metheny, and has led his own ensembles continuously since the late 1970s.

His tone is the touchstone for a generation of jazz-fusion electric players who wanted heavier rhythm authority than the post-bop archtop tradition allowed but more harmonic depth than blues-rock electric tone provided. The string spec, custom D'Addario .013-.052 with a plain .022 G, is the spec that fits that tone target.

What he plays

Scofield's documented setup

Why the plain-third modification matters

The wound-third jazz-medium template (D'Addario EJ22 is the canonical example) is engineered around chord-melody and rhythm comping, where intonation accuracy across the upper fretboard and tonal evenness across the lower four strings matter more than the ability to bend the G. Mid-century jazz electric, archtop chord-melody, Wes Montgomery / Jim Hall / Joe Pass tradition: all built around wound-third heavy gauge.

Scofield's playing vocabulary is broader than that tradition. His Miles Davis quintet years (Star People, Decoy) demanded funk-style bending phrases on the G string. His Überjam Band material is overtly groove-oriented, with blues-rock bend vocabulary. His solo catalog (A Go Go with Medeski Martin & Wood, Past Present) regularly bends the G as part of single-line phrasing.

A wound .026 G can't deliver those bends cleanly. So Scofield does what working pros do at the artist-roster level: he gets D'Addario to substitute a single string, swapping the wound .026 G out for a plain .022 G. The plain .022 is heavier than a standard rock plain G (.017 to .020 typical) but lighter than the wound .026 it replaces. The result is a string that bends like a heavy plain G but tracks tonally with the heavier wound strings around it.

The rest of the set stays in jazz-medium territory: .013 high E, .016 B (a touch heavier than EJ22's .017), .032 D, .042 A, .052 low E (slightly lighter than EJ22's .036, .046, .056). Heavy gauge across the bass strings, plain bendable G, traditional jazz-medium scale on the high strings.

On the AS-200 / JSM100 platform

The Ibanez AS-200 is the guitar most Scofield material was tracked on. The AS-200 is a 24.75-inch scale semi-hollow archtop, similar to a Gibson ES-335 in body shape but voiced with Ibanez Super 58 humbuckers and slightly tighter low-end response. The shorter scale paired with heavy gauge produces tighter string tension feel than a 25.5-inch Strat / Tele would on the same gauge, which suits Scofield's right-hand attack.

The JSM100 is the Ibanez signature model based on the AS-200 platform. Same scale, same body geometry, signed-off voicing tweaks per Scofield's preference. The string spec is identical between the AS-200 and JSM100 in his rigs.

Recording credits and the gauge case

Across the catalog, Scofield's heavy-gauge plain-G spec produces a consistent tone signature: dense rhythm comping, articulate single-line phrasing, and the ability to drop into bend-heavy passages without retuning or switching guitars. Time on My Hands (1990), Meant to Be (1991), A Go Go (1998), Überjam (2002), Past Present (2015) all show the same string lane. The consistency is what makes the spec useful as a working-canon reference: you can hear what a custom D'Addario .013-.052 plain-G set sounds like on an Ibanez archtop because Scofield has been recording it for 35 years.

Frequently asked questions

What strings does John Scofield use?

Custom D'Addario set: .013, .016, .022 plain, .032, .042, .052. XL Nickel Round Wound construction, with the critical detail that the .022 G string is plain (unwound) so he can bend it. Standard jazz-medium gauges in this territory ship with a wound .026 G (EJ22 is the canonical example), but Scofield substitutes a heavier plain G to retain bending capability while keeping the rest of the heavy-gauge feel.

Why does Scofield use a plain G when most jazz players use wound?

Bending. Scofield's playing vocabulary spans jazz, fusion, funk, and blues, and bending the G string is technical core in the funk and blues idioms. A wound .026 G doesn't bend cleanly (the wrap material binds against the fret and produces uneven pitch curve), so Scofield substitutes a heavier-than-standard plain .022 G that gives him bending feel similar to a Regular Light .017 plain G but at a tighter, more articulate tension that suits his right-hand attack. The rest of the set stays in jazz-medium territory.

How long has Scofield been a D'Addario artist?

Decades. D'Addario lists him on the official artist roster, and his rig rundowns going back to the early 1990s document D'Addario as the brand. The custom .013-.052 plain-G specification is his primary set, applied across his Ibanez AS-200 archtop, JSM signature semi-hollow, and Telecaster session work. Specific year of D'Addario endorsement is not pinned in the public-facing material but predates 1990.

Did Scofield ever play stock EJ22?

Stock D'Addario EJ22 is .013, .017, .026 wound, .036, .046, .056 — the wound third is what defines that set. Scofield's custom is in adjacent gauge territory (.013, .016, .022 plain, .032, .042, .052) but explicitly substitutes the plain G. Public-facing rig material doesn't show him on stock EJ22 at any point in his catalog. The closest D'Addario lane match for his actual set is a custom-pulled-from-stock Jazz Medium with a single-string substitution, which is how D'Addario typically supplies endorsement-level artists.

What guitars does Scofield play?

Primarily an Ibanez AS-200 semi-hollow (his long-running main guitar), the Ibanez JSM100 signature model based on the AS-200, and various Telecaster-style solidbodies for session work. The AS-200 is the guitar associated with his Miles Davis years, his Blue Matter / Loud Jazz period, and most of his solo catalog. The wound-3rd jazz-medium gauge philosophy fits the AS-200's design lane; his plain-G custom modification fits his bending-heavy playing vocabulary.

Why does the heavy gauge matter to his tone?

Two reasons. First, the heavy bass strings (.032 D, .042 A, .052 low E) drive the AS-200's archtop body harder than a standard rock gauge would, producing the dense, fundamental-rich tone that Scofield's chord work depends on. Second, the heavier overall set tension keeps the strings articulate at the right-hand pick attack he uses, which is heavier than most jazz players (closer to a hard-blues attack than a soft jazz attack). Lighter gauges feel rubbery to him and lose the articulation that defines his rhythm comping.