After snapping one last night I realised that I'm out of packs and need to buy more, plus my acoustic strings are also looking like ancient relics and could do with replacing. Still, it occurred to me that I don't usually pay much attention to strings - I usually just buy any cheap pack of D'Addario or Ernie Ball strings and that's the end of it. So what do you folks use, does anybody have any particular recommendations? With both the electric and acoustic I'm typically after a fairly bright, clean, sparkly tone.
After a lot of experimenting, I settled on Ernie Balls as the best-sounding, most reliable string. My style of guitar-playing is pretty different to what seems to be the norm here, and I use heavy strings (my low E is a 58), so I dunno how true this'd hold for thin strings. I snap D'Addarios like nothing else - A and D strings especially, and Fender strings just sound dull on my guitar. I have trouble getting enough string tension with Rotosounds (the comparatively low tension is probably a reason many like them), and Gibsons would just not. stay. in. tune.
Your mileage may vary.
I didn't even realise that you broke a string lol. Good job it wasn't a floyd rose, unless you're Steve Vai (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ntc_UHyIew)!
piszczel: I didn't even realise that you broke a string lol. Good job it wasn't a floyd rose, unless you're Steve Vai (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ntc_UHyIew)!
Haha what a legend. I have a standard Strat trem, so it still threw all my other strings out of tune anyway. I don't actually keep the bar in there though, so I wasn't able to pull a Vai to fix it. :P
Igor Orlowski
I'm sticking to D'Addarios, really like them. IMO they're better than Ernie Balls; they keep their tonality better, stay in tune better. I've heard good things about Elixirs but at 10-15 quid a set they're pretty expensive.