Steel or nickel?

Do you mean stainless steel vs. nickel?

That refers to the wire wound around the outside of the wound strings in a set. The usual is a nickel alloy or nickel-coated steel. Both are commonly called "nickel." Now there are also stainless steel wound strings. In all cases it has to be an alloy that's magnetic, so the pickups will work properly with them. Magnetic stainless alloys are hard, high chromium steels similar to what stainless knife blades are made from, and will wear your frets faster than nickel strings will. The nickel ones last plenty long, and are less expensive. That's what I put on my electrics. (Usually the cheap nickel-plated steel wound ones.)

Plain strings are made of music wire drawn from plain high carbon steel in all cases. So are the cores of the wound strings.

One other thing to note is the hardness - stainless is harder than nickel. That means your frets will wear a bit faster with stainless strings.

Do you mean stainless steel vs. nickel

Yes, that's exactly what I meant *cough*

So there's no need to go for the expensive ones then. Suits me.

Thanks :)

Hi Isabelle :D

Stainless strings are suppose to give you a bit of a brighter sound.
They are plenty hard though, and for the slight change in tone compared to the fret wear they give....
I'd say; stay clear of them.

As far as nickel strings go....
Most strings are nickel plated, and they are said to be just fine with all the new technology today.

However, I prefer to use GHS PURE Nickel half round strings.
Pure Nickel is what they used in the 50s/60s.
And half rounds have a nice mellow sound with a much smoother feel and less finger noise.

Just my 2 cents,

Ken :wink:

I use a pure nickel wrap as well. DR Pure Blues. I tried the Ernie Ball Classic R 'n' R's as well but like the tonality of the DR strings better.
The composition of the wrap material seems to make a big difference in tonaity. Mellow or warm describe the pure nickel sound well, imho.
:)

I like the bright tone of the nickel plated steel wound ones. I use 'em on my reso as well as electrics. I've got a lot of bronze ones to use up on my acoustics, but when they run low I'll probably try the nickels there, too. They'll look crazy on my Gibson with the gold plated hardware, though.

I just saw some coloured ones on Ebay :shock: Now I've GOT to have blue strings. I know, you're going to tell me they will sound crap, but nevermind. They're so pretty :)

Oh yeh
Color coordinate with that blue guitar.
Geez, just like a woman.

I can't criticize Isabelle, I was just worrying about the silver colored nickel strings clashing with gold Gibson hardware. :lol:

:lol:

I have tried both nickel and stainless strings, in my limited experience I prefer stainless steel. I haven't noticed a huge amount of sound between the two (certainly less of a difference than between different brands / models of strings) but I find stainless strings stand up better to the inherant sweat etc. that seems to inevitably coat them when I'm playing quite aggressive songs. :oops:

I recently put a set of Dean Markley Blue Steel stainless strings on my '51, and find they are much brighter than nickel. Too bright for me, actually.

But, someone who prefers the sound of ss strings (or maybe someone who has a nickel allergy) might consider getting ss frets installed. Then they won't wear as quickly.

"Too bright" can often be taken care of by a little tweak of the tone knob, that filters out high frequencies. Can't put in harmonics that aren't there to start with, though. I like bright strings and sharp picks that initially generate a wide range of overtones that can then be filtered by the instrument, amp and speaker(s) to make their own tone. The most common acoustic guitars are dreadnoughts, and I think they're generally too "dark" in tone and bassy. A bit of brightening does them good. It mainly shows up in a sharper attack and improved note definition. A little touch of palm muting at the bridge will take that right away when you don't want it.

"Too bright" can often be taken care of by a little tweak of the tone knob ... Can't put in harmonics that aren't there to start with, though

All fair points, and I do roll the tone knob down more with these strings, but I'll add that I think there are other differences beyond relative brightness. It's in the mids, too.

I've gone back and forth with ss and nickel strings on my bass, and the differences are much more apparent on a bass than on a regular electric guitar. SS tends to have scooped mids, with very prominent treble. Nickel is warmer and rounder, as you'd expect. Some describe the ss tone as "piano like," some say it's "clanky." It takes a good deal of EQing to filter out the differences; a simple tweak of a passive tone knob likely wouldn't do it.

So, even though these differences aren't nearly as noticeable on an electric guitar, they are surely still there to a small degree.

By the way, for anyone interested, the folks at Dean Markley say their Blue Steels don't wear frets down faster.
Blue Steel strings will not wear down your frets any faster than any other standard string available on the market today.