D’Addario Guitar Strings – XL Chromes – ECG24-3D

These strings really changed my mind about a lot of things.

I am a professional musician who, up until last year, never played a flat wound string. So I’m watching one of my favorite local finger style blues players fly across this old Gibson and it occurs to me he must be using flats. I ask him after, he says he is. I play his guitar. Can I ever play flats? I bend every note play!

Sis months later I am in the studio working on this song in open G that has a lot of busy work and I am scratching the strings every damn second.

I buy a set of Chromes. Put them on. They feel, obviously, a lot different. But I play with them a few days and I get to know them, and…

Well I can still bend the hell out of everything. I can still do all the things I did but now there’s no string noise.

I had a lot of worries making the transition but now every guitar I own (except one acoustic) has flats on them and I don’t even remember what I was worried about.

As for the strings themselves: these have lasted longer than any string I have ever owned. The E and B are just normal strings and break slightly more regularly and I honestly have been buying singles to account for this.

I have played the same set on my main guitar for over 8 months and at least 30 shows. I know this sounds crazy but it is the truth.

These are probably the best strings I have ever played.

Slick and easy on the fingers, with a mellow tone.

Bom custo benefício.

Wanted to change to flatwound on my electric. Great tone. Love the wound G string. I mainly play rhythm so not worried about bending. The brightness is muted with the flatwounds as by design. Again love the flatwounds tone.

I am a beginning electric guitar player and I learned that on a bass guitar, that flat wound strings are super comfortable on the fingers, especially for slides. This particular set is still a little too heavy for my fingers and when I installed all of these strings as they come, the tremolo system required extra springs and the tension rod had to be tightened in the neck. I did not like the way it played with the extra tension that made the strings hard to bend and hurt my fingers.

My special trick and best solution to turn these into wonderful, easy bending, light playing strings is to not use the #48 heaviest E string. Buy a separate .008 or 0.009 gauge string to use for the first E string and then shift all of the others over. See my marked up package in my photo. This trick gives you a wonderful 8-38 or 9-38 smooth set with the following:

1-E 8 or 9 (purchased separately)
2-B 10
3-G 14
4-D 20w
5-A 28w
6-E 38w

48w – not used

I was kinda curious to try flatwound strings on my 7-string since I’ve been learning some jazz guitar. I had tried flats on my bass a long time ago and liked the feeling, and they lasted literally forever if you’re not after that new-string bright sound. I was also finding the twang of an unwound G string was getting on my nerves so seeing these have them wound I was interested. I saw a pack discounted but “like new”. The idea of buying used guitar strings is really strange but I figured they wouldn’t be called “like new” if they were actually used.

When I got them they were sealed in bag. The strings themselves were indistinguishable from new except for each string having a little kink where they’d meet the tuner. I guess they had almost been put on but never actually tuned up? Because they didn’t have the little spiral shape they’d have if they were. They sounded new and bright (for like a day). Now they sound very warm (not bright, some might say dull) but I’m happy with that, I like the sound of it. They’re a little heavier than I’m used to but I expected that.

These strings are great!

I got them for my Epiphone Masterbilt Olympia, a hollowbody jazzbox with a pickup in the bridge.

Honestly, I’m not sure if I was supposed to use acoustic or electric strings on it, so if these are the wrong strings for this guitar then…oops. However, I can say that they’re actually probably the nicest strings I’ve ever played. Before these, I’d only ever played with the typical roundwound strings so I really can’t speak for the quality of other brands, but I can tell you that if the others are as nice as these then I’m definitely a believer in flatwounds.

If you’re considering buying these after only playing with normal guitar strings you should know that the main difference is that there’s no texture on the strings like you’re used to. I’ve heard this is to prevent that sort of scratch sound when you’re changing chords or just playing in general, but it really changes the entire feel of the string itself. It’s a lot like playing on nylons in a weird way, I’d kinda describe it as playing strings made of glass. They’re slick, but they feel great. They sound great too, there’s this kind of youthful pluckiness in my sound when I’m either strumming chords or playing leads. The lows are warm and full as well. Some of this is likely coming from the guitar itself (Which is a great instrument in its own right) but there was definitely a change in sound which I switched strings.

I don’t know if I’d restring every guitar I own with these, but I know I’ll always keep at least one this way.