The talk about acoustic and electric guitar strings in the beginner's thread got me wondering what preference you guys have for your strings - both electric and acoustic (or nickel, bronze, phosphor, nylon, cat gut etc etc!).

So what's your poison?

I use Fender 250s on my electrics (10---46). I tried pure nickel in the past but they were too muddy sounding and felt mushy. Plus I couldn't get clear pinch harmonics. The Nickel Plated Steel are brighter.

D'Addario or Martin Phosphor Bronze (12---54) go on my acoustics. Again nice and crisp. I've tried coated strings like Elixirs, but just don't like the coatings.

Yeah I am with you on the Elixirs. Tried them once and really couldn't stand them. And they hardly lasted at all. Way too expensive too.

I had the same experience with DR Sunbeams which people raved about, but some people said they found "dead" strings a lot with them. I found them pretty lifeless tbh.

I recently got some DR Dragonskin's though and was quite impressed, though I broke a string pretty quickly. I play pretty percussively on acoustic so that may have some impact on the string breakage, though usually it wouldn't happened the first time I use them. I hope it's an anomaly because I really liked them.

I too use (primarily for my live gigs) D'Addario Phos Bronze 12-54's.

And the XL's for my electrics - usually 10-48.

I have recently started buying from strings and beyond and have been just picking a "mixed bag" of strings, so I can test some unusual brands/types out that we don't have available much here in Oz.

I tried some Dean Markley "Johnny Ramone" Commando Guage for my electrics and think they're quite ok. Such a light guage (9-11-16-24-32-46) and hard to get used to for me, but super easy to bend.

Elixirs = the nut worst. They sound exactly how you'd expect a string coated in dental floss to sound. The electric strings do stay bright for extended periods of time, but that just means you have terrible sounding strings for a longer time. Amazing the hype when those things first came out... open your ears - they sound like ****. FACT.

Cockrock guitars - D'Addario 9-42
Strats/Pauls - XL 10-46
Acoustic guitars - D'Addario Phosphor 12-53
Classicals/Flamencos - Savarez High
Jazz boxes - LaBella 15-82 (7th)

I use a few different ones depending on the guitar also.

For the ones in standard tuning or Eb, D'Addario 10s. Darcos I've always liked when I can find them cheaper.

I have one Strat and one LP copy with cables on them, one flatwound. Difficult to play certain types of music with but they have that thick sound that's handy sometimes. Don't play these everyday but nice to have.

Mostly I'm tuned to D or D/drop C, with a 12-60 set with an unwound G which I prefer. It works out pretty well across the board as far as what I can sing to and getting the guitars heavier, while not getting too low pitched. Day to day that's what I'm going with.

I used to get a little more specific about what I put on which scale guitar, but otherwise I'm phasing out the Gibson scale guitars and it's not that big a deal switching back and forth. There's a different feel but there are advantages to each.