Guitar Strings. Basic Information.

When it comes to the history and beginnings of string instruments, including the classical guitar, strings were made from intestines, usually sheep's, which turned out to be the most durable. As humanity and consumerism developed, acoustic, electric, and classical guitars appeared on the so-called market – in the shape and form as we know them.

Nylon strings for classical guitars.

Metal strings for acoustic guitars, usually steel with a bronze winding.

Electric guitar strings, steel with a nickel winding.

Violin strings are usually Plain – which means they are made like a steel wire or nylon string. Bass strings are already wound with a thin wire.

Despite similar construction, electric and acoustic guitar strings differ from each other. Electric strings are made of steel and nickel – they work with electromagnetic pickups.

Acoustic strings, on the other hand, have a bronze winding, which is not as magnetic as in electric strings, and the pickup collects sound more quietly.

Both types can be used interchangeably, but this is a procedure used for a very specific sound purpose, and we should rather stick to the rules. Just as we do not put metal strings on classical guitars, as this would damage them due to excessive tension on the strings.

Metal winding strings can be used on both types of instruments – acoustic and electric, but the material of the winding determines whether the string is for an acoustic or electric guitar.

Acoustic strings have a winding made of bronze, phosphor-bronze, copper, or gold. Electric strings, on the other hand, are wound with steel, nickel, or silver-plated copper.

The Maxima company makes electric strings coated...

Currently, one can also buy colored strings and strings with coatings of greater durability.

The winding should be done professionally and carefully, it can be done manually (very rarely) or machine-wound on a core. The core of the bass string can be round or hexagonal, that is, six-sided.

There are several types of windings, which gives us several types of strings.
- Roundwound,

- Flatwound

- Groundwound.

The last two are incorrectly referred to as "shlifty" in Polish, but the rest of the text will explain that this is not entirely true.

ROUNDWOUND strings are the most commonly used and popular type of strings known to everyone. On a steel core, a winding of wire (usually) with a round cross-section is wound, but sometimes hexagonal. Such strings are used in both electric and acoustic guitars. They are loud and resonate the longest.

FLATWOUND is, as I mentioned earlier, not actually "shlifty" as it is incorrectly referred to. On a core, in this case, round, a winding of flat metal tape is wound. It can also happen that a flat winding is wrapped around a previously wound round one. Such strings are mainly used in jazz guitars. They are characterized by a muted sound and a short lifespan. During slides, there is no characteristic sound of the hand sliding.

Shlifty is from English groundwound. A round winding is ground flat. They are also called half-flat. They combine the features of the two above, but they are not the most popular strings in the world, rather the least popular of these three types. They are often used by fretless guitar users.

Strings can also be divided according to their thickness.

Everyone has their preferences and tunes as they wish and uses whatever strings they want. The most popular thicknesses:
- the heaviest are >>eights>nines>tens