Chapter 3. Strings: A Profusion of Choices

Chapter 3.  Strings: A Profusion of Choices

This chapter navigates the overwhelming array of string choices available today. It categorizes string brands based on size, product range, and market presence, offering examples of each type. It discusses the materials, coatings, tensions, and combinations available, illustrating the vast landscape of options confronting guitarists.

 The Extensive Range of Choices

For players, there is now a mind-numbingly extensive range of choices of strings for the classical guitar. On my own rough count, there are currently over 40 brands of classical guitar strings being sold around the world.

Notice I say “sold,” and not “manufactured,” because some companies, though they use distinctive packaging, actually rely on a smaller number of string manufacturers, though they may contract for particular string specifications.

Most of these brands are now available to guitarists in Australia thanks to the advent of internet mail-order sales. This is very different from the time when I was venturing into classical guitar playing in the mid-1970s with a basic clunky laminated Yamaha guitar.

 Early Memories of Strings

My memory is dim, but I do recall that Augustine nylon strings were the most prominent brand available in Melbourne music shops at that time, though I’m told by friends of a similar age that Savarez Red, White, and Yellow card (rectified nylon) were around, as well as a few dodgy brands like Black Diamond.

Today, these 40+ companies sell strings of various materials and coatings, tensions, and combinations of these. Thanks to the progressive influence of consumer demand, many strings are now available singly or in treble or bass sets.

 Variety of Treble Strings

So too, prices of these brands vary. Treble strings, for example, are available in polished nylon, rectified nylon, fluorocarbon, titanium, hybrid carbon-nylon, polished or unpolished synthetic gut (“nylgut”), varnished or unvarnished genuine gut, and – believe it or not – specially designed steel strings for use on classical guitars.

 Variety of Bass Strings

Materials and textures for the windings and cores of bass strings are also varied: round-wound, flat-wound silver-plated copper winding, double-silver plated, dark silver-plated, pure gold winding, gold-plated, gold-alloy plated, brass-plated, bronze-plated, smoothly polished, lightly polished, anti-corrosion-coated, nylon multifilament core, extra dense nylon core, composite (Zyex R) core, multifilament nylgut core, synthetic silk (Rayon) core, and genuine silk core.

 Types of String Brands/Companies

These string brands/companies can be divided into a number of types, according to size, range of products, and market dominance. I’ll just mention a few typical examples here.

 Large Companies

There are big companies such as D’Addario (USA) (often mispronounced as ‘Diadario’) whose nylon etc. guitar strings form only a part of their enormous string inventory which is dominated by steel strings for electric and acoustic guitars. Nevertheless, D’Addario’s string products have a solid reputation among classical guitar players.

D’Addario’s major market presence for classical guitar strings is also due to affordability and wide distribution. In terms of size and product range, Pyramid (Germany) is roughly equivalent to D’Addario in Europe, though it produces far more “World Music” and historical instrument strings than electric guitar strings.

Though Pyramid produces classical guitar strings, they are better known in Australia for their oud strings, but also for genuine gut strings and nylon/carbon strings used mainly for historical guitars.

However, it’s the French company Savarez which can deservedly claim the highest reputation among the large European companies. Though Savarez produces strings for many plucked instruments, it has always been distinguished by a strong focus on quality classical guitar strings, and on innovation and development. It was Savarez that first introduced fluorocarbon treble strings for the guitar.

Another prominent American string company is La Bella (the oldest US string company, and still controlled by the original founding family of Mari), which has a strong market presence for classical guitar strings within its wide range of string products.

Probably on a similar scale to La Bella in Europe, Galli is an Italian firm with a long historical lineage and manufactures a wide range of classical guitar strings in addition to strings for other plucked and bowed instruments, though Galli strings are less used among players in Australia than in Europe.

Thomastic-Infeld (Vienna) is an old elite string maker with a high reputation. It is best known in Australia for its fine jazz-guitar strings, but in Europe, the company is also known for its high-quality strings for classical guitars and many other plucked and bowed instruments.

It is the only company I know that has tackled the tonal peculiarity of carbon treble strings by producing a patented hybrid carbon-nylon string, as well as flat-wound bass strings for classical guitar.

The old German company Optima (formerly Lenzner) makes a high-quality line of expensive classical guitar strings, though they are only a small part of their extensive inventory of instrument strings.

 Firms Dedicated to Classical Guitar Strings

Second, there are those firms that are largely dedicated to the manufacture of classical guitar strings: Augustine and Hannabach. These are long-established and well-known to all classical guitarists. Albert Augustine is justly famous for developing the revolutionary nylon string for the classical guitar in conjunction with Andres Segovia.

With the manufacturing assistance of Olito Mari (founder of La Bella), Augustine nylon strings began production in 1947. The established family firm of Hannabach, based in Bavaria, began production of nylon guitar strings in the early fifties and now enjoys a solid reputation among many players.

 Growing Brands

Next in size and scale are a number of interesting growing brands. They include Royal Classics, a Spanish firm, which apparently began in the late 1970s but only made a strong appearance in the market about ten years ago.

The newest firm of this type is Knobloch. Named after the late German guitarist and luthier Jiri Knobloch who began developing strings in 1971, this business was revived in 2009 and transferred to Spain by the French guitarist Gilles Bordou. With a wide range of materials and tensions - and active marketing - Knobloch strings have been growing in popularity.

 Smaller Firms with High Reputation

Then there are smaller firms with a high reputation, notably Luthier Strings, originally based in New York, but since about 2021 manufactured in Spain after the death of the original founder. Initially popular among Flamenco players because the string brand was endorsed by Paco de Lucia, Luthier strings became widely used among other guitarists. 

Phillippe Bosset is one notable smaller French boutique string firm. The USA-based company Oasis originally made its name for making guitar humidifiers but later branched into classical guitar strings, specializing largely in sets with “Titanium” and Carbon trebles. Other brands with a small range of strings are made under the names of famous Spanish luthier workshops, including Jose Ramirez and Felipe Conde.

But to my knowledge, the most “boutique” of boutique string brands is sold under the name of Paulino Bernabe, the prestigious Madrid-based classical guitar luthier. Paulino Bernabe strings are produced only in mid-high tension with carbon trebles. I have no idea who actually makes them for Bernabe.

 Brands and Manufacturers

As mentioned, not all brands/companies make their own strings. The well-known Spanish guitar-making firm of Alhambra Guitars fits D’Addario strings to its guitars but brands them as “Alhambra Strings” and these rebranded strings can be purchased.

Ramirez brand strings have been marketed for many years, but they are not made by this famous guitar workshop, and nobody seems to know by whom – just like many of their guitars! They feel like Augustine or Hannabach nylon strings, but I may be wrong. I suppose it doesn’t really matter who makes the strings as long as they play well, but it would be nice to be upfront about it.

Other brands make it clear who the manufacturers are, such as Aranjuez strings. This brand is available in just four sets of strings. They are manufactured by Augustine. The small Aranjuez range of strings was developed by the well-known New-York-based Spanish luthier Juan Orozco for his own hand-made guitars in the late 1960s. Their claim to fame is that they were used by Narciso Yepes and Carlos Montoya, though they are now endorsed by the virtuoso classical guitarist Angel Romero.

Pepe Romero Jr., a now prominent American-based luthier, lends his name to “Pepe Romero” strings, which are made by La Bella and came onto the market about a decade ago. They are endorsed by his famous guitarist father Pepe Romero Sr. (elder brother of Angel Romero).

 Unique Italian-Based Company: Aquila

Aquila is a unique Italian-based company famous for its development of synthetic gut strings (nylgut) used primarily by “Early Music” practitioners (for lute and baroque guitar as well as bowed instruments) and also for ukulele and oud.

However, they also produce strings (notably the Alabastro sets) designed for the modern classical guitar with polished, (as distinct from rectified) nylgut. For purists who are prepared to pay the high prices, this company also manufactures an array of genuine gut strings.

 Minor Nylon String Makers

Then there are firms for whom nylon etc., strings are only a minor sideline to their main activity of making steel-string guitars together with steel strings and guitar accessories.

So, for Fender and Martin, their string range for “nylon string guitars” is small compared to their focus on steel strings. These strings are usually tailored to the shorter scale lengths of their “nylon-string” (often electrified) guitars, which are based on steel-string acoustic guitar dimensions.

Though they are a small part of these companies’ inventories, nylon string guitars have been favored from an early period by well-known folk and country players (Willie Nelson is the most conspicuous example) and so-called “finger-style guitarists” - most famously perhaps, Jerry Reed. So they are an important niche instrument among these prominent American guitar companies. In the case of Martin, at least one model of such guitars is fitted with strings manufactured for the company by Aquila.

The Canadian firm Godin, famous for its uniquely-designed “Multiac” guitar, with chambered body, and designed purposely for amplification, also markets its own string brand.

 Accessory Makers

Other companies known mainly for producing guitar accessories and electric guitar strings sell a limited range of strings of average quality that suit some players’ purposes: they include Ernie Ball and Jim Dunlop strings.

 Global Brands

Here I can’t enumerate and detail the complete range of strings produced outside Europe and North America since I’m focusing on the Australian market.

But I would be remiss not to mention the popular Brazilian brand of Giannini strings, (possibly manufactured under license to D’Addario USA) and another Brazilian firm named Sound Generation (otherwise SG brand) which is largely devoted to steel-strings but produces excellent quality bass strings for 7-string nylon guitars.