Stainless Steel Strings?

[killemall8]

Has anybody used stainless steel strings? GFS has some for pretty cheap, and i was wondering how they are. I am mostly concerned with them wearing the frets.

[Dean]

I would think it would depend on the frets and what they are made of.SS strings just wear longer and clean easy.

[westhemann]

I have only used them on bass(rotosound).I really didn't notice any extra fret wear,but I never played bass much.I no longer buy GFS strings though because they are extremely prone to weird buzzing and poor intonation.I think they are poorly wrapped

[guitar2005]

GFS Strings are pure ****. I tried a set just to see and I had to take 'em right off. Don't waste your money on them.

If you need strings, the major brands are a good bet but I've had great luck with webstrings when I gigged regularly 3-4 years ago.

I'd get 12 packs at a time. They're just as good as brand named strings IMO.

[westhemann]

GFS,not GHS...but GHS suck too imo

[Workingman]

I used to love Rotosounds on my bass but found that I broke them to often for the wallet. So I am not so sure that they have any advantage in strength.

[westhemann]

The main advantages to rotosound that I could see were that SS has a higher tensile strength,so you could use light gauges that were normally not thick enough for bass tunings,and that they had a snappier tone.Plus they don't rust.On a bass all of that is important to a lot of bassists,because bass strings are so expensive.They hold their tone in my experience for well over a year(though I didn't play that often) and stay clean.

None of that is needed on a guitar IMO.I am curious though about the guages offered,because like I mentioned,the tensile strength is higher.I think that if you used medium strings the tension to tune them to E might be too much stress on the neck.

Might be useful on low tunings in short scale instruments...maybe if you wanted to tune your Gibson like a baritone.B might sound good on a 24.75" scale and allow you to keep the strings at .10 instead of .12

All of that is just hypothetical though.

[guitar2005]

GFS,not GHS...

Fixed the typo in my post.

[Prostheta]

The only SS strings I play on guitar are DM Blue Steels. Really sweet. Never noticed that much wear, but I don't hammer my fretwork with crazy wide vibrato and fretting finger pressure that could dent your week. Light touch all the way, man. Your mileage will vary of course.

I play SS a lot more on my basses, however there is a much shorter window where you get great tone. Nickel plated don't seem to reach that "peak" of sweetness but stay relatively nice for a longer period of time. SS can die very quickly so are great if you have a date in a studio and want a characterful tone nailed for posterity. Expensive if you gig regularly and want to maintain the sound. It's painful when you get attached to the tone of SS strings and then realise you're burning through them crazily. That's what I think anyway.

Fret wear can be an issuey. Cheap soft NS frets will wear with either type of string, harder NS compositions hold up better but still wear. If you want to use SS exclusively then I very much advocate the use of Evo or SS fretwire.

[killemall8]

Thanks for the replies.

I have used their normal strings, and i thought they were good...

That was my concern, SS strings on NS frets. I get a lot of wear just from regular strings on my frets, because i dont know how to play and i press so dang hard.

Might try some eventually anyway. I think i would like the extra brightness.