Electric Guitar String Coatings – Strings By Mail
When it comes to navigating the wide world of electric guitar string choices, there are also various styles of coated and treated strings to consider. These treated and coated strings have a microscopic layer that helps protect the strings from oxidation, and from the natural oils from players’ fingers. Treated and coated electric guitar strings also tend to last longer over time because of this added protective layer, however unlike acoustic strings the difference in durability is not as pronounced and they do not have as much tendency to produce a darker or muted sound compared to uncoated strings. And some of the coatings on electric strings also add a visual element.
Electric Guitar Strings – Strings By Mail
Black Diamond Coated Guitar Strings
Black Diamond offers a black protective coating on a few of their nickel wound electric guitar string sets. This black coating is one that adds a visual element to your electric guitar, while protecting the strings for oxidation, dirt, and oils.
Cleartone Coated Guitar Strings
On the Cleartone electric guitar strings, there is a thin coating of only one micron that won’t flake off with hard playing, and it doesn’t feel slick or slippery to your touch. Cleartone claims that their extremely durable and long-lasting coating will not cloud your electric guitar’s tone. All six strings (or 12 strings) in the set are coated with this unique coat.
D’Addario EXP Coated Guitar Strings
D’Addario’s EXP coated electric guitar strings are coated with a micro-fine layer of EXP Coating. Combined with their improved corrosion resistance of their tin plated plain steel strings, these EXP coated strings help deliver longer life and a natural tone for your electric guitar.
DR Black Beauties and K3 Coated Guitar Strings
DR offers two types of coated electric guitar strings. With their famous Black Beauties string, the wire is precoated in black before the winding process, for string protection with a unique look. DR’s proprietary K3 Technology Coating is designed for guitar players that play with standard picks, as well as with their fingers. This K3 Coating is available in a variety of “Hi-Def Neon” colors, and provides corrosion and perspiration protection, as well as increased tone.
Elixir Nanoweb and Polyweb Coated Guitar Strings
Elixir’s approach to coated strings is their ultra thin Nanoweb coating that has the bright tone and punch of non-coated strings, and their Polyweb coating which feels comfortably smooth and helps to reduce finger squeak.
Ernie Ball Coated Titanium Guitar Strings
Ernie Ball utilizes Coated Titanium RPS Technology on their Slinky Electric Titanium strings which feature a proprietary enamel coating on the wound strings. On the plain strings, there is a rust-resistant plating in addition to a reinforcement winding of titanium.
GHS Coated Guitar Strings
The GHS Coated Boomers are a result of the coating method GHS uses to achieve extended performance life and an enhanced powerful tone on their electric guitar strings
Do you have a preference of playing uncoated or coated electric guitar strings? What kind of electric guitar do you use them on, and what style of music do you play? In your experience, is there a particular string coating technology that holds up stronger or sounds better than the others?
This is a great list. Personally I think the Elixir Nanowebs are some of the best strings out there by far.
Excellent list, I’m a D’Addario guy myself! A few I havent tried on this list however! I think I might buy the DR Black Beauties for a change.
Thanks for the feedback! The DR Black Beauties are a good choice too, with a very unique look. One of our employees plays the DR Black Beauties exclusively on his acoustic guitar when he performs live.