Stainless strings

[Ears]

For 20 years I've been playing nylon exclusively but recently taken up electric again. I've recently been using stainless steel strings on elec and have found them good especially in terms of tarnish resistance.

What is the general viewpoint on stainless versus nickel etc in terms of tone, action and longevity?

[908ssp]

They sound thin and bright, they wear out conventional frets faster. They resist corrosion but the tone ages more than a vintage nickel string which starts out warmer. That's how I hear it and why I use an all nickel vintage style string.

[doctord02]

Pure nickel is the way to go; stainless look pretty and dont corrode so much, but they have thinner tone and not as responsive a feel IMHO. And as Alex points out, they wear your frets faster...

[Lonely Raven]

The best of both worlds I've found is S.O.B strings.

http://sobstrings.net/

These sets are nickle, but last 3-4 times longer then common name brand strings, and give me more harmonic content then most typical strings. What's also nice, is they stretch less then modern strings.

Dean spent years researching 60's vintage strings and why they sounded better then modern strings with all these wacky coatings and stuff. These are true, old skool custom wound strings.

Typically I melt through a set of D'Addario 10 gauge in a week or maybe two on my Strat with Stainless Steel Frets. I've had a set of SOB strings on for about a year now, and they are just now needing to be changed!

Try them out!