From the Factory | October 2, 2024
Ultimate Guide to Acoustic Guitar Strings
Your acoustic guitar deserves great strings to bring out its full potential. Every player has that moment when their guitar needs new strings, whether they’re a touring musician or a guitar hobbyist. Here at Martin, we believe buying guitar strings is a part of enjoying your guitar, but you need to know what strings to buy and how to pick out guitar strings that suit your needs.
Are all guitar strings the same? What guitar strings for acoustic are best? Which guitar strings are best for beginners? You’ll discover the answers to these questions and more in the blog post below. By the end, you'll fully understand what strings to get for your guitar and what the difference is between guitar strings.
After all, every instrument that leaves our factory is strung with Martin strings, so we know a thing or two.
How Long Do Acoustic Guitar Strings Last?
Knowing how long guitar strings will last is an important first step. The answer to this is different for everyone depending on playing style, the frequency of use, and the type of strings on the guitar. A general rule is that the more you play your guitar, the sooner you'll have to change your strings. This is especially true for touring musicians who change their strings before every gig.
If you rarely play your acoustic guitar, you can wait a bit longer before replacing your strings. But even rarely played guitar strings will rust from humidity and moisture levels over time. New strings will always sound better than old ones, so change your acoustic guitar strings as frequently as you need to or as often as your budget will allow.
How to Tell It’s Time for New Acoustic Guitar Strings
You may find yourself wondering if you actually need to change your strings. The good news is that several signs point to the need for new acoustic guitar strings. If you know these signs, you can replace your strings at the right time to ensure you're enjoying a great experience with your guitar at all times.
So, how often should you restring a guitar? Here are some of the signs that show it's time to replace your acoustic guitar strings:
- Dirty strings & fretboard: The more you play your acoustic guitar and the older the strings get, the more dirt and gunk will build up on them, ruining their playability. You'll need new strings if you feel friction or roughness when you run your finger down your strings.
- Discolored strings: Dirt and grime will also ruin the appearance of your acoustic guitar strings. If they're looking black or dirty, it's a clear sign to change them.
- Reduced tone & sound quality: As your guitar strings age, they lose their tone and sustain. Consider restringing if your guitar strings start giving off a dull, lackluster sound or lose tension.
- Broken strings: Guitar strings sometimes break when they get too old, or you play them too hard. A broken guitar string is an obvious sign that it's time to replace your acoustic strings.
Factors You Should Consider When Buying Guitar Strings
When choosing guitar strings, you should consider the following factors for what guitar strings to buy for your acoustic:
- How often you play your guitar
- The musical genres you enjoy playing
- The tone, sound, and volume you're looking to get
Once you understand your goals, you can choose the right guitar strings to help you achieve them. Different guitar strings will have varying levels of durability and fit certain sounds and playstyles. It's up to you to determine your needs and find strings that meet those needs.
String Gauge
The diameter of a string, measured in inches, is called the string gauge. It's important, as it affects the sound of your guitar while putting different amounts of tension on your fingers and your guitar's neck. Here are the various acoustic string gauges available from Martin, along with their diameters, measured from the high E string to the low E string:
- Extra light (.010-.047)
- Custom light (.011-.052)
- Light (.012-.054)
- Light/Medium (.0125-.055)
- Medium (.013-.056)
Are you wondering how to make acoustic guitar strings easier to press, or fret? Lighter strings are easier to play and bend, making them the best guitar strings for beginner acoustic players. They achieve good resonance at lighter volumes and are a great choice for intimate settings. They put a smaller amount of tension on your guitar's neck than heavier strings, but they can also break more easily.
Heavier strings are more difficult to play and harder on the fingers, but they also project more sound and richer tone with more aggressive playstyles. They put more tension on the guitar's neck but are more durable and usually last longer than lighter strings.
String Winding Method
Guitar string winding refers to the material wrapped around the string's core. There are three main styles of guitar string winding:
- Roundwound: These are the most common winding type. You can feel the windings of the string under your fingertips as you play. They provide a bright, crisp tone.
- Flatwound: Flatwound strings are smooth and flat to the touch. They're a popular choice in genres like jazz thanks to their dark, smooth tone and pronounced mids.
- Halfround: Halfround strings fall somewhere between roundwound and flatwound, making them popular for many modern genres and playstyles.
Acoustic Guitar String Materials & Treatments
As you consider what guitar strings to buy, you need to know which material is best for you. Here are some acoustic guitar string materials to know about:
- Catgut: Catgut strings have been around for centuries, made from livestock's intestines, including sheep. They offer a warm tone that's ideal for classical guitars, but they may turn away buyers who wish to avoid using animal products for their acoustic guitar strings. Our Classical Magnifico® strings are a great alternative, made of a proprietary synthetic material that emulates gut strings.
- Nylon: Nylon strings offer a soft feel with a clear, bright tone. Classical guitarists often use nylon for their top three strings, paired with a mix of nylon and silver-plated copper for the bottom three strings.
- 80/20 bronze: 80/20 bronze strings consist of 80% copper and 20% zinc, with trace amounts of other elements. They provide excellent brightness and sound projection, making them popular for many genres and playstyles.
- Phosphor bronze: Phosphor bronze strings are like 80/20 bronze strings but with the addition of phosphor to provide greater corrosion resistance and a longer lifespan. They consist of 92% bronze and 8% tin, with less than 1% of phosphor.
- Kovar™: Luxe by Martin® Kovar™ strings are unique to Martin, delivering our Superior Performance core with the unique benefits of Kovar wrap wire, a nickel-cobalt alloy. These strings feature natural corrosion resistance, clear and balanced tone, and voicing for enhanced attack and response.
- Monel: This solid nickel/copper alloy provides a reduced pick attack that allows the guitar’s tonewoods to be heard, not overshadowed. Our proprietary Monel wrap wire, found on our Retro® strings, is naturally corrosion resistant, so you can play them for a long time with nothing to get in the way of your music.
- Silk and steel: Silk and steel strings have a unique mellow sound. They are essentially metal-wound silk strings but can also be metal-wound nylon.
There’s also another choice when it comes to acoustic guitar strings: coated or uncoated? That choice comes down to personal preference and what you’re looking to get out of your guitar. Coated strings, which are coated by applying a barrier on the string, boast improved resistance to corrosion, moisture, and dirt buildup, while uncoated strings offer a more traditional playing experience with a raw, natural tone and responsive feel that appeals to purists and tone aficionados.
Luckily, Martin invested early in research and development to create its own unique, patented string treatment process that you can read more about here that gives players the best of both worlds.
How to Restring and Tune an Acoustic Guitar
Are guitar strings easy to replace? Martin Guitar is here to help you with this process, whether it's your first time or you need a refresher. Read on to learn how to restring and tune a guitar:
- Set up your workstation: You may want to gather tools, including a string cutter, neck rest, tuner, and string winder. Get your new guitar strings ready, ensuring they have the right string tension for your acoustic guitar and playstyle.
- Remove the old strings: Remove the old strings one at a time, starting with the low E string. Use the winder to remove tension. Then, snip the string in the middle with the wire cutter. Remove the old string from the bridge by popping out the bridge pins, and from the tuning pegs by unwinding the string.
- Attach the new string: Attach the new string by inserting the end in the newly vacated bridge hole and securing it with the bridge pin. Slip the other end of the string into the tuning peg. Click here for a full tutorial on how Martin strings our guitars, and here for a breakdown of our full setup and stringing process.
- Bring the string to tension: Use the winder to tighten the string and bring it to tension. Ensure the windings go under the string. Three windings should be enough to hold the string in place and bring it to proper tension. Then, tune the string to the correct pitch.
- Repeat steps two through four for the remaining strings: Repeat steps two through four to finish the restringing process, making sure to do one string at a time to avoid extreme tension changes on your acoustic guitar's neck. Regarding how to tune a guitar with new strings, remember that the strings will drift out of tune regularly. This is part of the new guitar string experience until the strings settle into their new positions.
Martin Guitar Strings – This Is Why We Make Our Own
If you're wondering how to buy guitar strings or where to get guitar strings, you've come to the right place. Our impeccable standards for acoustic guitar tone are embedded in our string design and precision manufacturing process. That’s why we make our own, and that’s why Martin legends like Eric Clapton, Tommy Emmanuel, Laurence Juber, and the late Tony Rice choose Martin strings.
We make acoustic guitar strings at Martin in a number of different gauges and use a variety of materials to ensure you get the exact kind you need. We even make our own electric, bass, ukulele, mandolin, and banjo strings!
Every instrument that leaves our Nazareth and Navojoa factories is strung with Martin strings. Not only do our strings ensure exceptional tone, but they will also help guitars of any brand sound their best. So, shop our full line of guitar strings today to find what you're looking for.
Until next time, happy playing!