When searching for a jazz guitar tone, many guitarists will focus on their guitars and amps as the main source of their sound. But, there is often one important sonic ingredient that players ignore when it comes to finding the perfect guitar tone, the strings. Just as there are many styles of jazz, there are many different brands, styles, and gauges of jazz guitar strings that can help you achieve the guitar tone you desire.
Which electric guitar strings are the best for jazz? While the variety of guitar strings out there today gives players a huge amount of choice, it can also cause confusion and frustration as you search for the right strings for your desired tonal quality. To help you buy the right jazz guitar strings for your sound, we recently surveyed our readers on what strings they use to get a jazz tone.
Below are the results of our survey, with background information on the top-5 strings as chosen by our readers. There’s information on string gauge and the results of our question on the eternal debate of flat vs. round-wound strings for jazz. Check out these results, as they might help you narrow down your choice for jazz guitar strings, or they might influence you to branch out and try some new strings.
When you’ve looked through the survey, post your favorite strings in the comments section below, or any questions you have about strings for jazz guitar.
Top 30 Jazz Guitar Strings (Electric)
1) D’addario ECG24 Chromes Flat Wound (Jazz Light)
The most popular string set for jazz guitar is the D’addario ECG24 set with string gauges (thickness) ranging from .011 to 0.50 (closely followed by D’addario ECG25, going from .012 to .052).
Average Price: $11.49
Type: flat wound
Gauges: .011 .015 .022 (wound) .030 .040 .050
We also aksed our readers how happy they are with their choice of strings, here’s the result for the D’addario ECG24 set:
2) Thomastik JS112 Jazz Swing Flat Wound (Medium Light)
The second most popular jazz guitar string set is the Thomastik JS112 set, with gauges ranging from .012 to 0.50.
Guitarists playing on the JS112 set seem to be satisfied with their choice of strings, 0% reported being not satisfied at all. These strings are more than double the price of the D’addarios, but are not the most expensive set in our survey (these are the Thomastik George Benson Flat Wounds further below).
Average Price: $26.99
Type: flat wound
Gauges: .012 .016 .020 .027 .037 .050
3) D’addario EXL116 Nickel Wound (Medium Top/Heavy Bottom)
Third on the list is the D’addario EXL116 set, with gauges ranging from .011 to 0.52. They are the first round wound set in our survey (number #1 and #2 are flat wounds).
The EXL116s are the least expensive set in the survey, you can get more than 7 sets of these for 1 set of the most expensive strings (the Thomastik George Bensons). Price probably comes into the equation when choosing for EXL116s, because the percent of users reporting not to be satisfied are the highest of our survey.
Average Price: $4.95
Type: round wound
Gauges: .011 .014 .018 .030 .042 .052
4) Elixir Nanoweb (Heavy)
Elixir Nanoweb is a set of nickel plated steel strings with a nanoweb coating (gauges range from .012 to 0.52). Nanoweb is an ultra-thin coating that keeps dirt out of the space between the windings.
Average Price: $8.24
Type: round wound
Gauges: .011 .014 .018 .030 .042 .052
5) Thomastik GB112 George Benson Flat Wound (Medium-Light)
The Thomastik GB112 set is the most expensive string set on the list. They are designed by Thomastik-Infeld to the specs of George Benson. Gauges go from .012 to .053.
Average Price: $38.99
Type: flat wound
Gauges: .012 .016 .020 (wound) .028 .039 .053
String Gauges
As well as ask our readers about the brand of strings they use, we also asked about the string gauges they prefer when playing jazz guitar. The results speak for themselves; jazz guitarists prefer a thicker low and high-E string, as the thickest gauge string got the most votes from readers.
What gauge strings do you use? Post your answer in the comments section below to see how it compares to our survey results…
Flat Wound vs Round Wound vs Half Wound
A question as old as jazz guitar itself, or at least as old as these strings were made, players have struggled with which string is better for jazz, round or flat wound?
As you can see from the results below, our readers prefer to use flat-wound strings. There are also about 1 in 10 players that prefer half-wound strings, which have started to make inroads into the jazz guitar community in recent years.
What type of string do you use? Post your choice in the comments below to see how it compares to our reader’s choices.
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