What Guitar Strings Should I Use? Pure Nickel Or Nickel-Plated Steel?
What Guitar Strings Should I Use? Pure Nickel Or Nickel-Plated Steel?
Today we're talking about the differences between Pure Nickel and Nickel-Plated Steel. Pure Nickel was one of the most popular alloys to use on electric guitars in the 1950s and most of the 1960s. The industry changed to Nickel-Plated Steel in the late 1960s. The reasons are many from what I hear, but I think a lot of it was that in 1968 / 1969 we had a huge guitar boom with players like Clapton, Hendrix, Beck and Page. Pure Nickel is more expensive. Nickel-Plated Steel is more affordable but still a great sounding product, so the industry changed to that. The differences in tone are subtle but they are different. Players say that Pure Nickel has a little warmer sound, still a lot of twang, has a little smoother feel and great for blues players and more traditional type players. Nickel-Plated Steel has a really balanced tone to it, nice highs nice lows and nice mids. It also has more magnetic qualities to it so it has a little more output and tons of rock players have used it over the years. It is a really great product. If you want to go to our YouTube Channel we have sound clips for both of them, with both Humbuckers and single coil.