David Imrie

Just reporting back for anyone who's interested. Yes, those old strings were definitely Elixirs - the winding pattern, the little brass ferrules and where the coating started all matched exactly. What I ended up buying were Nanoweb 11-52 custom lights. I reckon what I took off was also Nanoweb, because the phosphor bronze colour matches exactly, and maybe even an XL gauge. The second I hit the first chord, there's that sound I wanted! (with a little new string ring over the top, but that will soon go). And really precise - when you tune the harmonics just hum out of the guitar. So in case it helps anyone, to my ears the tone, accuracy and balance of these bring the absolute best out of a 2016 Hummingbird vintage. They also probably work out as the cheapest string you can buy because it seems like you only need to change the things once every 2-4 years! Thanks once again to everyone for their help here. PS. Gibson, you should be ashamed to put your name on those phosphor bronze acoustic strings that replaced the old Masterbilts - nice packet design, but that's where it ends: never tuned with the precision of the Elixirs and killed the tone of my lovely guitar.

Thanks so much to everyone for all these comments. I'm going to order some Elixirs today and we'll see. I'll post back in this thread when I have them on and HOPEFULLY hear that clarity and balance that the Gibson strings took away. The way I'll know is that with these old strings on I basically couldn't come in the room without picking the 'Bird up and having a quick play...but now I'm kind of not bothered. That isn't right!

Hi. OK, this is a bit of a long shot... Two years back I bought a Hummingbird vintage. It was love at first sight and sound and nothing has dimmed since then! When it arrived (from ebay) the strings seemed fine so I didn't change them. And then they just lasted and lasted, and even though they grubbed up a bit they tuned perfectly and sounded good. Then a few days ago I decided it was time to change them. I put on a set of the new style Gibson acoustic strings, phosphor bronze, light gauge (12-53)....and what can I say - apart from the nice packet design they're a disappointing string (more expensive than the discontinued Masterbilt ones and not as good) and I don't enjoy playing my Gibson as much (now it sounds more like my Takamine, with too much mid range generally and without that defined, accurate feel I loved where you heard every nuance). I mean small differences of course, but this is why we shell out used car money (and risk divorces) for guitars, isn't it?! So I'm actually contemplating cleaning up a set of 2+ year old strings (that I got second hand) and putting them back on, which would be ridiculous. The obvious solution is to buy a new set of the things, but the problem is I have no idea what they are!! Here's a picture - on the guitar are the Gibson acoustic phosphor bronze lights, coiled up are the strings I actually want. They're pretty certainly phosphor bronze: the colour is maybe just a tiny bit more pink than the Gibson strings. The gauge is maybe a touch lighter, although not much. The wind looks a little bit flatter (but this might be the coating - see below) . And then we have six identical ferrules (whatever the little things the strings are wound round is called) that are a natural bronze colour. Peering closely at them, I think maybe they have some kind of coating - you can see on the picture that there's a change of colour about an inch from the ferrule on all of the wound strings, and that's where what looks like a thin, plasticky coating starts. My best guess based on all of this is Elixir custom lights 11-52...but I'd really love not to have to slowly and expensively work my way through every string brand until I find what these are, so my hope is some kind Gibson aficionado out there recognises the ferrules and also the coating starting 1 inch up the string and can either confirm my guess or tell me what these are. Many thanks in advance. David PS. If I find a set (I'll know when I hear them) I'll report back here what they are, and IMHO they bring a Hummingbird vintage to life (and hit a 7th fret barred B and it's like the Rolling Stones late 60s are right there!)