Red Brand Strings

[Buc McMaster]

Well, I had to give 'em a try! I've been alternating strings on my J200 between Pearse, Masterbuilts and Rotosound Jumbo Kings, all light gauge, for the last few weeks. They all sound good but I think the Jumbo Kings feel the best under the fingertips and seem to have a "jangle" the others don't. But I had to try the first innovation in acoustic strings in the last 35 years (or whatever!).......

 

Thump. Thud. The low E and the A strings just make noises like that. Thump. Thud. Pretty flat sounding. An apparent loss of volume and sustain as well on my guitar. And red?!? Lots of copper makes for a very red string. Guess naming this one was a no brainer. They appear to be a D'Addario product with the same color coded ball ends, all packed in one string envelope. D'Addario uses that corrosion-resistant bag, but they are both in a one container package leading me to think that D'Addario is somehow involved with this string.

 

For those of you who have tried the Reds, what did you think? And can anyone shed some light on the D'Addario connection?

[ksdaddy]

D'Addario made a line of strings called XL Reds (or something like that) in the 80s but I never tried them. Supposedly they had a lot of copper in them. I haven't heard anything about them in a long time.

 

Lots of innovations in strings and not much that stays very long. They all claim to have built a better mousetrap but I can't think of any that are still on the market. In my impressionable teen days I was bombarded with ads for Nashville Straights that came in a big long box; they said curling a string into a loop ruined it. There was a similar brand, Long Johns I think. What a crock. And Fender convinced me that the ball end was evil and I had to have their Super Bullets. Then in the 80s there was a big deal about frozen strings. And half rounds. Some bass strings were even ground semi flat over the fingerboard area but left round over the pickups, supposedly to get a ground round feel with round wound punch.

 

George Carlin said "If you nail together two things that have never been nailed together before, some schmuck will buy it from you."

[asmith9509]

I have the Reds on my J-45 right now. After a few days, I have decided that I like them, but not as much as the Martin SP or D'Addario Phosphor Bronze. They are louder, but the bass sounds a little dead to me. I'm a thumbpicker, and I don't get that "whap" when I play hard on Big Bill Broonzy, etc.