I’ve been a loyal user of Ernie Ball mandolin strings (medium guage .010) for years, but I’ve been having nothing but problems with them recently. While I find the tone of Ernie Ball strings to be excellent, I’ve been having problems with the strings breaking at the tailpiece or coming unwound.

Since I can’t have strings losing tension or breaking on stage, I’ve reluctantly begun to look for a new brand of strings for my mandos.

Finding a new brand of strings is a little tricker than it might seem. Most brands of instrument strings are just that: brands. They’re OEM‘ed in factories that produce strings for a number of different companies. Given my recent problems with Ernie Ball strings, I wanted to ensure that I was buying strings that were produced in a different factory.

I sent a quick note to the company I buy my strings from with this simple question: If I want to ensure that my strings are coming from a different factory, which brands could I choose? Or, more succinctly, which companies make their own strings?

The rep sent back a note saying that the following companies manufacture their own strings:

• D’Addario
• GHS
• LaBella
• SIT
• Dean Markley
• DR
• Thomastik Infeld
• Pyramid

I’m not particularly fond of GHS mandolin strings — I find the tone thin and plinky, utterly without mids or lows, so those are out. I’ve used DR’s, and found them to be OK. While I’ve used some of the other brands on my guitars, I’ve never tried them on mando. I’m going to order a couple sets of these different brands and see which works best. Meanwhile, I’ve got at least a half dozen sets of Ernie Ball medium guage strings gathering dust in my basement.

Earlier posts:
Why I won’t use Ernie Ball strings anymore
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