While Ernie Ball makes great, high quality guitar strings, they’re far from perfect.
First of all, they have encouraged players to use lighter strings. Back in the day, guitarists would typically use either 12s or 13s on their guitars. However, when Ernie Ball noticed that those strings are difficult for beginners to play, he started making thinner sets.
While this is fine, the problem is that he didn’t stop there. He didn’t just make special light gauge strings for children, he made those light gauge sets the norm and discouraged the use of heavier gauge strings. This meant that people would keep buying strings more often because those thinner strings break much easier and faster then the heavier strings guitarists typically used up until around 1967.
But the main problem i have is with the gauges themselves.
Let’s start with Extra and Super Slinky (their version of 8s and 9s). Extra Slinky consists of 08p-11p-14p-22w-30w-38w whereas Super Slinky consists of 09p-11p-16p-24w-32w-42w. The big problem i have with this is that the B string on both of these sets is the same. Either make it a 12 on the 9s or a 10 on the 8s, having the same exact gauge on both sets makes no sense.
Fortunately, they recently released Primo Slinky which sort of fixes it by replacing the 11 with a 12 but even if you ignore the fact that the 9 in this set is actually a 9.5, it doesn’t really count because Super Slinky and it’s Extra Slinky B string are here to stay.
Next, we have Beefy and Not Even Slinky, 2 great sets that were released in 2003. Unfortunately, they come with a plain G string. While a plain G string is great for lighter gauges, having a wound G makes much more sense.
And it’s not even like the plain G’s in these sets are a reasonable gauge either. On both sets, the plain G they give you has about 5 extra pounds in tension when compared to the rest of the strings, either giving you an unbalanced set or forcing you to buy a wound G separately (i recommend using a 22w for Beefy and a 24w for Not Even).
Also, please stop with this bullshit about these strings being “Optimal For Downtuning”. I use Not Even Slinkys (plus a wound G) in standard tuning and it sounds and plays great, especially for Beatles-esque music.
Remember, if you can do it on an acoustic, you can do it on an electric.
Now i know they have their acoustic sets (which have a wound G) as electric sets but here’s the thing, they’re not readily available meaning i would have to buy them online.
Finally, their extended range sets suck. I’ve tried both of their 8 string sets for a 6 string bass conversion (their 6 string bass set isn’t readily available) and neither are any good. The 10s one is tight in the middle but extremely loose on the 2 E strings whereas the 9s one is more consistent but only in the sense that it’s consistently loose across all 6 strings.
Overall, while they make great, high quality guitar strings, Ernie Ball is far from perfect.
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