Paging Adorshki! Guild String info...

[Bill Ashton]

One of the questions I brought up at LMG2010 was about their (former) brand of strings.

Dave G. explained that they were made in Fender's Mexican string facility, and that they were dropped as the item was just not a big enough seller. I asked the direct question as to whether they were re-branded D'Addario's, and he stated no, that the strings were manufactured in Fender's own plant.

As luck (luck?) would have it, I scored a few sets of said strings on eBay just before the visit. Just took a set out now and compared them, with a micrometer, to a recent D'addario
EJ16 set. Both low E strings mic out at about .0525 and not .053, both the Guild A and D strings mic out a little stronger than .042 and .032 opposed to D'Addario being right on the money, other wise they measure the same.

Will have these on my D55 this afternoon, gotta get the GHS Vintage Bronze off the guitar...they are great strings, but I don't think so for this piece...

 

[Bill Ashton]

Hmmm, seems no one is interested. Fair enough...

Anyway, in the midst of the "big blow" this afternoon, I changed out the GHS Vintage Bronze lights I had on the D55 to a set of the Guild 350 Phospher Bronze. Like the sound better immediately, however I find that these strings are pretty stiff feel-wise...

Lets see, I don't like Fender strings generally, with the exception of the discontinued "Standard Tension" which are great on my Jaguar, as they feel too stiff. Have tried Martins on my Gibson J30, but didn't like them, really stiff...now these discontinued Mexican Guilds sound good but play stiff. Do we see a pattern developing here?

A) Mexican strings are stiff? or

B) Fender and Martin strings are both made in the same factory ??? or

C) I have weak fingers

The plot thickens...along with my fingertip caluses

 

[adorshki]

HI Bill, not ignoring you, I'm just "not on" on weekends. I think the real issue here is the time frame of those "Mexican" strings and the differentiating characteristic is the G string gauge. When I bought my D25 in 'early '97, Guild's L350 set contained an .025 G string, which gauge was pretty unique in prepackaged sets and whch I liked for particular reasons. Around 2002 or so I noticed the sets were being packaged with an .024 G string, even though the website at the time still listed the specific gauges as including an .025. I think the sets containing the .024 must have been the "Mexican" strings, it just took 'em a while to sell off/use up all the existing D'Addario inventory. Anyway, when I saw this change I searched for a maker that offered an .025 as a single to mix in, guess who it was? D'Addario. I did find about 7 sets of the "old" Guild sets closed out in a music store and snatched 'em up,these are the strings I compared to D'Addarios which I began to use on the other two.
The whole issue has been covered here a couple of times before and the subject of Fender using an interim Fender-owned maker, during the Corona period at least, has been mentioned, but there are several references to D'Addario being the OEM supplier for the bulk of Westerly production and I'm still personally convinced that that's who it actually was.
Now that I think about it, I don't think it's really a coincidence that D'Addario is now the OEM spec supplier, I think it's one more piece of evidence that they really were the ones "back in the day", and have simply been brought back on baord.
PS I agree with you about Martin strings feeling too stiff for my tastes. Tried 'em a couple of times.
The D'Addarios should feel the best, and if you REALLY want to know how it should sound, mix in an .025 like they used to do at the factory. I anxiously await your "feedback".
With all due respect for Dave G, I suspect he thought you were asking about the maker of the strings that were discontinued, and I believe that WAS the Fender-owned maker...but it still didn't answer the question of who made 'em before Fender...

 

[Bill Ashton]

No, no, didn't mean to imply you were ignoring me!

Thanks for the recap, for I could only remember bits and pieces and even using the search function here couldn't find it...probably my handicap and not the board's though.

I will look for that G...always liked a heavy G, even on electric!

 

[adorshki]

No, no, didn't mean to imply you were ignoring me!
I will look for that G...always liked a heavy G, even on electric!

Precisely. When I was younger I used to notch the .024's before the rest of the set was even broken in, so I got in the habit of always buying an .025 and subbing it in..and I think it was GHS way back then, early '80's when I could only afford to buy on price. :lol: So when I discovered Guild supplied 'em as original equipment, I thought "A-hA! They know something the rest of those guys don't!" It was one more little detail, like the flat back of the heel, and the arched back....
I know the search function ain't always "friendly" here.
The last little detail is that when I searched online for factory standard offerings , D'Addario was the only one I could find that allowed you to buy single .025's, in the EJ series. Others might, but I couldn't find 'em. So that was another clue to me that D'Addario was the most likely culprit to have been Guild's OEM.
A couple of members besides myself have stated it was definitely D'Addario but I've never actually seen anything from Guild or them confirming it. I'm going on personal experience and weight of evidence. 8)

 

[fronobulax]

A couple of members besides myself have stated it was definitely D'Addario but I've never actually seen anything from Guild or them confirming it. I'm going on personal experience and weight of evidence. 8)

I suspect that Fender/Guild probably does not have the answer and thus is unlikely to confirm or deny the hunch. This is a job for history detectives and not the current owner/management.

 

[adorshki]

A couple of members besides myself have stated it was definitely D'Addario but I've never actually seen anything from Guild or them confirming it. I'm going on personal experience and weight of evidence. 8)

I suspect that Fender/Guild probably does not have the answer and thus is unlikely to confirm or deny the hunch. This is a job for history detectives and not the current owner/management.

Right. Just trying clarify what's fact and what's supposition on my part. A caveat though, don't forget what the history detectives did to the question of whether Josh White's guitar really was Josh White's guitar.... :lol:
I bet Hans knows who was making those strings, and I'll take his word for it! And I don't even want to know now as long as it finds its way into volume 2! He deserves to keep SOME surprises!