Where to find .090 gauge strings and custom sets

[Andrenighthound]

What's the best online store to get a custom set made?

I like these gauges for my 7 & 8 sting guitars with 27" scales:
.009 E
.012 B
.015 G
.022 D
.030 A
.042 E
.066 B & (.068 for 7 string guitar low A)
.090 E

 

[JoeuJGM]

Like an awful lot of folks on here, I highly recommend Kalium to anyone. I'm 99% positive you can order singles and make custom sets with them. Also juststrings is a pretty good online store. I'm sure there's others as well. LeBella strings aren't bad and you can get custom sets made specific to your scale length.

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Kalium. Although they've been lacking a lil in QC and customer service..

 

[The Q]

That's what I do with Elixir, but be aware that it can get quite pricey - how does 10 bucks for a bass single string sound?

 

[JoeuJGM]

Kalium. Although they've been lacking a lil in QC and customer service..

Oh? I haven't bought from them in a while so I wasn't aware of this. I know that Skip and a couple other guys from Kalium are quite active on the GP Music Discussion and Extended Range Guitar groups on Facebook so I'm sure you could talk to one of them.

 

[Eliguy666]

Only a single Kalium order to date, but that order was a good one. The set packaging is really weird, a giant plastic sleeve with all the strings straight with their ball ends in a piece of cardboard, but all of the strings arrived in perfect condition, in exactly the gauges I ordered, with plenty of string length to spare.

La Bella were what I used prior to the CKs, and of equal quality (a bit brighter, but unfortunately with a looser low end and fewer mids).

D'addario only goes up to an 80, unfortunately, and the Dunlop heavy cores only go to 70 on their 8 set (no idea what they think they're playing at there).

Circle K and La Bella can both easily cover what you want: Circle K sells singles .008-.106 here (Circle K Strings - Single Strings - All tensions,scales, gauges | Page 1 of 5), while LaBella sells singles .007-.120 here (Electric, Build a Custom Set, Build a Custom HRS Set | La Bella Strings).

 

[gigawhat]

Yeah, its been a minute since i ordered, but ive never had anything but good things to say about my experiences with Kalium/Circle K.

Not to mention their strings are amazing!

 

[Eliguy666]

My order with them was in late June, and I'm on the second set now.

 

[Alex Kenivel]

Don't get me wrong, I love Kalium and Skip's an awesome guy, I talk to him on FB. A few weeks ago I ordered a .094 and a .098. I received a .094 and a .086.

After that I couldn't get ahold of Skip through FB and took a while to get an email back. Turns out they were out of .098s and he told me about a week ago they should be getting more soon. I told him he could just send me another .094 because they worked great (I was experimenting for my low D on my 8).

The next day he sent me an email saying he couldn't find anything about my last order and after I gave him my last order number I haven't heard anything from Skip or anyone at Kalium, even after I sent a "whats going on with the situation" email. This really sucks because I really like Kalium, I hope its just a little hiccup...

 

[Alex Kenivel]

The set packaging is really weird, a giant plastic sleeve with all the strings straight with their ball ends in a piece of cardboard

Kalium says it better for the strings, rather than rolling them up.

I had jokingly asked Skip on FB "where the hell's my strings?" before I even got the messed up order and on the little cardboard thing he wrote "Because Facebook" and it made my day, until I realized they sent the wrong gauge

 

[sevenstringj]

Electric, Build a Custom Set, Build a Custom HRS Set, Wound Strings | La Bella Strings

^Also solid. Goes up to 120. Great customer service, too. They made me some extra custom strings to fit a Kahler.

 

[GreatWhiteYeti]

If you order Kalium make sure you have it set up so you sign for your package. I didn't and the mail lady delivered it to the wrong house multiple times, and they ended up rolling the package up kinking the strings.

 

[Andrenighthound]

Thanks everyone! I ordered some .090 and .086 at circle, and I'm going to order some large strings at labella. After I hear both companies' strings, I'll then probably order custom sets from one of the two companies.

 

[GunpointMetal]

That's probably a decent plan. Having tried both companies, your Kalium/Circle K Strings probably will not play nice with your La Bella strings. They have very distinct attack and brightness between them. My experience was that La Bella is cool because they have strings wound to a specific scale length so you won't have to unwind strings or file your tuning posts for huge strings, but all of the sets I ordered came with really new-looking, bright eighth strings, and then the higher seven looked and felt like they had been sitting around for a while compared to the low strings. I have only good things to say about Kalium/Circle K. The one time that I had to wait on them to wind some strings a few days, they dropped my shipping charge. The strings feel great for a long time as long as you clean them off with something like FastFret when you're done, and the playability for the size of the higher gauges really is something else. I needed an .086 from LaBella for my lowest E to get the feel I wanted without too much noise. Kalium I'm using a .079, and the set is way more balanced across the neck.

 

[Andrenighthound]

^^^Cool! I actually ordered .090s and .086s from circle and .090s and .088s from labella. Going to start with the circle .086 for the low e. I got a circle .094 on there now and it sounds good to me because I play the low strings like a bass and plug but the low e I can't get perfectly intonated with the .094. Its like 5 cents sharp at the 12 fret, (which is not too noticeable), but I'm picky with intonation. Maybe if I don't like the tension of the smaller strings I will try to find shorter hipshot saddles? I emailed hipshot and I'm waiting for a response.

 

[Explorer]

What's the best online store to get a custom set made?

I like these gauges for my 7 & 8 sting guitars with 27" scales:
.009 E
.012 B
.015 G
.022 D
.030 A
.042 E
.066 B & (.068 for 7 string guitar low A)
.090 E

I don't know about custom sets, but I toss a .010 and .016 on the top of my Ernie Ball 2837 set (the one for 6-string bass) for this:

.010 D
.015 A
.020 F
.030 C
.042 G
.054 D
.074 A
.090 E

I might be wrong about the two strings I toss onto the top end, because I don't have any packs handy, and I don't have my micrometer at hand to measure, but it's definitely the 2837 set. This set has guitar-sized ball ends, as opposed to huge bass ball ends.

It's a pretty decent progression in tension, and when I buy the 2837 sets when I find them cheap, a full set of 8 strings is less than $7.

i've never tried to buy the .090 string separately, since the whole set works so well. Seeing someone talking about $10 for a single string, when a cursory search of Google shopping finds the full 2837 set (including the .090) for $8.99, just blows me away.

 

[Tom Drinkwater]

I've had good luck with both Labella and Kalium but don't forget www.juststrings.com. You can get singles there too.

 

[Andrenighthound]

I always do just strings.com but they don't have anything between .080 and .090 and they don't have larger then .090 that I've seen. I would of bought a bulk pack of .090s if they had them. That would of been great.

 

[sevenstringj]

Almost forgot: Conklin Guitars Custom Guitar Strings by S.I.T. Strings

Haven't tried 'em though. I tend to go with Kalium or Labella if I'm tuning below F# on the 8th.

 

[jerm]

Kalium/Circle C strings

or

guitarstringsonline.com and make a custom set of D'addarios!