Blogging Ottinger (tim)

Don’t bother buying your old guitar strings anymore. Yeah, you have been using the Elixirs or buying from D’addario or whatever and you’re pretty happy. But you should try the Dean Markley alchemy strings. I used several on my old wood box, and had finally settled on those nanoweb strings. I wanted longer tone life and brighter sound and they seemed to give it until they started shredding pretty bad. They are good strings, and I’m not knocking them.

However I bought a set of Markleys. They were Blue Steel (a little up market) and when I installed them the ball popped off one of the strings. Sure, I was pretty unhappy. I had to go get another set right away or not play it. After fuming, I decided to be a good guy and write them a letter. They asked me to return the bad strings for analysis (did I ever get those shipped? I think I did.) and they replaced them. Those guys are DM are pretty cool. They ended up replacing them with a more upscale set. I got the Alchemy strings to try out.

My guitar never sounded as good with any new strings as they did with these. They’re darker in color than most strings, and that is novel and even attractive. They look more like copper than stainless. The sound is incredible, though. They’re bright and clear and all I could ask from my poor Ibanez acoustic. I was pretty pleased, and played a little on it from time to time. In the meantime, though, I picked up an American Standard Strat HSS and then later on got my ovation solidbody BreadWinner outfitted with Seymour Duncan pickups… to make a long story short, I ended up not playing acoustic guitar much.

I pull the old box out of the case a week or two ago and played a little. After sitting for quite a long time in various weather conditions, after moving in the middle of winter, after being hauled around in the car, after being played and put up without cleaning, after being passed around and after sitting around for at least a year they sound excellent. Great tone life on these puppies.

I had an extra set and gave it to a friend of mine who is playing in my church praise team, and he agreed that these are beautiful and cool-looking. These were a nice power-up for his Washburn.

I have been talking these strings up for a while when I talk to acoustic guitarists, but I don’t know that I publically stated my wholehearted support. The good folks at Dean Markley really have done something special, and I’d not trade one pair of alchemy strings for two sets of Elixirs.

Consider ‘em your next change-out. I think you’ll be pleased.