Coated Strings

Firstly, Merry Christmas to one and all!

Since it's the Xmas season, I decided to put on some new strings for my guitars. I have been a regular user of the 9's-42's for quite some time now and i have decided to give the 10's - 46's a shot. I needed some getting use to as i do find the 9's - 42's rather soft and comfortable but lacks in tone. I'll gradually move up the gauges as i do find the 10's to 46's rather comfortable now.

With that aside, I frequent the Cleartone brand of strings. It is coated and does not rust that easily. I cannot simple stand the feel of rusted strings and not to mention the hassle of string changing as well. That was my main reason why i have shifted to coated strings. Some say that the Cleartones lack in tone but they do last a good 3 to 5 months if cleaned after playing. I agree with the duration of the life span of the strings but i do not have an issue with the tone. I do find the tone rather good for a coated sting. It's not sticky and plays well too. A pack of these retail at $19.60.

So last weekend i went down to DAVIS and got myself a set of Aurora strings. These strings are coated as well but it has a variety of colors to it as well. I'm not much for having colored strings but i decided to give it a shot because they were much cheaper at $16.90. I bought 2 packs of 10's - 46's in gold. I had a set fitted to my Fender Strat. Everything went well with 5 of the strings until the High E string felt rather strange when i tuned it. It just would not stay in tune! No matter how i turned it, It would drop a full step. I'm tuning on standard tuning and I repeated this many times until the string snapped. upon closer inspection on what went wrong, I noticed that the string did not actually snap. Instead, the ball end of the string unwinded itself and came off. This kinda pissed me off so i took the High E from the other set to have it replaced. And the same thing happened again! Now I'm thinking that there's a problem with my bridge that is causing this to happen.

I removed the entire set of Aurora strings and fitted my strat with a set of CLEARTONE 10's - 46's. The installation was flawless like it always did. There was nothing wrong with my tuner, ears, technique and guitar bridge. So here's a little advise, STAY AWAY FROM THE AURORA'S! IF YOU HAVE TO, DO IT WITH CAUTION. With a price tag of $16.90 a pack, dumbass manufacturing faults like this should not happen. Maybe i was just unlucky to pick 2 rotten apples from the barrel but i don't think i will take a chance on a pack of strings that is packed with a price tag of $16.90 with a chance of malfunction again. Not to mention the poor unprofessional packaging it had.

There's a saying in hokkien " Hor Kua Bo Hor Chiak "