What guitar strings should I buy?

After breaking one of my guitar strings broke on my Fender Stratocaster, I decided that I needed to do some more research on my next set. Turns out that there are hundreds of different strings varying by everything to the coating to size. So I did what any human would do and googled "Best Guitar Strings".

What I concluded is that there is no single answer!

Guitarist tend to choose their string based on quite a few things: How they want their music to sound, whether that means using distortion or having a "clean" feel, use string bending, play fingerstyle, how forceful they are, how much oils and salts seems to impact string life and sound, and how much they're willing to spend.

On electric guitars, the most often used string diameter is an "extra-light" gauge. This set of strings starts with at .010 for the high E. Some guitarist that prefer a lighter touch and do a ton of string bending will use a "super-light" set where the high E will start at .009.

On the other side, guitarist that play so viciously that they seem to always be breaking or play a majority of songs freestyle, normally go with a set that starts with .011 for the high E. This has the advantage of feeling more consistent when switching from electric to acoustic or vise-versa often. This has the downside of the string being harder to bend.

So to recap, there're 3 main gauges to choose from. .009, .010. and .011. They all have ups and downs with Heavier strings breaking less from rigorous playing and Lighter being easier on the fingers for bending.

Now, you also have coating options, but I'm not going to go into that today beside saying that the High-Tech coating that are more expensive and add little string life for the price.

What do I use?

I just swapped from Dunlop Electric Nickel Wound (.009) to the Ernie Ball "Regular Slinky" (.010). I found the .009s to be a little light for my liking and they gave a lot of "popping" or "snapping" when played against the frets. From what I've read .010 gauge strings seem to be a great middle ground among guitarist compromising on many aspects of the "super-light" and the "light".

What would I recommend?

Really you just have to play around with some different gauges and see which ones fit you. It all depends on the player. For your first set you can't go wrong with the .010 gauge.