: I recently bought a ’79 Guild X-500. It had a crusty old set of 11-48 (or so) roundwounds. I use D’Addario XL110s (10-46) on my Tele and LP. I put a set on this arch top, and it was horrible. I then broke apart a set of Gibson flats (12-54) and used the 23, 31, and 42 for the D, A, and E. It was unbalanced. The treble strings (from the XL110s) were stiffer by comparison. So I put the treble 3 from a set of XL120s (9s) on it. It was then balanced tension wise, and played almost TOO easy, but it was wimpy sounding. So right now I am using a regular set of Gibson 12-54 flats. It plays good and sounds okay. I would like to go just one step lighter, maybe 11-50. My question here, finally, is this: I put Gibsons on there because that was all I could get locally for flats. What is your experience with Gibson flats, and are there better brands? Specifically, are there other flatwounds which offer a little brighter sound, or are they all as dead as Gibsons? What about GHS’s claims about their Brite-Flats? And what about the Cadillac brands like Pyramid and Thomastik? Flatwound strings suck!!! If you must do something get some Elixirs. Gibson, ernie balls, ghs, d’adarios are all good strings the elixirs are about 3-4 times more $ but they last longer (coating)