Best Acoustic Guitar Strings For Beginners

1) Ernie Ball 3221 - best acoustic Electric Guitar Strings

Guitar strings are the first and foremost vital accessories you need for a guitar. Ernie Ball is a well respected and recognized brand amongst musicians and it produce the best acoustic guitar strings for beginners. World-famous guitarists like Slash, Jimmy Page, Metallica, Eric Clapton, and more have been known to use their strings and Keith Richards along with Eric Clapton use this very model.

Back in the day, when guitarists came into the Ernie Ball’s store, trying to change their strings’ gauges in order to make them easier to play. Alas, they could not accomplish their goal. Fortunately, 

Ernie Ball decided to help them out. Ernie Ball 2221 Regular Slinky Electric Guitar Strings feature nickel-plated steel wire wrapped around a tin-plated, hex-shaped, steel core wire. The tone that they offer isn’t leaned towards any direction, they offer a balanced tone which is what beginners should go for initially, making these the ideal choice for novices.

2) D'Addario EJ16 Phosphor - best Bronze Acoustic Guitar Strings

The D’Addario family can be traced back to a tiny town of Salle, Italy. Their family tradition started in 1680 where they developed strings for a varied number of instruments.

They made the strings for over 200 hundred years in Italy and then they moved the production to New York, New York USA in 1905 that is why you see the “Made in USA” badge behind a pair of D’Addario strings. Now, history aside, the D'Addario EJ16 Phosphor Bronze strings for acoustic guitar are a solid choice for all you players out there.

These best acoustic guitar strings for beginners aren’t just reasonably priced but also provide you with a decent balance of highs and lows, making it ideal for beginners and an all-rounder. The phosphor strings are known to provide you with a long-lasting tone, comfort whilst playing, have a very good life as they do not rust easily.

These strings feature a computer-controlled wrapping around a hex core. D'Addario is the world's largest manufacturer of strings for musical instruments and I can see why.

4) Martin - best acoustic guitar strings for warm sound

Martin has established itself as one of the best brands in the acoustic guitar business and it truly deserves that spot. I mean, have you played their guitars? Anyways though, we are not here to talk about their guitars; this is all about the strings. These Martin strings are a result of research done in cooperation with specialty steel producers.

With an industry-leading ultra-high quality steel core, the Martin SP strings are way tougher than your average pair of strings which, well, if you have played the guitar for a while, you know the anxiety than tuning a G or a high E brings. The tone that these strings provide a nice balanced tone, good resonance and warm sound.

I personally felt these best acoustic guitar strings for beginners are a bit more leaned towards providing a more mellow tone, which I am a fan of as I loved playing some Opeth on these things and it sounded fantastic. On these Martin’s, the core wires along with the plain strings are finished with a smooth, acoustic bronze finish. 

This bronze finishes’ purpose is not just making your guitar look aesthetically pleasing, no. It serves a more practical purpose. What it does is provides a better tonal quality that persists through the life of the strings while also prolonging that very life a bit more.

5) GHS - best sounding acoustic guitar strings

Okay, so these strings have David Gilmour on the cover so they win and are the best string money can buy. Thanks for reading. Why do these lists take me so long?

Just kidding but the fact that David Gilmour personally uses these strings and has been since 1979, when he started using it in Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' project is a big up and a certain stamp of approval. These GHS strings belong to the GHS boomers series which are the flagship set of GHS Strings.

The strings come in a, what GHS calls, Nitro-Pack singles. Each individual string comes in this sealed, tear-resistant pack which eliminates oxygen and creates a nitrogenous environment for the strings in order for them to stay fresh and not rust as it creates a defense against corrosion and oxidation.

The strings themselves manufactured in a state-of-the-art, climate-controlled facility using precision equipment and only the purest of materials.

These best acoustic guitar strings for beginners provide a fantastic playing experience. If you play any solo from a song by Pink Floyd, you are gonna be bending and these strings bend very easy. It is very easy to play with them and they overall sound great with an interesting resonance to them.

However, they do feel to me to be a bit fragile. If you play a lot, like 2-4 hours a day every day, you might have to change these strings more often than you would with another pair. 

Now, obviously, each test is different, it is tough to judge anything easily but just keep this thing in mind as you proceed. Other than that, I felt no issues whatsoever and absolutely enjoyed playing my guitar with these strings on.

6) Dean Markley 2556 - best jazz guitar strings

Well, what if I told you that these are the coolest strings, literally! If you don’t know, let me inform you that Dean Markley's ingenious Blue Steel strings are a cryogenic blast of liquid nitrogen. Now, that sounds cool and all but what purpose does this solve? When Dean Markley freezes their strings down to -320 degrees Fahrenheit, they tighten up the molecules which minimize microscopic gaps.

What this process ends up doing is that it transient frequencies that produce harsh highs and muddy lows, which creates a string that stays true to its natural tone and offers a better, longer life. Now that, my friend, is a rare case of “flexing with your strings”. Okay, coming to more technical details, these strings are made up of 8 percent nickel-plated steel outer wrap on tinned Mandolin wire hex-core.

These best acoustic guitar strings for beginners, in my test, took a little longer than other brands at this price of point to get to that level where they stay in tune, however, it’s not a lot longer, only a little as they require a bit of “stretching” to get warmed up I suppose.

Once they reach that level, these strings offered a fantastic tone! I very much enjoyed some heavy and thrash metal on these as they offer such a meaty, heavy tone, I am a fan! I highly recommend these strings to anyone that plays metal and wants a pair of strings that a bit different than the rest.

7) VIBE Strings Phosphor Bronze Acoustic Guitar Strings

The selling point of these strings is the fact that they are packaged with a lot of useful accessories. This VIBE pack contains, aside from three sets of Light gauge (11-50) Vibe strings phosphor bronze acoustic guitar strings, 9 different sizes of guitar picks and a string change tool kit which in itself contains: 1 pin puller, 1 string winder and 6 replacement pins.

Talk about a big package (couldn’t resistant). However, the thing is, we mostly only care about the strings. Everything else is a nice addition but that’s about it. So, how do the strings sound? Well, they provide you with a balanced and bright tone initially but I felt that the drop with them was very noticeable and rather quick.

Everything comes of age and degrades but these strings die out fast. The high-technology construction that the company boasted was not felt. These best acoustic guitar strings for beginners are not bad, they sound alright. They just do not justify their price. The price at which these are being sold is much higher than the tone and longevity they provide.

8) Fender 860CL Phosphor Bronze Dura-Tone Coated 11-52 Acoustic Guitar Strings

You hear Fender and you expect quality and rightly so. They have been around making instruments for so long and their products have been used for legends throughout the eras. So, when you get yourself a pair of strings by Fender, do they meet your expectations? Well, they did meet mine except for one minor drawback. These strings provided me with a fantastic tone that was bright and rich.

The feel was also decent. I don’t know why but I was for some reason expecting mind-blowing smoothness from these budge strings but of course, that was a bit unreasonable of me to expect more than what I had paid for.

These best acoustic guitar strings for beginners are made up of phosphor bronze and have a Dura-Tone coating which adds to the resilience and longevity factor. Providing them with a good, long life. The one drawback I found was that the strings were all packaged together, not individually or even in an order which I found to be rather odd coming from a well-established brand like Fender.

Nevertheless, a minor inconvenience at best that is. The strings themselves are great. They are fantastic for beginners and casual players, I would suggest something a grade higher for professionals though.

9) Gibson Masterbuilt Premium Phosphor Bronze Acoustic Guitar Strings

Gibson is arguably the biggest, most famous and well-respected name in all of the music industry. Their guitars are absolutely terrific and a must-have for all guitarists out there, new or old. Thankfully, their strings do not fall behind and meet the standard set by their guitars. These authentic Gibson strings are made in America and are absolutely amazing.

Despite the ultralight gauge, these strings not only provide a considerable feel and comfort whilst playing, which aids newer players that do not have experienced fingers or players that are not able to have a hard touch to play easily but also provides them with a rich tone, warm tone which has a surprising amount of sustain.

These best acoustic guitar strings for beginners have a Phosphor Bronze construction which provides them that “surprising amount of sustain” I mentioned earlier which is warm and mellow. The packaging is also great, as one would expect. Each set of strings has been sealed in a vacuum pack providing them with a longer shelf life whilst retaining their freshness. I was expecting a lot from these strings given the Gibson name and I am very happy that it met my expectations with flying colors. 

These strings are extremely well suited and helpful for beginners as these are ultra-light so they do not require much pressure and novices lack the experience and strength in their fingers to play higher gauges so this should really help them progress their way up-t0 being able to play those higher gauge strings.

10) Dr Thomastik Accordion Accessory (JS111)

These best acoustic guitar strings for beginners are the best example of “you get what you pay for”. At first impression, one would say these strings are rather expensive: they are. However, they are totally worth it. Before we talk about the strings, let me just address this as it is driving me mad and will keep doing so till I clarify it,

I do not know for the life of me why there is ‘Accordion’ written the title of this and I could not find anything online so don’t get confused, these are indeed strings for an electric guitar. With that out of the way, let us talk about the strings. 

On the more technical side of things, these are The top 4 strings are made up of pure nickel while the remaining 2 (B and E) are plain steel strings. Easily, in my opinion, these are the best sounding flat wound strings out there. The lighter gauge makes it easier for beginners to play these.

The tone that is offered by these strings is surprisingly bright and lively, especially considering most flats sounded rather dull and dead to me.

That last part could be considered subjective and the part that these strings sound fantastic and bright and still manage to provide you with a well-balanced tone is simply a fact.

Indeed now, you can get like a pack of 3 of any other brand of strings at this price point, however, strings are like the wheels, It’s better to have a pair of good ones and than multiple bad ones. So, my verdict with these is that they are indeed worth every last penny and well suited for everyone.