I am looking for some new strings for my Fender Strat. I have heard that it depends on your set up. I have an older Strat Jason Smith Master built. The strings it came with are .010 to .046. Any ideas would be great.

I've always been partial to Ernie Ball and DR, not that that probably helps you much. I just like their strings. Rotosounds are my favorite, but those go on my basses.

Thanks, ShackMan I was talking to some friends at a show last night and the verdict from that group was either Ernie Ball or Dean Markley nickle steel. I am going over this guys house tonight to see how the Markley strings sound.

I haven't regularly used one brand of string, but I tend to use lighter gauges, like a .09 on the high E string.

Do you use a tremolo bar? I guess that would influence your choice. I've heard that having a guitar with a tremolo bar set up for one gauge and then switching can cause tuning problems.

Good call Micromoog. That's largely on Kahler or Floyd Rose locking tremolos. If it floats (e.g. doesn't rest against the body when you aren't using it, as most strats, teles, and Gretsch guitars do) then it could be trouble. It won't damage the guitar, but it'll just make the fine-tuners incredibly finicky, and they're already bad enough haha.

Having owned an Ibanez RG570 for a few years (had a Floyd Rose locking trem), I've had plenty of personal experience with this. Great sounding guitar, for sure, but keeping it in tune took serious and tedious grunt work. Not to mention changing strings.

Oy vey, haha.