Fake strings----again.

Dumodal

If it's too good to be true... IT IS or like we used to say in my country, cheap stuff cost you double (badly translated).

CarbonCopy

I'm another person who doesn't like Rotosound guitar strings. Some of the descriptions given echo my experience. I think they feel rough, probably as a result of how quickly they seem to corrode compared to other strings. The only 'positive' is that they appear to have less tension/stiffness at a given gauge.

Perhaps all the people with bad experiences of Rotosounds have bought fakes!

FelineGuitars

I used to dislike Rotosound GUITAR strings whilst quite liking their bass strings (late 90s/early 2000s)

The issue for me was that on the wound strings they used too skinny a core with a chunky wrap.

It made them feel very flexible , the aggressive wrap would eat picks on pickslides, they were harder on frets and more prone to breaking. 

BUT

Then they seem to have made changes and are more in line with other brands with a thicker core and a finer wrap, and they seem just fine to me now

OilCityPickups

CarbonCopy said:

I'm another person who doesn't like Rotosound guitar strings. Some of the descriptions given echo my experience. I think they feel rough, probably as a result of how quickly they seem to corrode compared to other strings. The only 'positive' is that they appear to have less tension/stiffness at a given gauge.

Perhaps all the people with bad experiences of Rotosounds have bought fakes!

I'd be really interested to know when you last tried Rotosounds ... because you are describing WAY different strings than I'm buying. I sweat like a bastard and corrode strings quickly, but the Roto Orange fitted to all the Oil City demo guitars hold up as well as any other premium brand we've tried.

timmypix

Maybe I need to give Rotosound a second chance based on Ash's praise. I do want to like them, being British made etc, and one of my favourite guitarists has a signature set.

D'addario have never let me down, but at some point over lockdown I acquired some Rotosounds and put them on my parts Tele, and they stayed on it until they needed changing. The Tele always sounded kind of papery and flat, and I was wondering if I needed to change the saddles or if it was an issue with the nut.... 
Put some D'addarios on and it sounded fine again! Now it could be they were fake Rotosounds, but I'm fairly sure I got them from somewhere legit and they were just on sale. I've read enough horror stories like the OP of this thread to not trust Amazon/eBay unless I recognise the seller.

I do still have a few spare sets of Rotosounds that have come with sets of Bare Knuckles, but seeing as I only buy BKP second hand these days, god knows how old these various sets are!

guitarjack66

I haven't found any better than Dean Markley myself. Both their acoustic and electric are very good but they are difficult to find and quite expensive too. On a par with Elixir strings,which I dont find much that justifies their price,longevity maybe?

SteveRobinson

skunkwerx said:

I did get a free pack of rotosounds with something once. 

Bare Knuckle pickups perhaps? They include a pack with every set of pickups.

guitars4you

Can anyone remember the days when you could visit your local shop - Have a chat and maybe bump into a few old mates/other musos - And buy legit strings purchased from the official distributor 

Plus when you have legit on-line retailers like Strings Direct who offer a superb selection of brands/gauges etc, then hard to have any sympathy

Rob1742

I have sympathy for the OP. There are so many deals on so many items in so many categories that it’s easy to get sucked in.

No shame in thinking these items will be a bargain, when items across many categories are on offer, so why guitar strings so different?

The Peach deal that is talked about on here so much seemed too good to be true, but it was actually exactly what it was, a good deal.

Some people don’t have hours to spend trawling through detail and just go with what they see. 

OilCityPickups

guitars4you said:

Can anyone remember the days when you could visit your local shop - Have a chat and maybe bump into a few old mates/other musos - And buy legit strings purchased from the official distributor 

Plus when you have legit on-line retailers like Strings Direct who offer a superb selection of brands/gauges etc, then hard to have any sympathy

When you know there are a huge number of fake selling on both eBay and Amazon ... when you say yourself:

 'This time the ad was for a 3 pack, and was suspiciously cheap, so I thought I'd give it a go

The clue was in 'suspiciously cheap' as well as 'eBay seller.'

Very little sympathy ... support proper retailers. 

S56035

Rob1742 said:

I have sympathy for the OP. There are so many deals on so many items in so many categories that it’s easy to get sucked in.

No shame in thinking these items will be a bargain, when items across many categories are on offer, so why guitar strings so different?

The Peach deal that is talked about on here so much seemed too good to be true, but it was actually exactly what it was, a good deal.

Some people don’t have hours to spend trawling through detail and just go with what they see. 

All the more reason to use a proper retailer and minimise the risks of being done over.

ScreamingDave

“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you
bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a
lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”
- John Ruskin, Economist

BigPaulie

Dumodal said:

If it's too good to be true... IT IS or like we used to say in my country, cheap stuff cost you double (badly translated).

Buy cheap, buy twice.

Nerine

I used to love Rotosounds. Used yellows on everything and did so for literally decades. 

Then my most recent acquisition came strung with something that just felt amazing and sounded great. I didn’t know what they were. They also lasted for ages and didn’t dull or start to look dark too much. 

I rang the shop (World Guitars) to specifically ask Julian what he strung everything with. 

Elixir Optiweb. 

I won’t use anything else now. The Rotosounds feel nasty and coarse in comparison. 

Was never a fan of Elixir back in the day as they used to go furry, but not any more. 

I’d advise anyone to try to them if they haven’t. More expensive than most strings, but clearly, as demonstrated by this thread, you get what you pay for… 

rayttk

I bought a 3 pack of DAddario 10’s off eBay , not for cheap and from a seller I have used previously without issues, but this time the high E has snapped on two different guitars.
so I ordered some spare 10’s and 2 packs of String joy 10-48 from strings Direct on Sunday night, they arrived this morning, they are slightly pricey but the service is exceptional .
Apparently Novo guitars ship with String joy so I thought I would check them out on my Novo JM

guitarjack66

The lack of sympathy for a cheap deal is surprising given how many of us are forced into living like this in our daily lives. We spend far too much of our trying to find the cheapest car or house insurance,energy supplier or even,if you are able,the cheapest credit card supplier. I don't think it's unreasonable that somebody would be sucked into something as seemingly trivial as a 10 pound set of guitar strings. 
'Let they who have never looked for a cheap deal cast the first aspersion.'

Voxman

rayttk said:

I bought a 3 pack of DAddario 10’s off eBay , not for cheap and from a seller I have used previously without issues, but this time the high E has snapped on two different guitars.
so I ordered some spare 10’s and 2 packs of String joy 10-48 from strings Direct on Sunday night, they arrived this morning, they are slightly pricey but the service is exceptional .
Apparently Novo guitars ship with String joy so I thought I would check them out on my Novo JM

Couple of years back I had a similar issue on one of my guitars and D'addario very kindly sent me some complimentary sets - wonderful customer service.  I'm a little embarrassed to say that I later discovered it wasn't the strings, there was a bur in the high E locking Grovers on my Pacifica 611VFM and, wonderful client support again, Grover sent me a replacement tuner.  

S56035

guitarjack66 said:

The lack of sympathy for a cheap deal is surprising given how many of us are forced into living like this in our daily lives. We spend far too much of our trying to find the cheapest car or house insurance,energy supplier or even,if you are able,the cheapest credit card supplier. I don't think it's unreasonable that somebody would be sucked into something as seemingly trivial as a 10 pound set of guitar strings. 
'Let they who have never looked for a cheap deal cast the first aspersion.'

All those things you mentioned have a lot more wiggle room than a £10 set of strings though don't they.  I'm not sure saving on strings should be the highest priority

guitarjack66

S56035 said:

guitarjack66 said:

The lack of sympathy for a cheap deal is surprising given how many of us are forced into living like this in our daily lives. We spend far too much of our trying to find the cheapest car or house insurance,energy supplier or even,if you are able,the cheapest credit card supplier. I don't think it's unreasonable that somebody would be sucked into something as seemingly trivial as a 10 pound set of guitar strings. 
'Let they who have never looked for a cheap deal cast the first aspersion.'

All those things you mentioned have a lot more wiggle room than a £10 set of strings though don't they.  I'm not sure saving on strings should be the highest priority

The industry itself must be a multi million pounds/dollars/euros industry as a whole though,mustn't it? We all seek to eke out a perceived bargain somewhere along the line. Hell,rich people often make their fortune this way.

andy_k

I appreciate all the comments,expected the usual 'fools rush in' stuff from some of the people here really.
I didn't post to try and generate any sympathy, and I genuinely just went on to get some strings quick, didn't do a lot of research as I have been using the same brand for over 30 years, and have already experienced the fake string phenomenon, once you get stung, it is something you become very aware of, but maybe even the fakes are good enough for less experienced players.
I first became aware of it when the strings could not even be tuned to pitch- half step down, and maybe I had used them before without even realising it.
I build a lot of guitars, and rotate the playing between a few different instruments, so below par strings might not be noticed immediately, and when I was gigging I would change them for every gig, and carry a spare guitar in case of breakage, so I go through a few packs sometimes.
My previous experience, was that the packs bought as a triple pack, up to now, have been genuine, compared to the packs bought in a single set, so I guess that was the little nugget i was trying to share, maybe it got missed.
To confirm this, I ordered a couple of sets from different vendors on e-bay, as I don't consider e-bay to be intrinsically evil, and I do appreciate the speed of such transactions, and sure enough, the packaging at least passes the sniff test.
I contacted the original seller, who generously offered that I keep the fakes and accept a 23% discount (???), which I have declined and am in the process of returning to claim my full refund via e-bay buyer protection.
I am not really that bothered by the whole experience, this is not life saving equipment after all, and I am not really surprised by some of the pitchfork mentality here either, it appears to just be the way of the world these days, sadly.