Noel Gallagher's guitar strings: the Oasis and High Flying Birds rig, sourced

Noel Gallagher is the co-founder, lead guitarist, and chief songwriter of Oasis, the Manchester band he formed in 1991 with his younger brother Liam on vocals. Oasis's run from Definitely Maybe (1994) through Be Here Now (1997) anchors the Britpop era: two of the best-selling albums in UK chart history, the 250,000-capacity Knebworth shows in 1996, and a songwriting run, "Wonderwall," "Don't Look Back in Anger," "Champagne Supernova," that still closes festival sets three decades on.

The band split acrimoniously in 2009. Gallagher spent the next sixteen years fronting Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, releasing four UK number-one albums, with the ES-355 and a Gibson J-150 as his onstage constants throughout. In August 2024, Oasis announced a surprise reunion. The Live '25 tour opened July 4, 2025 in Cardiff with Gallagher, Liam, guitarist Gem Archer, and original rhythm guitarist Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs all on the same stage together for the first time since 2009.

Same gauge, different decade, different brand. Gallagher has played .010-.046 electric strings since the early 1990s. Only the manufacturer keeps changing.

The gauge is the constant. The brand keeps moving.

By the early 1990s, Noel and Bonehead were both associated with Rotosound strings in .010-.046, per Rotosound's own artist history. At some point after that, per The Chief's Guitars' dedicated strings research, Gallagher became long associated with the evergreen Ernie Ball Regular Slinky, same gauge, a link still being made as late as a 2015 Premier Guitar-era mention. The site's own research is careful to hedge here: Gallagher has never seemed especially loyal to a brand name, so long as the gauge stays 10-46. Around 2016, ball-end colors visible in photos suggest a switch to D'Addario strings.

There's one documented exception. According to a 2002 Guitarist magazine interview cited by The Chief's Guitars, Gallagher experimented with heavier strings, likely .012-.054 or .012-.056, during the 2001 Heathen Chemistry sessions, on a suggestion from engineer Paul Stacey. It's unclear whether the heavier gauge ever made it to a stage; every live and touring reference around that era still points back to 10-46.

For the Live '25 reunion, the mystery is finally settled by hard evidence. TheGuitarWrist, a UK company that turns artists' own used guitar strings into charity bracelets, has sourced Gallagher's actual reunion-tour strings directly: D'Addario NYXL1046 on electrics, D'Addario Phosphor Bronze 12-53 on acoustics. Same 10-46 gauge, fourth brand.

The most talked-about piece of gear from the reunion wasn't a strings switch. It was a guitar nobody recognized.

At the opening Cardiff show, eagle-eyed fans spotted Gallagher playing a black Gibson Les Paul Standard loaded with P-90 pickups, a configuration Gibson doesn't sell stock on that model. Speculation ran for weeks until Gibson's own Gibson Gazette confirmed the story directly from Lee Bartram, Gibson EMEA's Head of Commercial, Marketing & Cultural Influence: the guitar had been in development for at least 18 months, born from Gallagher's growing love of P-90s (he'd been playing Epiphone USA Casinos heavily with the High Flying Birds) and a request for a Les Paul that could deliver that pickup's tone at stadium volume across a three-guitar wall of sound with Gem Archer and Bonehead.

The spec, per Gibson: a 1960 Les Paul Standard body and neck profile (SlimTaper, Gallagher's preference), a maple top over mahogany, Grover Rotomatic tuners, and Gibson Custom P-90 Soapbar pickups with aged nickel covers, wired stock with no hidden modifications. The Ebony finish went through Gibson's Murphy Lab Light Aging process in Nashville, with extra aging added at Gallagher's request after he'd played it in.

Gibson has since turned the guitar into a production signature model, the Noel Gallagher Les Paul Standard. Gibson's own product page lists the same body and neck spec as the original, plus a black five-ply pickguard, black Top Hat control knobs, and a reproduction of Noel's signature decal on the back of the headstock. Buried in the spec sheet is a small but useful confirmation for anyone chasing his tone: Gibson lists the factory string gauge as .010, .013, .017, .026, .036, .046, the same 10-46 he's strung guitars with since Definitely Maybe.

Gallagher's role in Oasis has always been rhythm-first: big open chords and barre-chord strumming under Liam's vocal, with lead lines handled historically by other guitarists in the touring band. A .010-.046 set is the standard-issue choice for exactly that job on a 24.75-inch-scale Gibson. It's heavy enough to drive a big chord without going slack, light enough that a full two-and-a-half-hour set of aggressive strumming doesn't wreck your hand.

The Live '25 tour changes the equation slightly. With Gallagher leaning harder into solos than at any point since the 1990s, per Guitar World's own reporting on his expanded pedalboard, the same 10-46 gauge still works in his favor: it's forgiving enough for rhythm-guitar chord work but bends cleanly enough for the blues-rock phrasing his lead style favors, without needing a gauge change guitar to guitar.

The P-90s on the new signature Les Paul add a second reason the gauge matters. P-90 single coils run hotter in the midrange than a Stratocaster-style single coil but with less output than a humbucker; a nickel-wound 10-46 set keeps the top end from getting buried, which is exactly the brief Gibson said they were solving for, cutting through a three-guitar stage at stadium volume without losing the P-90's character.

The gauge has never moved. The label on the pack has, four times now.