Today in guitar: Prime Day is live, Fender turns 75, and Gibson plans a hand-off

Today, June 26, is the final day of Amazon's four-day Prime Day sale, which ran June 23 to 26, and for a strings-first site that is the single most useful window on the calendar (Amazon). Strings are a consumable. You are going to buy your set again whether it is on sale or not, so the only question is how many to stock. We pulled the sets worth your attention into a dedicated guide: Prime Day 2026, the guitar strings worth stocking up on. The short version: buy multipacks of the gauge you already run, in .010 to .046 for most players or .011 to .049 if you bend hard or tune down. Guitar World is tracking the live discounts as they move (Guitar World). Stocking up is only half the value, though. The other half is making each set last, so we also wrote the tech-bench routine that does it: how to make your guitar strings last longer.

Two signature sets that were announced over the past year are now firmly on shelves. The Ernie Ball Slash Signature Slinky (.011 to .048) is the product of three decades of back and forth between Slash and Ernie Ball, built for tuning stability without losing the warmth he is known for. Alongside it, Papa Het's Hardwired Master Core (.011 to .050) is James Hetfield's set, co-developed over a decade around his preferred heavier gauge and a Paradigm core for pitch stability under thrash-rhythm punishment (Ernie Ball).

The string news this month was for the low tuners. Cleartone added two 7-string sets to its Power Series line, a .009 to .052 and a .010 to .056, both on the same Nickel-Iron blend the company uses for output and sustain, available now (Premier Guitar, June 3). One more set of options is a small story on its own, but it is a good excuse to answer a question we get a lot: what do you actually string a 7-string with, and why does the low string do all the work?

So we wrote the whole thing up. The short version is that a 7-string set is a 6-string set with one heavier string added on the bottom, and the gauge of that string is the only real decision. We put the full breakdown, gauge by tuning, into a breakout: how to string a 7-string, and the sets to buy. If you already know your tuning, the fast answer for Drop G# or low B on a standard scale is the Ernie Ball 7-String Slinky Cobalt (.010 to .062), and our 7-string gauge guide maps the rest.

Fender marked its 75th anniversary with a summer update built for the milestone: a 75th Anniversary Nocaster, the Player Fusion Series spread across Strat, Tele, Jaguar, and P Bass, and a new Silent System for Strats and Teles aimed at killing hum without killing single-coil tone (Premier Guitar). For most of the lineup the string decision is the one it always was. The exception is the Player Fusion Jaguar Baritone, a 27-inch scale tuned B to B, which needs a far heavier set than a standard guitar. That is the thread we pulled in a breakout: what scale length does to your strings, from the Nocaster to the new baritone. The short version is that our brand-by-brand catalog covers the sets that fit a 25.5-inch Fender scale, and the baritone wants its own, which we break down set by set in our baritone strings explainer.

Gibson announced a planned leadership transition, the kind of corporate news that rarely changes a product line overnight but shapes the next few years of one (Premier Guitar). For now it is a watch-this-space item. If you play a Les Paul or SG, your strings are unaffected, and a .010 to .046 set on a 24.75-inch Gibson scale sits a touch slinkier than the same gauge on a Fender, which is worth remembering when you pick a gauge.

Gibson's other news this week was a guitar, not a memo. Gibson Custom relaunched the fully hollow ES-330 on June 23, after an eight-year absence, with era-accurate 1959 and 1962 reissues handcrafted in Nashville (Gibson). It is the P-90 archtop that Grant Green and Johnny Marr made famous, a fully hollow guitar with no centerblock, which is what gives it that warm, woody "couch guitar" voice.

For a strings site, a fully hollow guitar is the fun kind of news, because its tone reacts to your string choice more than any solidbody does. A hollowbody wants heavier, warmer sets than a rock guitar: flatwounds for pure jazz darkness, or a wound-third jazz medium like the D'Addario EJ22 (.013 to .056). We pulled the full string guide, and the case for not spending boutique money to get the tone, into a breakout: the strings that make a hollowbody sing.

Away from the sales, the biggest industry story of the month landed in the bass world. Höfner, the German maker of Paul McCartney's iconic 500/1 violin bass, has been saved from bankruptcy. After filing for insolvency in December 2025, the brand has been bought by GEWA, a manufacturer and distributor in which the retailer Thomann holds a major stake, and the 500/1 will keep being built in Germany with 24 production staff retained (No Treble).

For players, the rescue is a good reminder of where the Beatle Bass tone actually comes from. It is not the bass so much as the strings: flatwounds on a short-scale neck. We dug into what the news means, and how to get that thump on any bass, in a full breakout: Höfner survives bankruptcy, and what it means for your tone. The quick version of the string choice is on our flatwound versus roundwound guide.

Staying in the bass world, Rickenbacker introduced an oddball new model this week called the 3030, a semi-acoustic bass that pairs the body of its 330 guitar with a 24.75-inch super-short-scale neck, and ships with flatwound strings rather than the bright roundwounds the brand is famous for (No Treble). It is a limited boutique run that sold out fast in two finishes, so most players will only ever read about it.

That is fine, because the lesson travels. A shorter scale lowers string tension at the same pitch, which is what makes a short-scale bass feel looser and sound warmer, and it changes the strings you can fit. We pulled the full explainer, including what to string a short-scale bass with and the long-scale flats that get you the same thump on a normal bass, into a breakout: what a super-short scale does to your strings. It is a funny turn for the brand that gave Geddy Lee his early growl to chase warmth instead.

Staying with the low end, Fender announced a James Jamerson 1962 Precision Bass this week, an era-correct tribute to the most recorded bass in popular music (Premier Guitar). It is a collector piece, built to look and patina like the 1962 Precision that anchored the Motown catalog. It is gorgeous, and it is not the part that made the funk.

The Jamerson tone is mostly the strings: heavy La Bella flatwounds he left on for years and refused to swap for brighter rounds. You can get that thump on any Precision for the price of a set, which is the whole reason we wrote it up in full: Fender's Jamerson tribute, and the flatwound tone behind Motown. And once a set of flats lands on your bench, fitting them is its own small skill, since flats install differently from rounds and the wrong move breaks the set: how to change flatwound bass strings without breaking the set. The string choice lives on our James Jamerson profile and our flatwound versus roundwound guide. It is the same lesson as the Höfner and the Rickenbacker above: the bass gets the headline, the strings make the sound.

On the acoustic side, Orangewood launched its Melrose Retro Collection on June 23, three guitars built on the genre's three foundational shapes: the Dylan Retro dreadnought, the Nash Retro parlor, and the Brooklyn Retro grand concert, each with a solid spruce top and an LR Baggs pickup (Premier Guitar). A new acoustic is our favorite kind of launch, because the cheapest way to make any of them sound better is the part you can change today: the strings. We pulled the full guide, including which gauge suits which body shape, into a breakout: the strings to put on a new acoustic. The short version is a fresh set of phosphor bronze light, like the D'Addario EJ16, stepping up to a medium on the dreadnought if you strum hard. For the full body-by-body breakdown, from parlor to jumbo, see our guide to acoustic string gauges by body shape.

Staying on the acoustic side, the biggest string launch of Elixir's year is now fully on shelves. Attune, the brand's newest acoustic line, arrived in Phosphor Bronze earlier in 2026 and has since expanded to 80/20 Bronze, so both wrap wires are now shipping (Elixir). The pitch is a mouthful worth unpacking. Elixir calls Attune its "most uncoated coated string yet," a coated set engineered to feel and sound like a bare one while keeping the long tone life the brand is known for (Premier Guitar). It is aimed squarely at the player who loves how long Elixir strings last and dislikes how they feel. We dug into what is actually new, where it sits next to the Nanoweb you already know, and the honest caveat that every durability claim here is Elixir's own, in a breakout: Elixir Attune, the coated string that wants to feel uncoated. The set it iterates on, the Elixir Nanoweb Phosphor Bronze, is one we have verified and stock now.

The Rolling Stones released their first official podcast, Speaking in Tongues, on June 25, a six-episode series with new interviews with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood, narrated by Norah Jones, tracing the making of their album Foreign Tongues due July 10 (Premier Guitar). It is a listen-along, not a gear story, but it is a fine excuse to revisit the most famous string setup in rock. Keith Richards plays five strings, not six: he pulls the lowest string off his Telecaster and tunes the remaining five to open G, G-D-G-B-D low to high, the voicing behind 'Brown Sugar,' 'Honky Tonk Women,' and 'Start Me Up.' We wrote up the whole five-string trick this week, strings and all, in a breakout: why Keith Richards plays five strings, not six. The documented rig lives on our Keith Richards rig page and the full retune on our open G tuning guide. The quick version: take a standard Ernie Ball Regular Slinky set, leave the low E in the packet, and tune the five that remain.

Premier Guitar's 100 Guitarists podcast devoted its newest episode to John Mayer, walking through the playing that made him one of the most studied tone chasers of his generation (Premier Guitar). Mayer's tone is mostly in his hands and his amps, but the one piece you can actually buy is the strings, and he has put his name on a set. The Ernie Ball Silver Slinky is his signature electric set, an unusual .0105 to .047 gauge that sits just above a standard .010 set, for a familiar feel with a touch more body. We decoded the gauge, and what it does and does not get you toward his sound, on the Silver Slinky page and his rig profile. If the .0105 gauge has you wondering what those numbers actually mean, our guide to guitar string gauges lays out the whole ladder.

The day's player news was a quiet one with a loud name attached. Bob Dylan has folded jazz guitarist Julian Lage into his live band, welcomed in without a formal announcement, which Guitar World flagged as one of the more intriguing moves of the year (Guitar World). Lage is the rare jazz virtuoso who plays a Telecaster rather than an archtop, and his warm, vocal tone out of a famously bright guitar is, more than anything, a strings story.

The trick is flatwounds. Lage strings his Telecaster with D'Addario Chromes flatwound electrics, gauged .011 to .050 with an unwound .020 third, which is what rounds off a Tele's top end into that singing jazz voice (Premier Guitar). It is the same lesson as the hollowbody news above: on a jazz-leaning guitar the strings do most of the tone shaping, and a flatwound, or a warm wound-third set like the D'Addario EJ22, gets you most of the way there. We pulled the whole flatwound story, what they are and whether they belong on your guitar, into a breakout: flatwound electric guitar strings, explained. Our hollowbody strings breakout covers the warm end of the shelf in full.

Two of the most studied names in instrumental and heavy guitar moved this week, and both point back to your string drawer. Polyphia announced a 2026 world tour and released a new single, "Can You Feel It," with a North American run that opens September 5 in Dallas and a European leg that closes December 16 in London (No Treble). If the band's clean, slippery lead tone is what you are after, the part you can actually buy is the strings. Guitarist Tim Henson plays a hybrid Ernie Ball signature set, a light plain top over regular-gauge wound strings, and we decoded what that gauge choice does and does not get you on our Tim Henson Signature page and his rig profile.

Heavier news came from the other end of the spectrum. Sleep, the stoner-doom institution, put out its first new music in eight years, a single called "Have Spacesuit Will Travel," with founder Al Cisneros rebuilding the lineup around Melvins drummer Dale Crover and Void guitarist Bubba Dupree (No Treble). Cisneros described the first jam as "blue sunglasses-era Iommi," which is the whole doom lineage in three words: down-tuned, massive, and built on the strings as much as the amp. That is the subject of our full guide to stringing a down-tuned guitar for doom and stoner metal, and the famously light Tony Iommi signature set is the surprising place that lineage starts.

A few more launches worth a glance. Doom outfit Monolord teamed with Dunable Guitars for a limited signature guitar and bass, six of each, in charred swamp ash (Premier Guitar). Doom and stoner tone starts at the strings: heavy gauges held at low tension. We turned that into a full guide this week, how to string a down-tuned guitar for doom and stoner metal, from Drop C to the basement, with the Drop C gauge and tension chart for the math.

Kramer marked 50 years with a six-guitar Anniversary Gold collection, Floyd Rose trems and locking nuts across the range (Premier Guitar). A locking trem changes how you restring more than what you string with, so our Floyd Rose string change guide is the one to bookmark before your first set. And on the low end, Ernie Ball's new Tapewound bass strings, revealed at NAMM in January, are due to ship this summer: a black-nylon wrap built for a warm, upright-style thump that fits right into the flatwound mood of this week's bass news (No Treble). Tapewound is the third bass-string family, a step warmer than a flat, and we broke the whole format down in a breakout: what tapewound bass strings actually do.

Strings got their own bass news too. La Bella launched a short-scale version of its Ian Martin Allison signature set on June 20, a polished stainless roundwound in four-string and five-string gauges, built to bring that same set's feel to a 30-inch neck (No Treble). It is the same lesson as the Höfner and the Rickenbacker above, from the other direction: a short scale changes what you string a bass with, and the string is where the tone lives. Our short-scale strings breakout covers what fits and why.

D'Addario rolled out a new Backline line of electric guitar and bass cases, pitched as protection and organization without the bulk of a traditional hard case (Premier Guitar). Useful if you are gigging, though it is the strings inside the case that we keep an eye on here. For the sets to actually buy while Prime Day runs, start with our deals guide and our NYXL versus XL Nickel breakdown.

PRS introduced the Jon Jourdan Limited Edition today, a stripped-down single-pickup, single-volume guitar limited to 200 units, modeled on the touring instrument of Mammoth's Jon Jourdan (Premier Guitar). It is more of a strings story than it looks. Jourdan had the neck pickup removed, in his words, so its magnets are not pulling on the strings, the same magnetic drag that can choke sustain and smear intonation when a pickup sits too close. Boil a guitar down to one pickup and one knob and the strings become the main tone control you have left, which is the whole premise of this site. The sets that fit a guitar like this live on our brand-by-brand catalog.