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Cobalt are amazing!!

Roberta Rizzo

Roberta Rizzo

Active member
Joined
Sep 20, 2011
Messages
28
Hi everyone:) I've just tried the new cobalt :) here in italy are not available yet so i had to order them from the usa.......they are AMAZING thank you ernie ball for making such great strings <3 they have the greatest sound i could imagine :D
i have a 7 strings guitar so i had to add a normal EB string :/ but that's ok....
Ernie Ball's name is a guarantee quality :D
Love love love <3
 
I have used nothing but D'A EXL 110's for more than 20 years. A month or so ago, my local shop got some of the Cobalts and the guys were raving about how good they were. Me being the skeptic, I strung one of my JP's with Cobalts and the other one with a new set of D'Ad's for a show. The two guitars are basically identical except fretboard material. Both have the CL-LF pickups. Played the first set with D'A's on roasted JP. The second set I picked up my other, and I was blown away! This is no hype guys. I have never heard anthing as full sounding and musical as these strings. I now have them on all my electric guitars, and I'm gonna try them on my basses next. Bye, bye D'Ad.

Zac
 
From the first time I've used the Cobalts (10z) I was immediately feeling and hearing the difference.. Smoother,buttery,gain seems to be higher and when teamed up with a beautifully set up MM neck there's no stopping you.. But I've also used them on my other endorsement's line of guitars and it's equally impressive.. I'm just blown away.. I've noticed a difference in my performance as well as now I know I'm using the best.. Absolutely fabulous job my EB on this line, mos def a game changer in the string world.. Mahalo RJ
 
Just received 2 sets of cobalts 10s and am trying to figure out which guitars are getting the treatment. My Prs Limited ed McCarty and my '90 silo are the frontrunners.

Looking forward to it as I've heard rakes of great reviews from all over the place and I want to get in on the action. Have been using cleartones for the last while.

Lets see if you can blow me away again ebmm???
 
pedalbored said:
I have used nothing but D'A EXL 110's for more than 20 years. A month or so ago, my local shop got some of the Cobalts and the guys were raving about how good they were. Me being the skeptic, I strung one of my JP's with Cobalts and the other one with a new set of D'Ad's for a show. The two guitars are basically identical except fretboard material. Both have the CL-LF pickups. Played the first set with D'A's on roasted JP. The second set I picked up my other, and I was blown away! This is no hype guys. I have never heard anthing as full sounding and musical as these strings. I now have them on all my electric guitars, and I'm gonna try them on my basses next. Bye, bye D'Ad.


Zac
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After reading this, I'm looking forward to trying the Cobalt's. I've only used D'A's for a as long as i can remember.
 
Cobalts have great feel and amazing power!
I use the Skinny Top - Heavy Bottom sets.
I feel this set has always produced a well balanced and punchy, low end
while combining crisp top ends.

PURE POWER!

^^^^^^^^^^ERNIE BALL FOR LIFE^^^^^^^^^^^
 
I'll try those as soon as I can. But I have a question: I use RPS', Cobalts don't have the reinforcement right? Does that mean the vulnerability of breaking at the bottom is the same as a Regular Slinky or the Cobalt factor itself makes it unnecessary?

Thanks.
 
The Cobalt sets have regular plain strings. (BTW the cobalt is only the winding on the wound strings). RPS are Reinforced on the Plain Strings, (hence RPS). In a pack of Coated Slinkys, the plain strings are reinforced with a titanium wrap.
 
I've had some pretty serious problems with corrosion on guitars where I tried Cobalts, actually. They sound nice and feel alright but I put three sets on three different guitars before moving to a new city. One guitar was packed away for a few weeks after putting the new strings on, one was played regularly the whole time and one was played less often but left out in the open.

All three sets of strings rusted and, more importantly, corroded the metal on my guitars around them. (I have regular Ernie Ball slinky strings on my other guitars stored in the same environment and played about the same amount.) My strat now has rusty saddles and set screws, my tele's brass saddles are now green (ok, I'll admit that one is kinda cool) and it's ALNICO pole pieces on the bridge pickup are slightly rusted too (didn't know that could even happen). My rickenbacker is in the shop partly because it needed a setup but also because the frets are now quite corroded after having it in a case for a couple weeks with cobalts on it. My Jazzmaster was stored literally right next to it with regular slinkys on and the strings and frets have no ill effects. I can live with the strat and tele damage but the rickenbacker...very upsetting as fretwork is not cheap and its a graduation gift from my dad...
 
Wow. I am so sorry to hear this! Sounds awful! However, I'm pretty sure this is nothing to do with the strings.

For one metal to 'corrode' another we're talking about a process called Galvanic Corrosion. One metal will rust preferentially to the other but we still require an electrolyte, i.e. a liquid that is corrosive to at least one metal to start the whole thing off. The second metal just accelerates the process. And we'd need electrical contact too, which is not the case for the polepieces or most of the frets (which don't touch the strings unless we're playing). Let's get the science right before we start blaming strings. Clearly, something corrosive had to come into contact with these guitars, the metals can't just do it by themselves.

The most common cause I've seen is just good old fashioned sweat and skin oils. Some people are naturally more acidic than others. The frets could give you a clue - if you see the corrosion most prominently on the frets that you play the most, then it's definitely sweat and skin oil causing it. Look at tuning posts too (which we almost never touch) they'll be pretty clean. Sometimes we simply don't notice these things until something changes. Trying a new brand of strings is one change - people naturally look more closely! Moving city and inspecting the guitars for damage in transit certainly falls into that category too.

If you have a problem with your strings that you think is a problem with quality control or workmanship, you should call customer service. That's what they are there for, they are great people, and they will look after you.
 
DrKev said:
Wow. I am so sorry to hear this! Sounds awful! However, I'm pretty sure this is nothing to do with the strings.

For one metal to 'corrode' another we're talking about a process called Galvanic Corrosion. One metal will rust preferentially to the other but we still require an electrolyte, i.e. a liquid that is corrosive to at least one metal to start the whole thing off. The second metal just accelerates the process. And we'd need electrical contact too, which is not the case for the polepieces or most of the frets (which don't touch the strings unless we're playing). Let's get the science right before we start blaming strings. Clearly, something corrosive had to come into contact with these guitars, the metals can't just do it by themselves.

The most common cause I've seen is just good old fashioned sweat and skin oils. Some people are naturally more acidic than others. The frets could give you a clue - if you see the corrosion most prominently on the frets that you play the most, then it's definitely sweat and skin oil causing it. Look at tuning posts too (which we almost never touch) they'll be pretty clean. Sometimes we simply don't notice these things until something changes. Trying a new brand of strings is one change - people naturally look more closely! Moving city and inspecting the guitars for damage in transit certainly falls into that category too.

If you have a problem with your strings that you think is a problem with quality control or workmanship, you should call customer service. That's what they are there for, they are great people, and they will look after you.
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I would normally agree with you but the fact is I had regular ernie balls on my other four guitars and treated them all about the same during this time period. Approximately the same play time on the strings and the same storage environment. Only the cobalts rusted. The others lost luster after a while, of course, but they didn't rust. I have no doubt it has something to do with sweat because they wouldn't just corrode on their own I don't think, but that still means they react poorly to my sweat for some reason where regular slinkys don't. The one with fret issues was stored in a hard case so the strings were in contact with the frets from the pressure of the lid.
 
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I can't over how long the Cobalts are lasting. I've had them on my Ernie Ball and my Tom Anderson for 2 months and I can't tell they've worn at all.
 
I have five of my guitars laced up with cobalts. And the strangest thing is happening to me and I do not know if it's just me being biased or is it really happening. Being a EBMM artists I tend to always want to use EBMM products not just because of being endorsee but I truly believe that EBMM products are the best in the world. Ever since I can remember as a child I've always used their strings and various other things like guitar straps etc. so you could say I've been around the block a few times when it came to Strings. So I can tell you wholeheartedly and honestly as soon as I started using the cobalts I was impressed and quite humbled by the versatility on the strings and how wonderful they were to play it just made playing easier, faster and much more of a joy. My first couple sets came by the way of me asking my artist rep about them as he was kind enough to send me a couple sets to try out. After that I was sold and now I will not use anything else. Anyhow,getting back to the story of how the strangest things seem to happen to me now that I've used to cobalts. See I noticed like everybody else that when you first use the cobalt strings they will be beautiful,
They will be bright and they will be the most wonderful feeling to be playing on.. But after weeks progress I noticed that some tones may change but there is still beautiful tone and gain still left in the strings. It's really hard for me to explain but I'm trying my best LOL. I've been using a sterling by musicman ax30 on the road for the last couple months & it's a great guitar to have to do gigs and travel around with. being I play a lot of reggae, jazz and blues I find myself using second and third position on my five way switch a lot. But as my strings got a little older I've noticed myself even switching to the fourth position and loving the tone there too and I don't know if it's because of the string or my taste changing but by this point I am fully convinced it's because of the cobalts. To me they deliver a lot more options tone Wise then I've had with other brands of strings. I still might find myself using some super slinky and other EBMM strings but I cannot see myself using anything else. I don't know if I'm getting my point across to you all but I really just think that the cobalts are amazing strings and I'm glad that I have found my Way to them. By this point I've opened many packs of cobalt strings and I've never ran into a set that I didn't like. Sorry about rambling on and writing you all a novel which probably didn't make sense to most of you but I tried. LOL :-) aloha
 
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