wade
New member
This is my experience with Cobalt strings.
First, I'll provide a little background. I have been playing guitar for over 22 years and I am always chasing the tools to help me achieve superior tone. I play blues, rock and metal (not that low, detuned nu-metal stuff). I play clean, with slight breakup, and with higher gain. Just like pickup and amplifier choice is a major part of the overall tone, so are the strings. The strings are where the tone originates and has a major impact of a guitar's overall tone and are likely the most important factor.
Years ago, I used to play Ernie Ball Slinky's (9s, 10s and Hybrids - I played Hybrids for many years) but I haven't strung up EB's in a long time. I have mostly been playing SIT PowerWound 10s because they give me the tone that's in my head. Every so often (once a year for a month or so) I'll start trying out different brands and types of strings just for experimentation purposes and over the years, I have tried a lot of different strings (but not everyting). Suffice it to say that I do not like most strings that I have tried on the basis of tone - they are too bright, harsh, or too thin-sounding, etc. I never had issues with EB strings. I had just found that over the last 6 years that SIT PW 10s (and also more recently D'Addario EXP110s - but they're a bit brighter) give me the tone that I like the most.
I noticed the Ernie Ball Cobalt strings marketing campaign (how could anyone miss it?) and again started wondering how these would sound. I had been waiting for my local Guitar Center to stock the new Ernie Ball Cobalt guitar strings and finally the day came when they were listed with a status of "in stock." I stopped by and picked up two sets of Ernie Ball 2721 Cobalt Regular Slinky guitar strings (10s). My main guitar right now is an ESP Eclipse II Standard 22-fret with EMG 81 (bridge) /60 (neck) pickups, bone nut and a Gotoh Tune-O-Matic style bridge. I was using a set of D'Addario EXP110s that were in very good conditions. I changed them out for the Cobalts. I have been using I tuned up, stretched the strings and they stabalized quickly and stayed in tune very well. I performed a quick setup, setting the intonation which only needed very minor saddle adjustments. I took a break and came back about an hour later. I checked the tuning. The guitar was still perfectly in tune. I warmed up the amp and began playing... ...and listening. The feel was really different and very good - silky. The clean tone was great. It was very bold. It was different. When I started playing with some breakup, I immediately noticed that it sounded "off." When I played full-on heavy metal I really noticed how different the overall tone was. I thought to myself that these string could not sound THIS different. Something else had to be wrong, but nothing else changed in my rig. The tone was VERY loud on the low-end; too much bass. The mids seemed to disappear. The highs seemed as though I had rolled my tone knob all the way back. I checked to see if I had indeed rolled my tone knob back, but it was all of the way forward (100% treble). I also checked my wah pedal. I was bypassed. Just to be sure, I removed it from my signal chain by unplugging it and rerouting the cables to bypass it. The same different sounding tone was there. Over the next week, I played for at least 2 hours a day with these new strings. I had some others listen, even non-musicians and I did not tell them that I changed anything but everyone kept saying that it did not sound right. I thought so too. I started re-EQing everything. Maybe I just needed to re-dial in my tone since these new Cobalt strings are "EQed" differently. I wasn't getting satisfaction. I plugged directly into my Stiletto Deuce, no pedals, no effects loop - just a man with a guitar plugged into his amp with a 10' Monster Power Rock cable. I was still not satisfied. Hmm...maybe the battery in the guitar that run the EMGs needs to be changed. I put in a fresh 9v battery. No difference in tone. I played for a few more days. I read more reviews in forums online. Everyone is raving about these strings, about how good the tone is. What were they hearing? I was not hearing it. So finally I changed back to a new set of D'Addario EXP110s. I repeated the same exact string changing and setup process. I corrected my amp and pedal EQ settings. Boom. My tone was restored, if not a little bright (D'Addario EXPs are a bit brighter than the SIT PW 10s I usually use). It's been a few days since I switched back from Cobalts. I love my current tone.
I don't know what I was hoping to find with the Cobalts, but I did not find what I was looking for. That is not to say that they aren't great strings. I love the feel of the Cobalts. They played great. I thought that I read somewhere or heard in a promotional video something about creating a new tone with these strings. Yes, indeed, these string will give you a new tone. I 100% agree with that. It may be just the tone you're looking for. It was not the tone I was looking for. I am very surprised about how radiacally different the tone of the these strings are. They sound like they're tuned for a low-end (that is, bass tone, not quality - they are high quality strings) sound. For my experience, it may be that I already have my tone diealed in, so obviously changing anything will likely affect my tone, so I am biased in that way.
I have another set of Cobalts. I will likely use them on another one of my guitars, probably a guitar with passive pickups.
First, I'll provide a little background. I have been playing guitar for over 22 years and I am always chasing the tools to help me achieve superior tone. I play blues, rock and metal (not that low, detuned nu-metal stuff). I play clean, with slight breakup, and with higher gain. Just like pickup and amplifier choice is a major part of the overall tone, so are the strings. The strings are where the tone originates and has a major impact of a guitar's overall tone and are likely the most important factor.
Years ago, I used to play Ernie Ball Slinky's (9s, 10s and Hybrids - I played Hybrids for many years) but I haven't strung up EB's in a long time. I have mostly been playing SIT PowerWound 10s because they give me the tone that's in my head. Every so often (once a year for a month or so) I'll start trying out different brands and types of strings just for experimentation purposes and over the years, I have tried a lot of different strings (but not everyting). Suffice it to say that I do not like most strings that I have tried on the basis of tone - they are too bright, harsh, or too thin-sounding, etc. I never had issues with EB strings. I had just found that over the last 6 years that SIT PW 10s (and also more recently D'Addario EXP110s - but they're a bit brighter) give me the tone that I like the most.
I noticed the Ernie Ball Cobalt strings marketing campaign (how could anyone miss it?) and again started wondering how these would sound. I had been waiting for my local Guitar Center to stock the new Ernie Ball Cobalt guitar strings and finally the day came when they were listed with a status of "in stock." I stopped by and picked up two sets of Ernie Ball 2721 Cobalt Regular Slinky guitar strings (10s). My main guitar right now is an ESP Eclipse II Standard 22-fret with EMG 81 (bridge) /60 (neck) pickups, bone nut and a Gotoh Tune-O-Matic style bridge. I was using a set of D'Addario EXP110s that were in very good conditions. I changed them out for the Cobalts. I have been using I tuned up, stretched the strings and they stabalized quickly and stayed in tune very well. I performed a quick setup, setting the intonation which only needed very minor saddle adjustments. I took a break and came back about an hour later. I checked the tuning. The guitar was still perfectly in tune. I warmed up the amp and began playing... ...and listening. The feel was really different and very good - silky. The clean tone was great. It was very bold. It was different. When I started playing with some breakup, I immediately noticed that it sounded "off." When I played full-on heavy metal I really noticed how different the overall tone was. I thought to myself that these string could not sound THIS different. Something else had to be wrong, but nothing else changed in my rig. The tone was VERY loud on the low-end; too much bass. The mids seemed to disappear. The highs seemed as though I had rolled my tone knob all the way back. I checked to see if I had indeed rolled my tone knob back, but it was all of the way forward (100% treble). I also checked my wah pedal. I was bypassed. Just to be sure, I removed it from my signal chain by unplugging it and rerouting the cables to bypass it. The same different sounding tone was there. Over the next week, I played for at least 2 hours a day with these new strings. I had some others listen, even non-musicians and I did not tell them that I changed anything but everyone kept saying that it did not sound right. I thought so too. I started re-EQing everything. Maybe I just needed to re-dial in my tone since these new Cobalt strings are "EQed" differently. I wasn't getting satisfaction. I plugged directly into my Stiletto Deuce, no pedals, no effects loop - just a man with a guitar plugged into his amp with a 10' Monster Power Rock cable. I was still not satisfied. Hmm...maybe the battery in the guitar that run the EMGs needs to be changed. I put in a fresh 9v battery. No difference in tone. I played for a few more days. I read more reviews in forums online. Everyone is raving about these strings, about how good the tone is. What were they hearing? I was not hearing it. So finally I changed back to a new set of D'Addario EXP110s. I repeated the same exact string changing and setup process. I corrected my amp and pedal EQ settings. Boom. My tone was restored, if not a little bright (D'Addario EXPs are a bit brighter than the SIT PW 10s I usually use). It's been a few days since I switched back from Cobalts. I love my current tone.
I don't know what I was hoping to find with the Cobalts, but I did not find what I was looking for. That is not to say that they aren't great strings. I love the feel of the Cobalts. They played great. I thought that I read somewhere or heard in a promotional video something about creating a new tone with these strings. Yes, indeed, these string will give you a new tone. I 100% agree with that. It may be just the tone you're looking for. It was not the tone I was looking for. I am very surprised about how radiacally different the tone of the these strings are. They sound like they're tuned for a low-end (that is, bass tone, not quality - they are high quality strings) sound. For my experience, it may be that I already have my tone diealed in, so obviously changing anything will likely affect my tone, so I am biased in that way.
I have another set of Cobalts. I will likely use them on another one of my guitars, probably a guitar with passive pickups.
