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I have recently put D'Addario Chromes on two of my guitars, 11-50s with a wound G. On both guitars, the G string sounds like a sitar whereas none of the other strings exhibit this. One of them had a fret level and crowning within the past six months. This was not a problem with the roundwound strings on the guitars immediately before.
Is this something other people have experienced? The wound G string on Chromes is pretty light (.022) and I wonder if D'Addario is having problems pulling that off. I'd rather not go with a plain G on one of those guitars, the other one it might be OK.
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09-10-2025 11:32 AM
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I had one same problem. It happens! They are available by the string. That's how I buy them. Only had the one bad out of about six custom sets.
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Wow - sorry to hear you have a problem lke this! I used Chromes on all my guitars for many years and still have them on 2. I've never encountered this or any other problem with them and just put a fresh set of 11-65s on my 7 string flat top yesterday. I've used every gauge set of Chromes they offer over the years and had a zero failure rate among them all.
I assume you replaced similar gauge strings with the Chromes. If you replaced heavier strings and your setups have very little relief plus very low action, you might have to add a bit more relief and/or up the action at the bridge. Even with a fresh L/C/P, there are often very minor discrepancies that are only detectable when a string gets a few thousandths of an inch too close to a fret somewhere. This can also come from the nut, if the slot is too wide or the nut is cracked. But having the exact same problem on 2 different guitars argues against a focal problem like these. If the same luthier did the same setup on both, it's possible that he or she might have radiused the nut and/or frets with a slightly larger radius than the fingerboard. This would bring the G &/or D string closest to the frets before the rest, and it would explain the buzzing if you went down in string tension with this change. But that's really a long shot. You don't say if it buzzes both open and at every fret or if the buzzing is limited to a specific fret or range of frets on the fingerboard.
A bad run of Gs is certainly a possibility, no matter how rare. The easiest way to check is to replace one with another string and see if the problem goes away.
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While I've not used .022 I've had an issue once with a .024, a quick email to D'add... and they sent me replacement sets and 3rds. They do have a great customer service.
Originally Posted by Cunamara
I thought this thread was interesting too More likely to get sitar sounds with flats than rounds?
S
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I've on occasion experienced "wound G string buzz" in gauges ranging from .022-.026 from 2 or 3 different manufacturers, both round and flat wound but AFAIR, always on a round core. I was beginning to draw conclusions from this, although it's true that Thomastik Bebops and Swings are round core and they've been OK in that department.
I have used D'Addarios (rounds and flats - always hex core) more than any other maker over the years and don't recall ever experiencing the problem with them.
Anyway, maybe this string in the set is just generally more prone to issues on account of its smaller core and wrap wire, making precision in the winding process even more critical than in the case of others?
¡No sé!
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I had the same problem with an .022 gauge Daddario FW G string on my Howard Roberts Fusion, I replaced it with a .020 plain string. To my ears,the difference in string balance quickly faded. Same set on my GB10, no problems with the G string there.
Tom
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If these are from TWO sets of strings, I'd suspect they had a bad run in that batch. It happens.
I had a repair come in once, had an intermittent sitar that you describe. I spent HOURS trying to locate the source; and every time I thought I nailed it, adjusted the instrument, 5 minutes later it would appear and then disappear again.
That's the day I discovered that loose windings can be a thing.
Now it's among the list that I check for from the onset.
It's really annoying, but it happens. Maybe even on a lot scale.
Good luck!
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I recently purchased and installed Chromes (11- 50) on my Casino. And yes, the G string had a sitarish buzzing. Not happening before! And I determined that it was not fret buzz - it seemed to come from the bridge. But not on all G string notes.
Since I did not like the way that guitar played or sounded with the Chromes ( they just did not suit that guitar) I removed them and forgot about the string buzzing. Back to round wounds and a plain G.
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Use the G from a ghs set. That's what I do.
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Is this on just open strings, or fretted strings, or both? If fretted, which frets?
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Being that the OP has the strings on two different guitars, and the OP didn't have the problem before on those two guitars, that the issue would be the two 3rd strings. Originally Posted by sgosnell
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A bit of lore I heard years ago is to pluck the wound string and look at it. It should appear to be two separate strings. If it doesn't, it isn't vibrating properly. Bad string.
Easy enough to try.
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I typed this in a different thread but you might want to try a plain G string instead of a wound G string. I resisted for many years but I am liking plains better now. There is something nice about having three wound bass strings and three plain treble strings.
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I am going to try that on the Tele, I've got some plain Gs laying around. On the GB10 my inner traditionalist is resisting.
D'Addario is going to send me a replacement.
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Mine did for a long time. I haven't changed all my guitars to plain Gs. My archtops still have wound Gs on them. Haven't decided on those yet. But I am not going to let my inner traditionalist stop me. Originally Posted by Cunamara
... On the GB10 my inner traditionalist is resisting...
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Well, Jim Hall used a plain G on his archtop guitar, at least in the last decade or so of his days, and nobody said his tone sucked very often. So it might be doable. Ed Bickert used a plain G on his Tele (and .010s) and his tone was fairly good.
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The replacement string sent by D'Addario (.022 Chromes) does not "sitar."
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Great. Did you fathom out the reason why those particular strings sitared? Originally Posted by Cunamara
The replacement string sent by D'Addario (.022 Chromes) does not "sitar."
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No, my best guess is that the wrapping just was not quite tight enough at some spot on the string. Although nothing is visible or feel-able in that regard. The original string sitar-ed from the first to the 13th fret (but not open, interestingly enough); this string, with no other adjustments to the guitar, doesn’t sitar anywhere.
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