How to Differentiate Between Nylon and Nickel Strings

The key to differentiating between a set of nylon strings and a set of nickel strings is looking at the treble strings. Nickel treble strings look, feel and sound much different than nylon trebles. Here are the main differences.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Guitar
• Set of Mystery Strings

1. Check what type of guitar you are playing. Electric guitars never use nylon strings and almost always use nickel. Steel string acoustic guitars can be strung with nickel, steel or nylon strings. Classical guitars are generally strung with nylon strings.

2. Look at the three treble strings. If they are nylon, they will be black or translucent. If they are nickel, they will be shiny and metallic in color.

3. Play the strings. Nickel strings have a bright, ringing sound whereas nylon strings have a darker, warm sound.

4. Tune the guitar to standard tuning and finger a chord. Nickel strings will bite into your fingers more than nylon strings.

5. Pull one of the treble strings sideways along the guitar neck as if you were bending the note. Both nylon and nickel strings bend fairly easily, but nylon will bend much more easily than nickel.

Tips & Warnings

• Nylon string guitars generally only have pure nylon strings on the three treble strings. The bass strings are generally a nylon core wound with silver-plated copper.