Pyramid Electric Strings 009-042

I've been playing 40 years , part time and professionally , and have more than 15 but less than 20 stage and studio guitars , playing mainly classic rock , pop , and funky soul.

I didn't really have any strong views on strings , and have used Ernie Ball super Slinky, and d'addario xl , for many years and up until about 2 years ago was using GHS Boomers.
My string choices were dictated largely through multi-pack offers on my preferred gauges- I do however very much prefer the sound and feel of new strings, so get through quite a lot.

About 2 years ago I bought a new Fender Jazzmaster AVRI , and the retailer sweetened the deal with half a dozen packs of Fender pure nickel , the Jazzmaster sounded fantastic , and I quite liked the feel , tension and sound . . . When I put them on a couple of my Les Paul's , I really really liked the sound. . . And the wound string tension. . . Bends seemed easier , tuning and intonation seemed improved , bizarre given that both these guitars have Bigsbys . . . and I became a pure nickel convert.

Browsing some forums , I saw some rave reviews of pyramid nickels, and despite being a long time serious player I'd never heard of the brand !

For the last year I've been using these ,
Buying them 10 sets at a time , they are substantially cheaper than the fenders , .. and if you've never tried pure nickels - and like the sound and feel of new strings I would urge you to give these strings a go - if you get on with them , you'll save yourself a lot of money over time vs the well known brands !

I use these strings as backup solution on my LP and Strat. I used to play Ernie Ball and sometimes D'Addario, but as soon as I tried Pyramid I decided to stick with them. These -the blue package- have a great virtue above other Pyramids: price. I mean, they cost nothing. But honestly I prefer other Pyramid models which cost way more. So these ones are my splendid spare wheel.

Sound: nice, balanced, classic. Very versatile, nice sustain, good intonation as well. In a scale in which 0 is dark and 10 is bright these end up like 4.
Good for rock, blues, nothing too extreme on both sides (not the best for jazz, absolutely not good for metal stuff).

Quality: When you open the blue package you don't feel that luxury thrill you could experience with other brands. The outfit is spartan, straight to the point. The strings are not sealed, they're just placed into the paper envelope. Anyway, the durability and reliability of the strings is really good, better than lots of other very popular strings.

Overall Rating: try these strings, for God's sake.

First and most importantly, these are good strings at a very competitive price. When it comes to the makeup of the set, though, it's a case of swings and roundabouts.
I've always found the presence of an 11-gauge B string in a standard set of nines a bit odd, in that it doesn't give balanced tension across the plain strings. Pyramid fix that by substituting a 12. They also deviate from the standard mix, however, by substituting a 22 gauge D string for the more usual 24, which makes it a bit slack compared to the neighbouring A string.
You pays your money and you takes your choice...