Once upon a time, in a garage in California (it seems that all modern legends start this way), a brilliant but non-conformist young man opened the world’s very first store dedicated entirely to the guitar in the mid-1950s.
At that time, both music and playing techniques were evolving, and guitarists were forced to use banjo strings (the thinnest available at the time) because there were no strings with a lighter gauge to match their increasing dexterity.
The brilliant young man, Roland S. Ball, better known as Ernie Ball, was constantly in touch with these musicians and had a groundbreaking idea: in 1962, he created the first range of modern string gauges, the Slinky.
At a time when the standard string set was 13-56, with a wound G string, Ernie Ball was the first to introduce modern gauges (based on 10-46) and to offer individual strings, paving the way for faster playing styles and… for Rock 'n' Roll!
The continuation of this fantastic story remains marked by innovation, with the recent introduction of Cobalt and M-Steel strings.
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