Thomastik BB112

Thomastik has an almost 100-year old tradition in producing strings in Europe. The strings are slightly more expensive than competition but provide durability and fatness that is superior to most of other popular brands.

Those types of strings would typically be used on the archtop guitars or the more jazz-oriented semi-hollow instruments. The tones provided by this set are very warm and wooden. You can easily obtain the tones of the bebop players of the era, when used with solid state amp and an archtop instrument.

B112 provides a set of gauges ranging from 0.012 to 0.050. Flat wound strings differ in touch than the traditional nickel strings. It is recommended that you check the feel in the shop on some jazz guitars first. For some players the feel on fingers may be a surprising experience.

Unwound string G compelents the whole set and increases playability. The overall tone you can get is very well balanced.

The set is of great quality and playability. However, the players used to lighter gauges will be surprised by the fact that jazz strings are harsher on fingers (especially while sliding) and bending is significantly harder. It is worth playing on heavier gauges to increase finger strength and also focus more on articulation and musicality, which is often lost when the instruments are overly playable and necks are fast.

The strings work well with the low-action instrument. The set provides sufficient tension so no extraneous fret noise is produced when the guitar is set up properly.

I can recomment those strings to any archtop or semi-hollow guitar owner who is willing to explore traditional jazz genres. The fatness and dynamics of the tones is really rewarding, even when slightly more effort is required from your fingers. When coupled with a good instrument, the tone is beautifully propagated by the acoustic resonance of the body.

Do not buy these strings! Unless you have incredibly mellow pickups.
Buy the BB113 set instead! The G string on this set is unwounded and BOOMy as hell. Even with pickup pole piece adjustments it was still incredibly boomy.

See, words can't describe how boomy it is. It's amazing for melodies. It sounds like a female voice singing at the top of her lungs. But it just doesn't sound as good in chords, it overpowers all the other notes. It didn't change even after playing them for months, until all the colour wore out. With the giant caveat that if you have custom incredibly mellow pickups, the opposite might be true and these strings are exactly what you want. To be clear, acoustically you can't really hear the boominess. It's there but it's not nearly as pronounced

Yes, it's beautiful, brass plated in gold colour. Yes, they will last you forever. Matches perfectly with gold hardware. However if you want a mellow jazzy sound, especially on chords, buy the BB113 set! It's also got the thinnest strings in gold colours so don't worry about that. The BB113 set is, ironically, also easier to bend! (I mean on the two thinnest strings) My theory is that because they are thicker don't cut into your flesh as much ;)