Used these for years and years, but apparently they stopped making them. Always sounded great- bright without being tinny, somehow never sounding dull over time- and practically never broke (important, as I am a ham-fisted player with poor "technique").

Tell me what's good.

I have a nickel allergy so I'm quite limited in terms of what I can use. That said, although my allergy brought me to stainless steel strings, I genuinely love them. They are bright and clangy and last really well. Rotosound British Steel, but there are many others...

E Standard tuned guitar: Whatever the standard ass nickel-wound D'Addario 10's are that come in a 10 pack

C# Standard tuned guitar: Some standard-ass nickel-wound Dunlop 12's (also available in multipack)

Bass: For this i'm specific....Rotosound RS77LD Jazz Bass Strings. They're 45-105 Monel flats and theyre perfect. As a bonus, if you want a slightly heavier set the Steve Harris signatures are the same thing and the silks are, obviously, West Ham colors.

I've used D'addario forever. Played 10s and switched to 11s couple years ago.

A few years ago I discovered wound Gs weren't relegated to acoustic/jazzbox gauges. Since then that's how I've rolled, generally .010s or .011s depending on scale length.
So far I've only used D'Addario wound G sets, but only because most stores stock a greater variety of D'Addarios; I'm not at all married to the brand. It would be fun to pretend like I'm discerning about which strings I use, but you could Pepsi Challenge me by secretly swapping my D'Addarios for Ernie Balls or GHSs and I doubt I'd ever notice.

I third D'Addario. I'm used to playing bass, I found the 11s work for me. I never change my strings either, and these still sound great.

I tried out a D'Addario set 100 years ago and didn't like them for some reason I can't remember now. Probably give the Rotosound Ultramag 10s a go, as it looks close enough to what I've been using.

Thanks a bunch, friendos.

Check out Thomastik Infeld! Beautiful strings of many sorts. Their flats are sublime

Literally anything except D’Addario.

Boomers and other round cores require a special wrapping technique around the post of the tuner. They are nicely less bright, though.

Gibson "Humbucker special alloy" have been a favorite for a while. Someone recently gave me a bunch of sets of the standard D'addario's and i was surprised at how much i like them. A bit rougher on the fingers, but otherwise great. 10's and 11's for both, my main criteria being longevity under duress, and sound, regardless of what's downstream in the signal chain.