At Dunlop, we’re committed to producing the best tools to help musicians realize their potential. We do this by manufacturing our products onsite in Benicia, California so that we have complete control over the manufacturing process. This commitment has made us the world’s most trusted manufacturer of music accessories, renowned for innovation, quality, and reliability for more than 40 years.

Dunlop Senior String Designer Les O’Connor

Dunlop Strings are no exception. Veteran string builder Les O’Connor helms our Dunlop Strings facility. “We built a string factory from the ground up so that we would have complete control over every detail,” says O’Connor. With state-of-the-art string machines, O’Connor spent years analyzing and experimenting with different formulas, discovering what worked and what could work better, developing new processes and techniques along the way.

Even with state of the art equipment, however, O’Connor felt limited. “We took cutting-edge machines and hot-rodded them,” says O’Connor. “This allowed us to create unique formulas that deliver high performance strings every time we wind.”

Doug Aldrich

“The first thing I noticed is that they’re really consistent,” says Whitesnake guitarist Doug Aldrich.

We tested our newly-designed strings with countless guitars and rigs and sent them on the road with top artists, fine-tuning as we got feedback, leading to the formulas we use today. “The formulas that we developed give the string a much more natural feel and tone. It allows the guitar player to really connect with his guitar,” says O’Connor.

With production going forward, we implemented strict storage and handling regulations to ensure that our raw materials are in the best possible condition when they go into our machines.

“We built a climate-controlled facility to store material and build our strings in,” says Vice President Jasmin Dunlop Powell. “We pay extra special attention to the quality of the materials and if anything doesn’t meet our expectations, we reject them. That means nothing of inferior quality gets into our strings.”

“We test at the wire,” says String Production Manager Bryan Hartley. “Before a wire even sees a machine it’s inspected and tested. We test at the ball end level, we test at the winding level, we test at the packaging level.”

Our string packaging provides three layers of moisture protection while each protective envelope also reduces metal-on-metal contact. “Each set of Dunlop strings is going to be as fresh as when they were manufactured,” says O’Connor.

The result is a family of vibrant strings that play comfortably and last a long time, with consistent quality, tone, feel, and tension from string to string and set to set, whether electric or acoustic, whether guitar, bass, mandolin, or banjo. In different settings, with different instruments, Dunlop strings nevertheless have a sound and feel all their own.

“When I switched to Dunlop Strings…it was like, these things feel great,” says Doug Aldrich. “The tension feels great, the gauging…But you never know until you keep buying them.”

Zakk Wylde

“They gotta be slammin or I won’t play em,” says Black Label Society vocalist/lead guitarist Zakk Wylde. “[Jimmy Dunlop] sent me a couple different sets of strings. I said, ‘Jim, these are the ones.’ They’re kickass—I use all of them: the acoustics, the classical, the electrics. They all sound killer. They take a beating and I don’t go around breaking strings.”

Jimmy Dunlop

“We can’t control where the music goes; we can’t control where the music is going to take us all,” says Vice President Jimmy Dunlop. “It’s the artists…it’s not going to be my products that hold them back. If they want to take it a little further, we’re going to be there so they can reach their potential.”