How Can I Put Nylon Strings on Steel String Acoustic Guitar?

Who doesn’t love the lovely sound of Classical guitars? Do you want to put your nylon strings on your steel-string acoustic guitar? Here’s the detailed guide for you on What happens if you do it and How you can do it yourself?

So, Can you put Nylon Strings on steel-string acoustic guitar? You can put nylon strings on your acoustic guitar But might need to make some adjustments or a full guitar setup. Classical nylon strings don’t have ball ends thus might feel thicker for the nut slot and can lead to excessive string buzzing.

Let’s Dig more into this topic:

What Happens When you Put Nylon Strings on your Guitar?

To be clear, there is not going to happen any kind of magic here. Many people think one should always start with a nylon string than steel acoustic strings. and that’s not true at all.

Usually, Nylon strings being mellow, used for classical and folk music. that means you can’t play music style like rock, country and some other music genre with these strings.

Nylon strings are soft in nature. As they are not made from steel wire, they are going to be gentle on your fingertips. If you’re dealing with finger pain even after a few weeks of practice with steel strings, nylon strings might be a good option for you.

If you’re used to steeling acoustic guitar strings, you’re going to feel this weird. You might be dealing with the excessive buzzing of the strings. Also, you may feel the action is a little low, and high E, B, G strings are a little thicker.

Here’s A Video on How Nylon Strings Sound on Acoustic Guitar:

What are the Best Ball End Nylon Strings for Acoustic Guitar?

There are many classical ball-end nylon strings available in the market. Each string has its own specifications and has its own target audience.

Here, I am listing the top three strings that I find great for you if you’re new to a classical string. Read the specifications of these strings and choose the one that suits you the most.

If you’re not sure whether you should try nylon strings or not, Let see what are the advantages and disadvantages of nylon strings over steel strings.

Also Read: How can I put Acoustic Guitar strings on Electric guitar?

What are the Pros and Cons of Nylon Strings?

Classical nylon strings are popular for their softer sound. If you’re the one who loves more mellow and gentler sound. nylon strings are great for you. In simple words, if you like to play romantic love songs than rock songs, nylon string is the best choice for you.

As the name suggests clearly, nylon strings aren’t made from steel, thus are very soft on your fingers. It makes your practice more enjoyable especially in the beginning when you’re dealing with sore fingers.

Does that mean nylon strings are better than steel acoustic strings? well, let’s check out some cons of the nylon strings.

Nylon strings have relatively less volume than steel ones. Also, Nylon strings get affected by heat much more as compare the steel strings of the same size. As a result, they tend to lose and came out of tuning. Basically, you need to tune nylon strings more often than steel strings.

All you need to know, Nylon strings and steel strings have their own benefits in terms of sound quality and playability. I would rather say, It’s a personal preference. If you like nylon strings sound, go and try them on your acoustic guitar.

You may also like to read: Best Acoustic strings for Yamaha F310

How to put Ball End Nylon Strings on Steel String Acoustic Guitar?

Here is the one detailed and step-by-step video of my friend, so you can’t mess up anything and easily change your nylon strings.

If you have even a little doubt about anything, the comment section is your…

Things to Keep in Mind before you Put Nylon Strings on your Guitar?

This is very obvious when you put nylon strings on your acoustic guitar which is made for steel strings, You need to do some changes or maybe complete setup to your guitar.

When you Put Nylon Strings on your Acoustic Guitar, You May Find:

  1. Your Strings Buzz a Lot
  2. The Action is very Low
  3. High E String sleeps off the Fretboard now and then.
  4. Strings get out of Tune often

These are the common issues many people face (Including me) when they change from steel strings to nylon.

If you’re putting nylon strings for a long time, then you need to make some changes or might be set up your guitar completely to get rid of all these issues. If you adjust your acoustic guitar’s truss rod a bit, you can solve the first two issues, but a complete setup definitely gives you more efficient output from your guitar.

But:

If you’re putting nylon strings just as an experiment, or for a small interval time (Like to record any tune or something!) Then I suggest you just tolerate all these things and don’t try to mess with your guitar unless you know what are you doing.

On a Side Note: Just like you’re thinking about putting classical nylon strings on acoustic guitar, don’t even think about putting steel strings on classical guitar. This might be the simplest way to wreck your classical guitar 🙂

Final Thoughts on Nylon Strings on an Acoustic Guitar:

Overall, nylon strings are good but they are not great or worst as compare to steel-string. both have their own advantages and disadvantages, at last, it all came down to personal preference.

That is it from my side guys. I hope you get a clear idea of whether nylon strings are a good option for you or not. I try to cover almost everything in this article.

What do you think of this experiment and what are your thoughts on this, please tell me in the comments. Also, share this article with your guitar lover friends. I am waiting for your insights…

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