Hello there, back again with another article for you! This time, I’ll provide the best strings for a fretless electric guitar comparison article, along with a short demo video. When it comes to fretless electric guitars, most people prefer flat-wound strings over round-wound strings. But in the end, it all comes down to one’s personal preferences.
Table of Contents
Guitar Strings For Fretless Electric Guitars
For this article, I wanted to feature the three options that I had. This article and corresponding video were all made right after my last visit to Frankfurt MusikMesse back in 2017. I managed to get in touch with many wonderful MI companies, including but not limited to La Bella, Thomastik and also Elixir. Even though my company wasn’t a dealer of Elixir, we met anyway! 🙂
La Bella and Thomastik were our long-term partners, and they gifted me some strings that might be a good fit for this test. So, basically, we have a La Bella Jazz Tapes 800 Black Nylon Wound and Thomastik Infeld Jazz Swing JS111 Flat Wound strings, as well as my favourite Elixir 12102 Nanoweb Coated (already on my guitar). Sound-wise, I reckon you won’t hear that much difference.
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La Bella 800 Jazz Tapes, Black Nylon – 10 46
La Bella 800 series Jazz Tapes, Black Nylon strings were absolutely the most unique and unusual out of the three sets. The unique thing about these strings is that the low E, A and D strings are tape-wound with black nylon, which may sound weird for guitar strings that are designed for electric guitars. The rest of the set is pretty much standard strings.
One thing, though: I was using the 800R, which probably stands for regular gauge. That means the G string wasn’t tape-wound in this test. At least, this was exactly what I captured in the video. In the current production line, the 800L, which is the light tension and 800M, which is the medium tension, both feature a wound G string. 
As I don’t really have any experience with the archtop, semi-hollow jazz guitars and how they are traditionally played, I couldn’t really bond with these strings. These were definitely not made for modern electric guitars. It was pretty difficult to play, and the strings didn’t really ring well on my fretless. But I included these in the test anyway, as it really made sense in the context of this test.
As you may guess, from the player’s perspective, I must say La Bella Jazz Tapes was clearly my least favourite one, as the tape-wound strings did not feel as OK as the plain strings of the same set. 
Elixir Nanoweb Medium – 11 -49
If you are a regular reader of my blog and have watched my YouTube videos, you may already know that I’m a big fan of Elixir strings. Although I have been trying and testing many other guitar strings, whether they are coated, pure nickel, or nickel-plated steel strings, I still believe there are no better coated guitar strings on the planet than Elixirs.
Check out my Elixir Strings review here
If you are not regularly playing, and you don’t want to pick up your guitar and realise the strings have corroded after weeks of not playing your instrument, you should just put on Elixirs and forget about it! 🙂 
As I mentioned in the beginning, after my Ibanez AR300 got converted to a fretless electric, we restrung the guitar with a set of Elixir Nanoweb Medium, and it was probably a couple of months old. In my opinion, the Nanoweb series was a pretty good option for the fretless fingerboard. It was easy to play, and sounded awesome. Now, I’m really curious how the new Optiweb would sound and feel on my fretless guitar, but there’s no way to test this anymore, as I don’t have the guitar.
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Best Guitar Strings for Fretless Electric Guitars (no talking)
Thomastik Infeld Jazz Swing JS111 Flat Wound – 11 47
Last but not least, we have the infamous Thomastik Infeld JS11, flat-wound strings. This was the first time I experienced flat-wound strings on one of my own guitars. During my service in the musical instrument business, I had the chance to test many, many guitars. Once, we had a proper jazz guitar that came with flat-wound strings, and I wasn’t able to play it! 🙂
I think if you are a rock/blues kind of guitar player, flatwounds are definitely not for you. The main reason for that is that bending strings is extremely difficult with flatwound strings. These strings are definitely made for a specific genre of playing style. However, on fretless guitars, this is a pretty good edge in my opinion.
As you can only do vibratos with the violin technique (your fingers vibrating the notes going up and down in the direction of the strings), it’s extremely easy to do as the strings are flat-wound. Flat-wound strings don’t have the grippy feeling of standard electric guitar strings.
And The Winner is?
In this particular test, Thomastik Infeld JS111 was the clear winner for me. However, if I didn’t have the chance to supply these, I’d still be happy with Elixirs. Unfortunately, I couldn’t test Elixirs on my fretless guitar for the longer term usage and impact on the fingerboard. But I believe the fingerboard would survive! 🙂
La Bella Jazz Tapes was my least favourite; I don’t think it was the best option to test on a more modern electric/fretless guitar; rather, it was made for the old-fashioned archtop, jazz guitars with a tailpiece.
Pricing & Availability
As I mentioned, I was really lucky to be in the MI industry and build personal relationships with the beautiful companies and people back in the day. So, never had to search for these items around! 🙂 As Thomastik Infeld is an Austrian company, it’s pretty easy to supply their products in the EU. Elixir is also pretty easy to supply anywhere across the globe. La Bella sometimes lacks some of their products, but usually after a while they settle in certain markets and are available.
In order to purchase these strings, I’d suggest you visit the Thomann links below; many thanks for your support!
Check out La Bella 800 Jazz Tapes, Black Nylon – 10 46 on Thomann here
Check out Elixir Nanoweb Medium – 11 -49 on Thomann here
Check out Thomastik Infeld Jazz Swing JS111 Flat Wound – 11 47 on Thomann here
Alternatively, you can check out Reverb, as there are many resellers selling all sorts of strings there, including the ones featured in this article!
Check out La Bella 800 Jazz Tapes, Black Nylon – 10 46 on Reverb here
Check out Elixir Nanoweb Medium – 11 -49 on Reverb here
Check out Thomastik Infeld Jazz Swing JS111 Flat Wound – 11 47 on Reverb here
Also, Amazon can be an alternative place to purchase these strings. As there are not only official stores of these manufacturers, but also other resellers listing the strings, you may just find these based on your location.
Check out La Bella 800 Jazz Tapes, Black Nylon – 10 46 on Amazon here
Check out Elixir Nanoweb Medium – 11 -49 on Amazon here
Check out Thomastik Infeld Jazz Swing JS111 Flat Wound – 11 47 on Amazon here
Hope you enjoy this brief article and video! Thanks for visiting my blog, and see you in the next piece of content!
