Urban Legend?

[Projectile]

I was told ages ago by a professional luthier that all guitar strings are made in a small handful of factories (I think it was 6 or 7) and they are just re-branded and sold under a bunch of different names. They are sometimes made to different specs for each client company and some companies will buy them and apply their own special processes, but they are essentially all made in the same handful of factories. I just took it as truth because he was a pretty knowledgeable guy, buy I've noticed that I've never seen this nugget of information brought up anywhere else, so I started to question it's validity.

So, does anyone here know for certain the real truth? Any sources to back this up or not? Does anyone know if any of the major string companies are actually from the same factory?

[jasper383]

I would definitely believe the 6-7 factory number. Maybe more, maybe fewer.

How many bass string brands are there in the US? Perhaps 15? When you knock it down to the brands that are known to be made by other companies (ex: Hartke made by D'Addario, Lakland made by GHS, Sadowsky made by La Bella, etc.), it whittles down to about 6-7 pretty quickly.

[Jazz Ad]

It is true. Which doesn't mean they're all the same.
It is just the same for speakers. There are roughly 10 major bass speaker builders worldwide but they're all different.
Strings or speakers, they can be tuned to the taste of the cutomer.

[cnltb]

Yep.
I too believe this to be the case.