| Strings come in a bewildering variety of flavours, so what should you choose? It's very much a matter of taste and of what suits your banjo the best. Price is also important of course. With modern production methods there's hardly any quality difference between the "standard" string brands, so unless you know exactly what to look for, you might want to buy the ones that cost you the less. The most important difference between various string types is probably the thread alloy. For Irish/Celtic style music I recommend you go for the fuller and rounder sound of bronze/brass strings rather than steel-wound strings. Whether you prefer the extra brightness of phosphor bronze over regular bronze is up to you.
The only exception I can think of to this is the small banjos. For the mandolin-banjo, banjolin and banjolele it might be a good idea to go for the brilliance of silver-plated steel. Confused? Don't worry too much. There are no such things as bad strings anymore - or at least they are very rare - so you should get a perfectly good result no matter what you choose. I've had a look around the internet and found a couple of good string brands I'll recommend. It's a long list, so I've split it up according to instrument: If you want to learn more about the differences between strings, take a look at the strings page in the banjo anatomy section.
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