The Pure Blues from DR are superb hand made strings, perfect on Strats but also great on humbucker style guitars. They give a particular warm tone on those alnico vintage single coils, especially on the neck pickup, while reacting to the picking well enough to transfer much of the attack to the coils, creating the effect of a slightly compressed sound where you can hear each string you play clearly. They take gain well, however those are not recommended for metal tones. They are fantastic for blue and rock. Pay attention to the printed instructions when changing the strings, they do break as the manual suggest. While you will still want to change the strings often, the DR seem to last forever and keep both tone and tune longer than many other strings I have tried.