ATZ100

D'Addario XL Nickel Wound 10-46 on the Ibanez ATZ100 is Andy Timmons' factory-spec rig — Andy has been a D'Addario artist since 1991 (35+ years) and the ATZ100 ships with EXL110 .010-.046 strings as his official factory installation. As Andy puts it on the D'Addario artist archive: "D'Addario has been my string of choice for over 30 years.

They give me consistent warmth, clarity, intonation, and durability that I can count on every night." Conventional wisdom: every Ibanez shred forum upgrades to NYXL 9-42 (Vai-spec) or 11-49 (heavier shred) — the polarized lighter-or-heavier camps. Mismatch logic: 10-46 is the perfect middle that suits Andy's instrumental-rock-meets-pop voice — heavier than 9s gives the tonal authority for chord-melody passages on 'Cry For You' / 'Electric Gypsy', lighter than 11s preserves the wide-vibrato bend articulation he learned from Vai and Satriani.

Best for ATZ100 owners following Andy's instrumental-rock vocabulary; skip if you specifically want lighter Vai-9s or heavier shred-11s.