Building Canada's Guitar String Company

Canada has given the world some of its most iconic musicians. From Neil Young to Joni Mitchell, The Tragically Hip to Arcade Fire... the list is long, and it doesn't stop growing. We have legendary venues, a thriving community of guitar players, and a music culture that punches well above its weight.

And yet, for all of that, Canada has never really had its own guitar string company.

For decades, every set of strings played by a Canadian guitarist (from the bedroom picker to the touring professional) has been imported from somewhere else. When we finally sat with that fact long enough, it started to feel genuinely strange. And then it started to feel like an opportunity.

It Started With a Conversation in Our Living Room

Like so many ideas, this one showed up one day during a conversation over coffee. Al had known about this gap in the Canadian market for a long time, but he started to notice more people taking notice in Facebook groups and guitar forums. Seeing that question repeated, day after day: "Where can I find Canadian-made strings?" and knowing the answer was... nowhere, it eventually became impossible to ignore.

Al Henry has spent more than thirty years playing guitar: chasing tone, obsessing over gear, and burning through more string sets than he can count. If you've spent any time in that world, you know the type. The kind of player who notices everything.

Amanda Diamond brings a different kind of experience to the table. She's a creative entrepreneur, a Canadian Army Veteran, and a lifelong music lover who has built multiple businesses around a love for creating.

When we started digging into the guitar string industry together, we kept arriving at the same surprising answer: Canada doesn't make guitar strings. Not a single major manufacturer. Just imports, all the way down.

But what if we did? That's when the conversation got serious.

Why Sudbury Made Perfect Sense

Once we decided to actually build this thing, the location made perfect sense.

Sudbury, Ontario is known around the world as the Nickel Capital of the World, and nickel happens to be one of the key materials used in electric guitar string construction. There's something fitting about that. Like our city was already in on the idea.

But it goes beyond the resources located here. Sudbury is a city built on industry, hard work, and the kind of lasting craftsmanship that doesn't cut corners. That felt right for what we were trying to do.

What NorthTone Is Actually About

NorthTone isn't just a guitar string company.

It's a Canadian manufacturing story. It's about tone, quality craftsmanship, consistency, and building something with integrity. It's about proving that great gear can come from regular people who genuinely care about how it sounds and feels.

Canadian guitarists deserve the option to play strings made right here at home. That's not a marketing line. It's the whole reason we're doing this.

Our focus is on these four things: 

• Quality craftsmanship — high quality strings built to perform, set after set.
• Unique Canadian tone — not just a set of strings, but something unique to us.
• Community — supporting Canadian players, and amplifying their voices.
• Canadian manufacturing — proudly manufactured, inspected and packed in Sudbury, Ontario.

Where We're At Right Now

We're still in the early stages. 

But we've already put hundreds of hours into getting this right. Machines are on the way. Raw materials have been ordered. And soon, the first NorthTone strings will be in players' hands.

If you're reading this, you're a part of the NorthTone story from the very beginning. We don't take that lightly. We're really glad you're here.

→ Join the waitlist to get early access when we launch.