Rotosound was originated by James How in 1958 in the United Kingdom. James How designed his own string winding machine and began manufacturing guitar strings in his shed. Originally he called the company Top Strings, but couldn’t copyright that name, so he changed it to Rotop and finally into Rotosound around 1965. This tied in nicely with the company’s flagship round wound bass string. Bass players found this new round wound sound cut through the mix with more definition than the traditional flatwound strings of that era.

The company is now run by Jason How, after the death of James How in 1994. The old string winding machines have been replaced by state of the art units, but the strings conform to the original specifications so the strings sound exactly as before except with higher quality. Rotosound still make their flat wound bass strings by hand. Jimi Hendrix was a notable Rotosound users, he used their medium string set.

As James How remembered:

When musicians were looking for a specific sound or concept, they would come visit me at the factory. Jimi Hendrix was not pleased with the sounds he would get when he bit his strings, so I developed a gauge which he thought ‘tasted’ right. The .006 and .007 first strings that he used to bite gave him the sound he was looking for.