The complete guide to guitar accessories – the best capos, straps, picks and more
Guitars and basses are pretty low-maintenance. Avoid setting fire to them on-stage, and it’ll just take a few well-chosen accessories to ensure these instruments play and look their best for years to come.
Speaking of which, we’ve rounded up some of our team’s favourite guitar accessories to use with a wide range of instruments, including acoustic guitars, electric guitars and basses. We’ll cover key maintenance gear including peg winders and polishes; capos to help you change pitch effortlessly; straps to suit a wide range of tastes; and, of course, picks.
Read on to get our team’s take on some of the best guitar accessories you can buy, covering a variety of budgets, playing styles and functions. We realise some of you will be shopping for a guitarist, so we’ll try to keep things easy to understand.
At a glance:
Best setup kit: Music Nomad MN609 “Keep It Simple Setup” Starter Kit
Best guitar polish: Dunlop Formula Number 65
Best cleaning set: Dunlop Maintenance Kit
Best manual string winder: D’Addario Pro winder
Best low-cost electric string winder: Ernie Ball Power Peg string-winder7
Best premium electric string winder: Ernie Ball Power Peg Pro string winder
Best patterned straps: Ernie Ball Jacquard Guitar Strap
Best affordable straps: Ernie Ball Polypro Guitar Strap
Best padded strap: Levy’s Leather Padded Guitar Strap
Best premium padded strap: Levy’s MSS2 3″ Padded Guitar Strap
Best strap for security: D’Addario Auto Lock Guitar Strap
Best classical capo: Kyser Quick Change Acoustic Guitar Capo
Best electric guitar capo: Kyser Quick Change Electric Guitar Capo
Best versatile capo: Martin Guitar Capo
Best capo overall: G7th Performance 3 ART Guitar Capo
Best-looking capo: G7th Nashville Capo
Best all-rounder picks: Dunlop Tortex Standard Picks
Best picks for metal and jazz: Dunlop Tortex Sharps
Best value picks: Gibson Guitar Picks
Best grippy picks: Dunlop Nylon Standard Picks
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Best setup kit: Music Nomad MN609 “Keep It Simple Setup” Starter Kit
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New Year’s resolution: start taking better care of your guitar. Practical solution: the Music Nomad MN609 “Keep It Simple Setup” Starter Kit.
This kit is the most expensive accessory on our list, but it’ll give you a very good selection of tools to start doing your own guitar repairs and modifications, including a gauge setup set, truss rod adjustment tools, and a guitar tech screwdriver and wrench set.
Best guitar polish: Dunlop Formula Number 65
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Polishing and cleaning your guitar is practically an act of self-care for guitarists. What better feeling is there than seeing your partner-in-sound shine like it did in the showroom?
Used with a regular old cotton cloth, Jim Dunlop’s polishing-and-cleaning formula will remove dirt and fretboard grime from your guitar while applying a shiny finish.
Best cleaning set: Dunlop Maintenance Kit
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Give your guitar a glow-up with this comprehensive cleaning kit from Dunlop. The products featured include formula 65 polishing/cleaning fluid, Carnauba wax and string cleaner/conditioner, plus a cleaning fluid and a conditioner for your fretboard.
Also in the box are a pair of Dunlop’s super-soft cotton cleaning cloths, so you can apply your new cache of lotions and potions without fear of scratching the guitar.
Best manual string winder: D’Addario Pro Winder
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While some of us (ahem) find restringing a guitar oddly soothing, changing strings can become a real chore when you have to do it frequently or against the clock.
To restring your guitar quicker and more easily, try the D’Addario Pro Winder. This is the Swiss Army knife of manual restringing tools, featuring a string cutter, a bridge pin puller, and a winding mechanism to turn your guitar’s tuning pegs.
Best low-cost electric string winder: Ernie Ball Power Peg string winder
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Want to wind your strings at eye-watering speeds? The battery-powered Ernie Ball Power-Peg string-winder will help you do it, with an electric screwdriver-like design and a universal peg head that can tighten (or loosen) strings on most electric guitars, acoustic guitars and basses.
If you need to restring a guitar quickly, or you have a fiddlesome 12-string, then this tool will be a welcome effort-saver.
Best premium electric string winder: Ernie Ball Power Peg Pro string winder
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The ultimate in motorised peg-winding tech, the Ernie Ball Power Peg Pro promises to tighten your strings up to 80% faster than you can do the job by hand.
Using this rechargeable electric string winder is a lot like using a good power tool: quick, convenient and almost shamefully effortless. This model features a peg head that’s compatible with all tuning pegs, so you can be sure it’ll work with your guitar or bass.
Best patterned straps: Ernie Ball Jacquard Guitar Strap
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Adorned with a beautiful jacquard design, this Ernie Ball strap would make a fine companion to many a guitar. The use of white thread against that dark background really sets off the pattern.
There are dozens of jacquard straps in the Ernie Ball range – so don’t despair if you’re not keen on roses. Options range from geometric patterns like ‘White Savannah’ and ‘California Weave’ to themed designs including ‘Peace Love Dove’ and (my favourite) ‘Lavender Blossom’.
All of the straps feature leather ends and have an adjustable length between 41 and 72 inches.
Best affordable straps: Ernie Ball Polypro Guitar Strap
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Need a cheap and cheerful strap that will hold your guitar securely while you strut your stuff?
Ernie Ball’s Polypro range is pretty much unbeatable on value for money, combining lightweight polypropylene construction with length adjustment and premium leather ends. There are loads of colours to choose from, so you can select a strap to perfectly offset your guitar’s colourway – whether that means you pick orange, green, pink, rainbow or black.
Best padded strap: Levy’s Leather Padded Guitar Strap
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Padded leather guitar straps often look a little… equestrian, but this suede model from Levy’s is refreshingly plush and urbane.
The strap features a trademarked, foolproof pull mechanism for tightening and loosening during use, and can be adjusted from 43″ all the way to a low-slung 57″.
Best premium padded strap: Levy’s MSS2 3″ Padded Guitar Strap
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You undoubtedly ‘wear’ your guitar whenever you strap it on – so perhaps it makes sense to have a strap made from garment-grade materials, like this chunky padded leather option from Levy’s.
Featuring ladder-style feed-through length adjustment and hand-crafted materials, this strap will appeal to guitarists who have a keen eye for the artisanal. The foam padding on the shoulder doesn’t hurt either – quite the opposite.
Best strap for security: D’Addario Auto Lock Guitar Strap
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Guitar straps can be unreliable – so much so that some of us have occasionally employed workarounds like using the washer from an old-fashioned Grolsch beer bottle to secure a strap onto the buttons on our guitars.
Thankfully, that sort of jiggery-pokery is a thing of the past, thanks to innovative straps like the Auto Lock range from D’Addorio. Available in 16 colourways, these nylon straps have a quick-release locking system that keeps guitar and strap securely connected.
Best classical capo: Kyser Quick Change Acoustic Guitar Capo
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Simple, effective and classically styled, the Kyser Quick Change Acoustic Guitar Capo is a very useful little accessory to keep in your gig bag.
To move Kyser’s capo up or down your fretboard, you simply squeeze the quick-release mechanism (which looks like some fabulous sort of clef), hover over your chosen fret and release to clamp it down. A lot of guitarists simply clip this capo onto their headstock when it’s not needed.
Best electric guitar capo: Kyser Quick Change Electric Guitar Capo
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This Kyser capo is tailored to suit the average electric guitar, with a relatively compact design, moderate tension and gentle contacts that shouldn’t damage the woodwork – even if your guitar is made with one of the softer tonewoods.
As with Kyser’s Quick Change Acoustic capos, you simply squeeze the trigger and move the capo to switch pitch.
Best versatile capo: Martin Guitar Capo
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If you’ve bought yourself a beautiful Martin guitar, you might fancy picking up one of the brand’s capos to match.
Even among capos – generally a simple type of accessory – this model is very straightforward, with a clamp action that’ll be familiar to most seasoned guitarists. Handily, it’s designed to fit a very wide range of neck profiles, including most acoustic, classical, bass and electric guitars.
Best capo overall: G7th Performance 3 ART Guitar Capo
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G7th capos caused quite a stir when they arrived on the scene in the mid-noughties, boasting a unique, one-handed design that stood out for its simplicity and convenience.
The author of this article has been using the same G7th capo for – yikes! – nearly twenty years, and it’s never let him down. This swanky update, the Performance 3 ART, has the same design DNA as the original G7th, but also features ‘Adaptive Radius Technology’, which ensures the capo exerts pressure evenly across the strings.
Best-looking capo: G7th Nashville Capo
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G7th is known for its innovative, contemporary capos – but with the launch of the Nashville in 2023, the brand proved its merit as a designer of more traditional models, too.
Positioning the Nashville is as simple as squeezing the trigger. It’s a sprung capo, so the spring does all the tensioning for you. In the meantime, perhaps you’ll occupy yourself with admiring the capo’s mid-century-inflected design and rich metallic finish. Several colours are available, including eye-catching blue, red and green options.
Best all-rounder picks: Dunlop Tortex Standard Picks
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Picks – or ‘plectrums’, to use a cooler and more old-fashioned term – come in lots of shapes and sizes. For many electric guitarists, Dunlop’s Tortex Standard picks are ideal, with plenty of area to grip and a nice, rounded point to nimbly pluck your strings.
Six gauges (thicknesses) of Tortex Standard Pick are available to suit your playing style (and strings): 1.14, 1.0, .88, .73, .60 and .50 mm.
In case you’re wondering, Tortex is a flexible type of plastic that was introduced by Jim Dunlop in 1981, as a replacement for the tortoiseshell used to make plectrums by our merciless grandparents.
Best picks for metal and jazz: Dunlop Tortex Sharps
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If you know, you know. Beloved by shredders and gypsy-jazzers alike, Tortex Sharps have a sharply pointed tip that lends itself to fast, precise and articulate playing.
To get the most out of these high-performance picks, try striking the strings at a slight angle to help the pick travel from one string to the next. It’s well worth a try for any guitarist who plays a lot of lead parts.
Best value picks: Gibson Guitar Picks
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Made from bright-sounding celluloid in a fairly aggressive shape, these Gibson Standard picks bring a clear, self-assured quality to acoustic and rock playing.
That golden Gibson logo doesn’t just look pretty; it also provides some much-needed texture and grip. Plus, it may well help you find a dropped pick on a dark stage!
Four gauges are available: Thin, Medium, Heavy and Extra-heavy.
Best grippy picks: Dunlop Nylon Standard Picks
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In this writer’s opinion, these are the best guitar picks not only in this universe, but also in whatever other universe picks go to whenever we put them down for just a few seconds.
Dunlop’s Nylon Standard Picks combine an all-rounder shape and flexible material (in various gauges to suit the player) with just a little grip on both faces of the pick – a perfect set of traits for the average guitarist. Since you asked: I use the .73mm.version.
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That means that when you click on a Guitar.com buyer’s guide, you’re getting the benefit of all that experience to help you make the best buying decision for you. What’s more, every guide written on Guitar.com was put together by a guitar obsessive just like you. You can trust that every product recommended in those guides is something that we’d be happy to have in our own rigs.
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