PlayJazzGuitar.com Forum

[darylcd]

I've thought of giving them a try but haven't yet. I bought my brother a set for Christmas, I'm waiting to hear what he thinks of them.

Daryl

[Gorecki]

I tried the 'old ones' I guess a while ago and they sounded like they had been on the guitar for six months right after I put them on.

To say the least, I cut 'em and put my good ole Boomers back on as fast as I could and moved on.

Maybe the newer ones are better?

[Jazzy]

I`ve tried a lot of strings but I like Gibson flatwound 0.12 best. They`ve got a very balanced sound. I change them about once a month.
I think jazz guitar strings sounds best after a day or two...

[theox]

[darylcd]

There are several stages that strings go through.

1 When you first put them on there is short "settling in period". This can be shortened to almost nothing by pulling on the string at the 12th fret like a bow and arrow a few times.

2. A couple of days (depending on how much you play) where the strings sound bright and tuning and intonation is great.

3. A period where they start to stretch again for a short while.

4. Another period that can last for some time where they seem to stay in tune well. But this depends on how well they have been kept clean. But at this stage they start to loose their brilliance.

5. String fatigue. At this point it becomes harder to tune them, intonation gets hard and harder to maintain. They also start to sound muddy.

Now this is my experience and I find that these phases happen over a period of 5 - 14 days (for me), depending on the individual strings and how much I play each day. My usual routine is about 4 hours a day, average. Of course if that 4 hours is gigging under hot lights where your hands sweat more I can ruin a set of strings in one night.

This has been my experience for 43 years. Now this is with round wounds and a plain 3rd. I imagine that heavy flat wounds have a better experience. I've never understood how people can leave strings on for a month or more. It seems to work for some but I find that if I play their guitar with old strings, I have tuning problems and the sound is just not the same.

That's me, that's the way I am. I'm addicted to new strings and it is the best possible thing I can do for my audience. The most annoying thing you can do at a concert is to be constantly tuning. It's embarrassing, and can kill your whole act, as can playing out of tune. It's a tough life us guitar players have. In my younger days I was an incessant string bender. Now I find I have drifted away from that because of the jazz influence and consequently I have far less tuning problems. That's the best thing about my Yamaha keyboard, ITS ALWAYS IN TUNE and ready to go.

Daryl

[Martacus]

Another thing I've noticed - a thinner wound string (.024 or lighter) will start to show wear marks on the neck facing side, above the frets. When this happens, forget intonation - you now have a distorted element that won't vibrate evenly, so your intonation is shot. I also agree that flatwounds seem to last somewhat longer than roundwounds - I have to start paying attention to when the flats go bad vs. the rounds. (I use round on my solid, flats on the archtops.)
_________________
Information is not knowledge,
Knowledge is not wisdom.
--Frank Zappa
www.martypowerjazz.com

[darylcd]

A little observation I made this week.

I followed the suggestion to try lighter fluid for cleaning my strings after each session. That really worked well and it seemed to really cut down on the corrosion with the plain strings. It also SEEMED to help with the preserving the tone.

So I decided to see how long they would go. Monday night marked 1 full week of using the lighter fluid maintenance routine. Monday night my guitar was working very well for 1 week old strings, but Tuesday night when I picked up my guitar it wouldn't stay in tune. It was very difficult to get it into tune. Even the tuner would waver all over the mark and the intonation was off on a couple of strings. It was as if over night they went sour. I was recording so I had to just stop and change my strings. Of course then everything was fine, intonation was back.

I think the lighter fluid helped and I will continue to use it but I didn't really gain more time, maybe a day at best.

Just my observations.

Daryl

[Martacus]

The cleaning would remove dirt which would alter the string's mass, hence altering the vibration, but it won't do anything to the damage the metal suffers from bending or fretting. I guess we all realize we just have to change our strings frequently - I buy extra unwound strings since those go faster (change them before after every gig, or every two weeks if not gigging), and buy boxes of sets if I can get a discount.
_________________
Information is not knowledge,
Knowledge is not wisdom.
--Frank Zappa
www.martypowerjazz.com

[darylcd]

When I was gigging every night, I changed my strings every night, as 4 hours of hard playing and sweating would do them in. In the early days when I was starving musician, I would change the plain strings every night and the wounds every other night.

I'm now set well financially and I cant stand the bright plain strings and less than bright wounds strings so I change them all. I just keep myself well stocked and when thier time is up, whenever that is, I just change them.

I always put on new strings before a gig. Besides, I just love the sound of new strings.

Daryl

[Martacus]

I was lucky back in the starving days - I taught at a music store and paid wholesale, so I could change more often. I have the cash to change any time I want, but between work, family and friends I don't always feel like changing everything - there's always something else to do, so changing two is fine for me. (I'm obsessive - if I'm changing, I'm going to clean, check intonation, etc., etc. As the wife says, I always overdo things.)
_________________
Information is not knowledge,
Knowledge is not wisdom.
--Frank Zappa
www.martypowerjazz.com

[darylcd]

You sound like a good guy to have in the band - responsible!

Daryl

[Martacus]

Thanks! I want to say "Hey, the drummer drank 12 beers, who gets the bill?"
"OH - the guitar player is responsible!"


I'm one of those - I carry a little tool box with me that has a soldering iron (yikes!). It came in handy when I was teaching, because EVERY once in a while you'd have one of those students who wanted to see what THAT does. "Marty, can you fix our kid's guitar?"
_________________
Information is not knowledge,
Knowledge is not wisdom.
--Frank Zappa
www.martypowerjazz.com

[darylcd]

We must have a lot in common. I have a box with soldering stuff, spare cables, spare jacks - male and female, spare batteries, strings, tools, tape, picks, extention cords, and a lot of other stuff I will never need, unless I take it out of the box, then I will need it for sure.

Yea, I'm the only one that does that stuff and it has saved us, but I don't seem to get more pay

Daryl

[Martacus]

Heh - it's nice to see someone else like me.
_________________
Information is not knowledge,
Knowledge is not wisdom.
--Frank Zappa
www.martypowerjazz.com

[Gorecki]