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Topic: The life and times of judge your strings |
Charles Kurck
From:
Living in Arkansas but Heaven is home
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Posted 3 Apr 2011 3:09 am |
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| There is a good chance that the strings on my 118 year old piano have never been changed yet it still sounds good. On my acoustic guitar and on my pedal steel I change strings after about 3 months. Why does string life vary so much? Is it our hands on the necks of our guitars that is choking the life out of the strings? |
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Jonathan Cullifer
From:
Gallatin, TN
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Posted 3 Apr 2011 5:42 am
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| I suspect that the biggest thing is that you don't touch piano strings. Also, because piano strings are struck by hammers with a soft attack, they don't break. Also, think about the string length and tension of the strings on a piano. Guitars and steels are short scale instruments relative to the lower strings on a piano. |
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David Ellison
From:
California, USA
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Posted 5 Apr 2011 7:44 am
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A big part of the sound of a flattop acoustic guitar is the ringing overtones you get from roundwound strings, along with the bright snappy sound they make. These qualities are lost when the strings start to go dead. Jazz players usually don't want the overtones tend to use flatwound strings and replace the strings much less often.
With a steel, it depends on what you want. Some studio players probably put new strings on every day because they want that sound. Even if you don't, with a pedal steel, the strings will break eventually, and you have to change them before that happens or risk breaking a string in the middle of a gig. But I know some non-pedal steel players who rarely change their strings. I think the heavier pickups on modern pedal steels are made to sound best with brand new strings... where vintage pickups with less output might sound better with mellower (deader) strings.
Last edited by David Ellison on 5 Apr 2011 7:51 am; edited 2 times in total |
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David Ellison
From:
California, USA
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Posted 5 Apr 2011 7:46 am
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