reso strings: hearing when they become old?

Joe Burke · Post by **Joe Burke** » 23 Feb 2023 6:01 pm

Tonight I was rehearsing with a band on my resonator. At one point I played a little harder than usual up around the 12th fret and I think the string went from sounding fairly new, to a little ratlely/old sounding. Has anyone noticed a quick transition like that?

Greg Booth · Post by **Greg Booth** » 23 Feb 2023 10:13 pm

Yes. Was it the middle G string? The winding is a fine bronze wire and it’s always the first to go. When I was first starting out with the dobro my instrument wasn’t very loud and I remember wrecking a brand new string after one song in a loud jam trying to hear myself. Many players carry spare G strings to extend the life of a set of strings.

Joe Burke · Post by **Joe Burke** » 24 Feb 2023 10:16 am

I felt like I was all the strings. But I jut switch the middle 2 stings and it’s sounding much better. So I think that was likely it. I’ll start stocking up on extra g strings.
Thanks Greg.

Rich Arnold · Post by **Rich Arnold** » 27 Feb 2023 5:10 pm

What Greg said is true.

With electric I can always tweak the eq when they strings start to get dull, to a point, but with acoustic dobro I change strings often. Really often.
Some of the old timers like Josh Graves and Gene Wooten used to use a plain string for the 3rd at around .020 guage so they didn't have to worry about the winding coming off or becoming deformed. Old school.