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Every 2 weeks is about right for me, or when the intonation starts going out, and ofcourse, couple days before a show

I used to change strings on my Jazzy (main live geet) before every show, but we started playing out and about a lot more- no point in pulling off newish strings for the principle of it. I don't play the Jazzy that much at home either and I use the Strat at band practise, so strings last a good while.

Soooooooo, once a month at the moment.

yeah, in thinking about it, i should've had options based on usage rather than time. a couple of my guitars are lucky to get restrung once a year, but they also see almost that little playing time. whichever are in the main rotation (the jag and toronado are at this point) will get re-strung quite often depending on how much we play. i haven't broken a string on stage in years, and i aim to keep it that way.

I've broken strings on my Tele quite a few times live, even from a brand new set once, altho the club was excruciatingly hot so it may have been because of the temp...
Strangley I've never snapped a string on Jag-Stang at a gig, even if I've not changed em for months...

you might want to run some very fine sand paper through the grooves in your saddles on the tele. if you smoothen out the burs, that will probably solve the problem.

dots wrote:yeah, in thinking about it, i should've had options based on usage rather than time. a couple of my guitars are lucky to get restrung once a year, but they also see almost that little playing time. whichever are in the main rotation (the jag and toronado are at this point) will get re-strung quite often depending on how much we play. i haven't broken a string on stage in years, and i aim to keep it that way.

Yea, same with me. My SG, Tele deluxe and Mustang get the most playing time at the moment, so I change the strings on those guitars more often.

I used to change them about once every three weeks when I played properly, now I don't play as much or have enough money to do expend on strings, so it's just when they need it now, but I put down every three weeks to make myself feel better.

so many people are talking about not affording strings...I don't get it. If push comes to shove, can't youse guys buy the cheapy strings for like $2? My D'Addarios are only $5 or so...how can you not afford that? C'mon youse guys!

Aug wrote:so many people are talking about not affording strings...I don't get it. If push comes to shove, can't youse guys buy the cheapy strings for like $2? My D'Addarios are only $5 or so...how can you not afford that? C'mon youse guys!

Seriously... strings aren't that expensive! I bought a box of Ernie Ball's from MF for $45 and it also came with a free strap! Then when that box started running low I went to Guitar center during one of their sales and they were selling the boxes of Ernie Ball's for $30!! That's 12 sets of strings for $30!!!! That's $2.50 per pack of strings... if you can't afford that then that's just ridiculous!

D'Addarios are around $11-$13 a set here.

BobArsecake wrote:D'Addarios are around $11-$13 a set here.

meh...I forgot about that...in my hometown in New Mexico, strings run $12-20 each, and you're only choice is shopping online. But, you should concider buying in bulk like billy.

If you have seen the amount of money I've spent on my car the last 3 months then you'd understand why I cant afford strings.

Aug wrote:

BobArsecake wrote:D'Addarios are around $11-$13 a set here.

meh...I forgot about that...in my hometown in New Mexico, strings run $12-20 each, and you're only choice is shopping online. But, you should concider buying in bulk like billy.

Yeah I ought to go for the buying in bulk thing, just I feel so resentful at buying strings, I love putting them on, and setting up my guitar again and generally twatting about and that, but I just really hate having to buy them.

Aug wrote:My D'Addarios are only $5 or so...how can you not afford that? C'mon youse guys!

Jesus, I didn't realize just how much we're getting ripped off over here...
I'd change my strings every flipping week at that price...

I buy the 3-packs of D'Addario 10's for 14 bucks.

dots wrote:you might want to run some very fine sand paper through the grooves in your saddles on the tele. if you smoothen out the burs, that will probably solve the problem.

Yeah I'll give that a try, cheers for the advice...
There's nothing worse than snapping a string mid-song because your kind of stuck between stopping playing and looking like a twat, or carrying on playing and sounding like a twat...

theshadowofseattle wrote:I buy the 3-packs of D'Addario 10's for 14 bucks.

14 bucks would get me one pack. They don't call us 'Rip-Off Britain' for nothing...

i stick Dean markley or ghs .... da''ario are a shit

Strings are strings.

Malik wrote:Strings are strings.

so why Dean markley stay unrusted and good sound per 30 days
and da'ario get rusted after 5 days lol