Fall guitar maintenance

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VonBonfire

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I hate that fall is going to be here soon. Anyways, my gigging axe was looking pretty gross after this summer so this morning I peeled off my 3 month old set of flatwounds, unscrewed the bigsby, scrubbed the guita down real good, restrung, retuned, made a small tweak to the truss rod, and set the intonation. I'm all set for the show tonight and it's even a rare indoors gig so less sweating. Anyone else give their axe a good scrub after the gigging season temps start to die off? I try to make it a habit every year for my #1.
 
To each his own. I just prefer to play with big and round :)
 
70 Mach 1 said:
To each his own. I just prefer to play with big and round :)
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I use a light set from LaBella. They are bright and zingy enough and they last many times longer than a round wound set. I would've gone through at least a dozen sets this summer, instead I went through one plus some singles to keep my high E and B fresh.
 
70 Mach 1 said:
I plays blues also. All on the cleaner side. I Tried a set in 1980 and it lasted 15 minutes.
Maybe i should give them another try
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I like the LaBella sets. They make a 9-39 set that I use but replace the high E and B with a 10 and an 11.5 to withstand the bends. If we were talking about D'Addario Chromes I would just use a roundwound set. Those chromes are completely dead 15 minutes after you string them. Junk IMO.
 
VonBonfire said:
I like the LaBella sets. They make a 9-39 set that I use but replace the high E and B with a 10 and an 11.5 to withstand the bends. If we were talking about D'Addario Chromes I would just use a roundwound set. Those chromes are completely dead 15 minutes after you string them. Junk IMO.
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I've heard that from other people about chromes

What's odd is that NYXLs stay bright longer than literally anything else on the market

Apparently theyre alot better at making roundwound sets than flats
 
DanTravis62 said:
I've heard that from other people about chromes

What's odd is that NYXLs stay bright longer than literally anything else on the market

Apparently theyre alot better at making roundwound sets than flats
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You won't find a duller thud than a set of 20 minute old Chromes. Sounds like they've been strung on there for years, lol. They do sound pretty good for those first few minutes though. The LaBellas were still usable when I stripped them off today. They still sounded good it's just the fret divots in the D string were getting pretty noticeable and that is my usual sign to dump a set of strings.

I have not tried the NYXL's or the Thomastik Infelds that get highly touted by the jazz guys because all the sets I've seen are too heavy. I just do not have that kung fu Stevie Ray hand strength and I been trying to ease up on the heavy picking hand some the past few years so I went from 11-49 strats to 10-39 Gibson scale in the last decade. Always tuned down a 1/2 step too and now I like a bigsby or a top wrapped stop piece to reduce felt tension even more.
 
VonBonfire said:
You won't find a duller thud than a set of 20 minute old Chromes. Sounds like they've been strung on there for years, lol. They do sound pretty good for those first few minutes though. The LaBellas were still usable when I stripped them off today. They still sounded good it's just the fret divots in the D string were getting pretty noticeable and that is my usual sign to dump a set of strings.

I have not tried the NYXL's or the Thomastik Infelds that get highly touted by the jazz guys because all the sets I've seen are too heavy. I just do not have that kung fu Stevie Ray hand strength and I been trying to ease up on the heavy picking hand some the past few years so I went from 11-49 strats to 10-39 Gibson scale in the last decade. Always tuned down a 1/2 step too and now I like a bigsby or a top wrapped stop piece to reduce felt tension even more.
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I used to do bridge cables, but i'm getting soft in my old age too

10-52s for gibson length and 10-46 for fender length, all in standard

It took me a while to get used to it because i used 12-56/13-60 in standard forever

For whatever reason when I switched to the NYXLs i was able to go down a gauge, and then I just worked down from there

Honestly without my heavy picking hand none of my tones would be as good, so its kind of a balancing act, because i'm almost 40 and billy gibbons was correct, there's no reason to work so hard, maaaaaan
 
DanTravis62 said:
Honestly without my heavy picking hand none of my tones would be as good, so its kind of a balancing act, because i'm almost 40 and billy gibbons was correct, there's no reason to work so hard, maaaaaan
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I tend to agree with Billy and BB but there is something to be said if you can manage to keep at least tens up top. There is a certain big clean beef to the top end that way. I tried going to 9's and they are just too light, my picking hand overwhelms them. So I tried a 9.5 since they make them but it was still too light. I was able to move from a 12 on the B to an 11.5 without losing anything which helps for easier, faster vibrato. You still gotta be able to dig in when needed so I will never have that lightweight 7 gauge Billy set, lol.
 
VonBonfire said:
I tend to agree with Billy and BB but there is something to be said if you can manage to keep at least tens up top. There is a certain big clean beef to the top end that way. I tried going to 9's and they are just too light, my picking hand overwhelms them. So I tried a 9.5 since they make them but it was still too light. I was able to move from a 12 on the B to an 11.5 without losing anything which helps for easier, faster vibrato. You still gotta be able to dig in when needed so I will never have that lightweight 7 gauge Billy set, lol.
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It's the same with the low strings for metal :dunno:

The low end just is not the same. You can try to fake it with your tone stack, but especially for tighter low end tones, there's just no way

And also if you have your gain LOW enough to record a good metal rhythm tone, you have to be able to play the same level of hardness or else the gain drops off. So if you're pussyfooting around the low e to keep it from bending out of tune, it wont have the same punch
 
DanTravis62 said:
It's the same with the low strings for metal :dunno:

The low end just is not the same. You can try to fake it with your tone stack, but especially for tighter low end tones, there's just no way

And also if you have your gain LOW enough to record a good metal rhythm tone, you have to be able to play the same level of hardness or else the gain drops off. So if you're pussyfooting around the low e to keep it from bending out of tune, it wont have the same punch
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Using a strat into 100 watt Plexi into GB loaded AX cab I was blowing speakers too frequently anytime I had a strat with a 46, 48, 49. or 52 on the low E. It's like the transients were too much for little 25 watt greenbacks that were already working over time and they would shit out so I moved down to a 42 and didn't really have problems again. Those big Marshalls are so beefy for all practical purposes I didn't feel like I suffered a tone loss that I couldn't live with. It was still big, loud, and clean and I could still def approximate any Jimi or SRV tones I wanted.
 
VonBonfire said:
Using a strat into 100 watt Plexi into GB loaded AX cab I was blowing speakers too frequently anytime I had a strat with a 46, 48, 49. or 52 on the low E. It's like the transients were too much for little 25 watt greenbacks that were already working over time and they would shit out so I moved down to a 42 and didn't really have problems again. Those big Marshalls are so beefy for all practical purposes I didn't feel like I suffered a tone loss that I couldn't live with. It was still big, loud, and clean and I could still def approximate any Jimi or SRV tones I wanted.
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Cleaner tones generally have much, much more low end naturally - just by virtue of the way gain stages work in a guitar amp
 
DanTravis62 said:
Cleaner tones generally have much, much more low end naturally - just by virtue of the way gain stages work in a guitar amp
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That makes sense. That amp had as much low end as you wanted if you cross channeled. I loved the sound of that rig but I got sick of using strats downtown every friday and saturday night and then going to sleep with my hand above my head, relaxing to it's rhythmic throb from fighting a 25.5" scale all evening, my cuticles ripped to bits....
 
VonBonfire said:
That makes sense. That amp had as much low end as you wanted if you cross channeled. I loved the sound of that rig but I got sick of using strats downtown every friday and saturday night and then going to sleep with my hand above my head, relaxing to it's rhythmic throb from fighting a 25.5" scale all evening, my cuticles ripped to bits....
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I am with you man, especially for my long cover band gigs and my punk band that plays a million miles an hour

If i'm not playing for very long, or the music isn't very intense, I'm fine with the strat scale length - but if youre really working hard at the gig, whether in time put in, or beats per minute, that scale length seems to add up ALOT
 
DanTravis62 said:
If i'm not playing for very long, or the music isn't very intense, I'm fine with the strat scale length - but if youre really working hard at the gig, whether in time put in, or beats per minute, that scale length seems to add up ALOT
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3 piece band, 4 hour show, with a bass player that rushes and a drummer that drags and has no rimshot....and you get a strat. The ultimate long night soul sucker, lol

The cuticle on my middle finger is permanently separated from the nail....I tore it so many times I have an upper and lower cuticle in there now. The upper part stays attached to the nail and the lower part is the breakaway section so any tears happen between the two now I can be back in action early the next day unless I really ripped it. Not nearly as many of those nights now that I ditched the strat, lol
 
For the most part I keep up with mine but I mean, I have a closet of guitars that I rotate through, so maintaining is different order with that (less need since only one or two guitars are not being used all the time

Long ago, when my Deluxe Power Strat was being used for everything, it certainly got gunk and I admit, I only cleaned it once a year. The stuff builds....
 
SteveGlitch said:
Long ago, when my Deluxe Power Strat was being used for everything, it certainly got gunk and I admit, I only cleaned it once a year. The stuff builds....
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The trick with a strat is when you see greenish blue slime running out from around the trem or pickguard it's time. i used to remove the guard once a year just cause there would be a heavy line of gunk under there. I hadn't pulled that bigsby since I got the guitar in '21, so three summers of hot outdoor gigs. It looked like someone had traced the trem and filled it in with shit and corruption and the backside had a good bit of pitting in the gold plate. Good thing the guitar is urethane finish, the crust wiped off with a little elbow grease.
 
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