Does anyone like "old/dead" strings on their guitars?

[catfish]

Originally Posted by backdoc

I bought an OM-15M from a member here. It sounded and played so amazing that I asked him what strings were on it. He had purchased it from another member and didn't change strings and wasn't sure what they were. It sounds so great and the string corrosion hasn't gotten any worse since I purchased it, so they have stayed right where they are. I have owned this guitar for a couple of years now and play it weekly. I still can't believe I am loving two year old plus strings, but I've seen no reason to change yet.

I have Martin Retro Monels on my 000-15M for 2 years and 5 months now. They still sound great. They intonate well, too. I wait when they will die completely because I want to try 80/20 on this guitar, but they keep going strong! But I should admit I do not play 000-15M too often, so it is not 2 years and 5 months of daily playing.

[Don W]

On my electrics only. My acoustics are changed every several months.

[WildBill82]

I don't prefer dead strings, but it's been my experience that once you get above a certain level of quality on the guitar, the string issue is almost totally negated. Some of the best-sounding guitars I've ever played (a 1977 D-45, a 2000 Taylor 810, a 1956 Country & Western, and a 70's Yairi) each had ancient strings on them, where the strings are so corroded that it feels like rusty baling wire under your fingers--and it didn't matter, they sounded magnificent.

[stringjunky]

Originally Posted by WildBill82

I don't prefer dead strings, but it's been my experience that once you get above a certain level of quality on the guitar, the string issue is almost totally negated. Some of the best-sounding guitars I've ever played (a 1977 D-45, a 2000 Taylor 810, a 1956 Country & Western, and a 70's Yairi) each had ancient strings on them, where the strings are so corroded that it feels like rusty baling wire under your fingers--and it didn't matter, they sounded magnificent.

I've found this too. Great guitars are not fussy about strings but a lot depends on whether you actually want that shimmer that only new strings can offer as part of your sound.

[DesertTwang]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

Same here. I can understand liking a “warmer” sound, but some passages of music need to have more trebles in the sound, and if those harmonics aren’t present because the strings are too old and dull, there’s little you can do to bring them out.

Plus old strings are just much more difficult to get and - especially - keep in tune. I have very little tolerance for out-of-tune stringed instruments, whether they’re mine or somebody else’s. So my tolerance and affection for old half-dead strings that take about a month to get completely in tune (okay, it only SEEMS like a month) is minimal.

Give me new strings that I’ve stretched in to perfection and I’m a happy guy.


Wade Hampton Miller

Completely agree. I was actually going to simply type "Yes, you are alone" in my response to this thread and consider it done, but looking at the responses, I'm actually a little frightened at the sheer numbers of old-string-aficionados that appear to be lurking out there...

[stringjunky]

Originally Posted by DesertTwang

Completely agree. I was actually going to simply type "Yes, you are alone" in my response to this thread and consider it done, but looking at the responses, I'm actually a little frightened at the sheer numbers of old-string-aficionados that appear to be lurking out there...

It just says many like the darker, mellower, woody, fundamental etc tone. It's just a case of chocolate vs vanilla and we each choose positively or negatively-toned adjectives, depending on which we like and don't like.

[Jaden]

With kind intention, it’s also a support group for the Op

[FrankHudson]

OK, I mentioned in response to Wade's suggestion that you can cope with brand-new strings by adjusting your playing that I was going to try that next time I recorded. Here's my experience.


I was playing a 'hog/spruce 000 (Martin 000-17) with freshly installed Martin Retro strings (one day on, 5 minutes of playing time). They didn't sound broken in to me at all, something I would have avoided usually, particularly with Retro strings. This could even be considered a worst case scenario.


The piece I was recording would be acoustic guitar, voice and an overdubbed string section I put on afterward. I mic'ed with a Octavia SDC pointed at the neck/body joint. Live vocals with guitar, so some leakage into the vocal mic (cheap MXL ribbon mic that works better than you'd expect for my voice). Flat pick/cross-picking. I did try three or four picks before settling on the one that felt/sounded best (but that's usual for me). I did try to palm mute consciously, and the solo'ed guitar part didn't sound all that bad, though it still wouldn't be my first choice timbre-wise. In the mix after adding the string parts, I appreciated the guitar sound a bit more. I did so some EQ while mixing and mastering, but nothing drastic, and it was more in rolling off low end below 100 Hz on the acoustic guitar than trying to make it less bright.


Here's what I concluded:

The mic always hears differently than your ear anyway, but even then it didn't sound to me like my optimal sound listening in the headphones.

None-the-less, it was a better sound than I expected, and more so in the mix with a string section that fills a lot of frequency space with their sound.

Even in the few takes I had time for, I found that since I had decided to do this with the new strings, I became more accepting of the sound. Just as most players would, I tried, within my limitations as a player, to make the sound I wanted to make as best as could. I probably adjusted my playing in some ways I couldn't report consciously as well as just being accepting.

Secondary to the above, I concluded that I (we?) may over-rate or overdetermine inherent-to the-instrument timbre as part of musical expression. Note, I'm not saying it's unimportant, only that I can care too much about it and that we can work (to a degree) to "counteract" a timbre we don't like at first.

I'm still going to be leaving my strings on longer than Wade does, but it was an interesting exercise.

[Fresh1985]

I love old 80/20's on everything!

[Wade Hampton]

Frank wrote:

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

OK, I mentioned in response to Wade's suggestion that you can cope with brand-new strings by adjusting your playing that I was going to try that next time I recorded. Here's my experience.....

...Even in the few takes I had time for, I found that since I had decided to do this with the new strings, I became more accepting of the sound. Just as most players would, I tried, within my limitations as a player, to make the sound I wanted to make as best as could. I probably adjusted my playing in some ways I couldn't report consciously as well as just being accepting.

.....we can work (to a degree) to "counteract" a timbre we don't like at first.

I'm still going to be leaving my strings on longer than Wade does, but it was an interesting exercise.

Frank, I just now read this post of yours. I appreciate you taking the time to investigate this in a methodical way.

What I should mention is that I first discovered the palm-muting technique accidentally while playing my mountain dulcimer, which was my first instrument. I'm blessed in that the guy who built it for me was determined to make dulcimers that could be heard when playing with other instruments, so it's an exceptionally loud and projective instrument, as well as having great tone.

Anyway, I accidentally muted the strings with my palm one day, and thought: "Hey, that's kind of a cool sound." After that it became something I diligently practiced to the point where it became as ingrained and instinctive as anything else I do musically. At the time I was young, single and had my own apartment, and would usually play/practice for at least a couple of hours every night, sometimes longer.

You can vary the sounds you get using this technique to a surprising degree, depending on how hard or lightly you press down with your palm, where you strike the string and how hard you hit it.

A year or two later when I started playing mandolin and then guitar, the use of selective and tonally varied palm-muting was already part of my musical vocabulary, to the point where I literally don't have to think about it to bring out a lot of different shades and sustain durations. But it does require practice to get facile with it, as with any other technique.

Which is why my fretting hand muting technique remains rudimentary, because by the time I first encountered that and the guy who was playing that way explained to me what he was doing, I had already been a full-time professional musician for years and was a former US Mountain Dulcimer champion. So I encountered that technique when my style was less exploratory and more or less matured.

Plus, what he used it for was for playing reggae music, which is where that technique comes from, and I'm not really a reggae guy.

While I can use that technique when I think about it and practice it for a specific piece, with the right hand muting it's completely instinctive at this point, with no thought or planning required.

Using one's palm or fretting hand fingers to mute with different gradations of pressure and tone are useful techniques to have, but they do require quite a bit of practice before they go into muscle memory and can be used smoothly.

Hope that makes more sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[Marco Polo]

I prefer new, vibrant strings.

I'll typically change my coated strings every 2-3 months depending on when they start to sound 'flat' to my ears.

[FrankHudson]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

Frank wrote:



Frank, I just now read this post of yours. I appreciate you taking the time to investigate this in a methodical way.

What I should mention is that I first discovered the palm-muting technique accidentally while playing my mountain dulcimer, which was my first instrument. I'm blessed in that the guy who built it for me was determined to make dulcimers that could be heard when playing with other instruments, so it's an exceptionally loud and projective instrument, as well as having great tone.

Anyway, I accidentally muted the strings with my palm one day, and thought: "Hey, that's kind of a cool sound." After that it became something I diligently practiced to the point where it became as ingrained and instinctive as anything else I do musically. At the time I was young, single and had my own apartment, and would usually play/practice for at least a couple of hours every night, sometimes longer.

You can vary the sounds you get using this technique to a surprising degree, depending on how hard or lightly you press down with your palm, where you strike the string and how hard you hit it.

A year or two later when I started playing mandolin and then guitar, the use of selective and tonally varied palm-muting was already part of my musical vocabulary, to the point where I literally don't have to think about it to bring out a lot of different shades and sustain durations. But it does require practice to get facile with it, as with any other technique.

Which is why my fretting hand muting technique remains rudimentary, because by the time I first encountered that and the guy who was playing that way explained to me what he was doing, I had already been a full-time professional musician for years and was a former US Mountain Dulcimer champion. So I encountered that technique when my style was less exploratory and more or less matured.

Plus, what he used it for was for playing reggae music, which is where that technique comes from, and I'm not really a reggae guy.

While I can use that technique when I think about it and practice it for a specific piece, with the right hand muting it's completely instinctive at this point, with no thought or planning required.

Using one's palm or fretting hand fingers to mute with different gradations of pressure and tone are useful techniques to have, but they do require quite a bit of practice before they go into muscle memory and can be used smoothly.

Hope that makes more sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

I've used palm muting for a long time, probably from my early years when I was trying to do Travis style fingerpicking, but I'm usually concentrating on the low E and A strings so you get the traditional thunk fundamental and low sustain "bass strings" sound, but now that I flatpick I think I'm also using my pinky finger sometimes on the high strings for some muting. If I wasn't so busy trying play I should take a look sometime (grin).

One of the great advantages of bare flesh finger picking is the right hand muting options it opens up. Alas, my skin never took to it, even on nylon strings.

I'm a hack dulcimer player, and I've never had one loud enough to need to mute anything.

Funny thing is that I hardly know that I'm muting consciously. So in coping with the high overtones and clangey new Retros I'm not exactly sure what my hands were doing to make the sound in my monitor headphones more closely match my target timbre. It may have been how I attacked with the pick or right-hand muting.

The greatest lesson I drew from your post was that there is a different timbre there, one that can work and is desirable for some, and opening myself up to exploring that timbre was a large part of the experiment. I'm probably not going to be a "fresh strings before every recording" guy, but I could do it again as a choice.

[rmgjsps]

I don't know about dead, but I don't mind being with them on their deathbeds -- and then giving them a decent burial.

[funkapus]

Late to this thread, but . . .I very much like old/dead strings *for some types of music* . . .and prefer newer strings for others.

My favorite player that relied on old strings -- strong fundamentals, much weaker overtones -- is Nick Drake. To me, his playing was absolutely gorgeous, and especially on e.g. Pink Moon it's pretty clear that those strings are really old.