Strings Lasting Question

[deacon Mark]

I have a general question if anyone could answer reasonably accurately. Simple, how many hours of playing time do you get on a set of strings? I cannot say for sure I have many guitars I use and never keep track. It would only be I change strings at certain intervals of time. I got 2 years on a set Daddario flatwounds I only change because I wanted different ones they intonated fine. No idea how many hours but maybe not as much as you would think.

However recently as I bought a new guitar (to me) I have been breaking it is as it had not been played hardly at all in its 28 years of existence. So, I put a new set of strings on and probably over the past 60 days I have about 120 hours of playing time on the set. At least within 10 hours. That is probably as close as I will come to getting information about how long strings last. So at least on this set the strings to me a perfect and broke in but not really near needing changing. I could see these going at least 3 times the amount of playing before they might go bad. Granted I am easy on strings and I don't sweat all over them my hands pretty clean.

So I really would like to get any feedback on how many hours you get on a set. We obsess over strings but I like facts and figures is this possible?

[setemupjoe]

LaBella flat wound 15-56 strings. I usually leave them on for a couple of years. On average I’d play that guitar about 4 hours a day. So that works out to around 3000 hours. I’m sure if I was playing round wound strings I’d be changing them much more regularly.

[wintermoon]

No clue how many hours, I just swap out the high E and B when they get worn and then the whole set when I feel divots from the frets under the G string.

[Litterick]

Three to six months. I use various Rotosound strings. I play about two hours every day.

[sgosnell]

I don't keep track of the hours I put on a set of strings. I don't even keep close track of how long I play, and I rotate between guitars at random. I change strings when I think they need changing, and I couldn't even give you a guess as to time in use.

[whiskey02]

Some people just have a higher level of acidity in their sweat than others while some people pick and fret with a great deal of force rather than a softer, lighter touch. All of this plays in to string life. Flat wounds across the board (no pun but still smile worthy) last longer than round wounds by nature as they don't have all the space between windings for dirt, oil and dead skin to accumulate in. So too it seems nickel outlasts bronze and phosphor outlasts 80-20. Add to all of this the wide range of tastes between players that only like sparkling brand new strings to those that never change but only replace broken strings, and there's your answer.
I'm fortunate that my sweat does not corrode nickel hardware or strings and I make use of a fairly light touch. I replace nickel wounds on my acoustic roughly after 4 to 6 months. TI pure nickel flats on my #1 are currently approaching 3.5 years (plain b and e replaced a few times. They sound and intonate great.

[entresz]

I get about 6 months out of a set of Thomastik flat wound strings. At that point there are small dents along the G and D from the frets. I use the 12-50 set, but I replace the top two strings with 13 and 17 gauge Elixirs. Their plain strings last much longer than the unwound TIs and feel better under the fingers.

Bronze strings only last a month or so for me, and pure nickels I can get about 2 or 3 months out of.

[pauln]

Outside of a professional in the recording studio making a recording featuring the guitar, or a professional on tour with a dense performance schedule, I think most delay changing strings until it's noticed they either don't sound or feel quite right.

I'm a bit of a nut about strings and generally alarmed that more don't more attend to them - they are truly the primum mobile (the initial agent that is the cause of all things). I am careful about installation, have no adverse hand chemistry, only make "jazz bends" (about 1/8 semitone), and like a solid fairly neutral-bright tone. I clean my strings thoroughly after every playing and still change them about every two months.

My experience, observations, and theories... (it's a short book, you might get a cup of coffee).

The anomalies that herald a restringing might be classified into four types;

Installation - caused by the way the string was initially installed on the guitar
Chemistry - acidic hands
Technique - pressure, bending
Taste - what sounds just right to you

Installation should be a given; that it is done right. Common deviations include accidental kinking or sharp bending of a string before or during installation, miss-seating the bridge end of the string, and problematic methods of winding on the string post.
Less commonly known are issues with stretching and longitudinal string torsion. When I was a youngster, nobody stretched the elasticity out of their newly strung guitar, but it seems now days it is the common advise and practice. Those who bend strings especially may be too impatient to naturally play-in the strings (not stretching but normal bends and re-tuning a few times) in order that no more elasticity be removed from the strings than required for their style... once elasticity is removed it does not return.
Longitudinal torsion is what happens if the string is deferentially rotated about its long axis during installation. This turns a string into a spring because as the tension varies with the excursion of the vibration, that change in tension rotates the string around its long axis as the torsion is increased and decreased with the variation in tension, causing warbles of harmonic structure, false tones, and will make the tone of certain notes sound different from the others. Simply grabbing the bridge end seated string between your fingers and sliding up the string to the nut a few times before winding will ensure that any slack torsion is straightened out.

Hand chemistry problems may be addressed before (depending on results) and after playing. To see what works before, try the best method first. Wax your car with a commercial product like Turtle Wax. Hopefully you will notice afterward that your hands will stay dead bone dry for many hours. If this is the case for your hands, just save the polishing rag in a zip lock baggie in your guitar case and handle it for a bit before playing and between sets.
After the fact, you may clean the strings depending on how much they are effected by playing. The light approach is to use a small nylon carpet sample which will get under the strings and also clean the fret board, about ten slow slides up and down from nut to bridge and back is about right. A more firm approach for the plain strings is to fold a small (half inch square) piece of Teflon pad (Scotch-Brite or similar) up from under the string ( a "U" shape with the string inside) and slide it up and down its length... after a few strokes you will feel it go slick, which means it's done. Be sure to pull upward so as to not rub the frets or wood, and hold a finger on the string at the nut if it feels like it might pop out.

Technique variations will determine how long it takes string bends and fretting pressure to dig notches under the string over the frets. Those notches are assisted by providing a location for corrosion that is not removed by just "wiping off" the strings. The carpet sample is much more effective, and the Teflon pad pulled under the plain strings is very effective at slowing down the progression of notches.
For those that use overdrive, a good portion of many string anomalies get covered up in the tone, but for dead clean playing you will likely notice the effect of the notches - they act to confuse the sounding string length by slightly resembling a termination or a node of the sounding string length. The effect is also variable with sounding string length because a note fretted near the nut will have many notches in its sounding length but a note high up the neck will have fewer (effect on positions may sound different).
If you periodically put your fingernail under a plain string and run it up and down you can usually feel the notches before you come to hear them.

Taste (how you like your strings to sound) is all over the place. When you first put on strings, especially for jazz, it is common that they sound pretty bright and your tone controls will be set down to a point where they sound just right. As the weeks and months go by, in order to keep that "just right" tone you may notice your tone control has been edged up a little. This is not a bad thing; in fact it is useful. When you notice that your guitar tone is set all the way up to sound "just right", that is your "strings need changing soon" warning indicator.