by admin on July 10, 2009
Here’s a great Youtube tutorial for changing your electric guitar strings that I found today. Heaps of beginners constantly ask this question and I think this video is going to clear things up for most of you.
Learning to play the guitar and learning to maintain your guitar go hand in hand – Please do learn to maintain your guitar especially if it’s a relatively expensive one. You will enjoy playing the guitar more this way and it will have a better tone overall. Also, be sure to change your strings as soon as you start to notice some corrosion happening on the strings.
This Youtube video’s pretty hilarious but it gets the job done. He first shows viewers how to use lemon oil to clean the fretboard and also how to use tape to protect while you use steel wool to keep your frets clean and shiny. Word of warning – MAKE SURE you use the finest steel wool you can find, if not you can really damage your frets whilst cleaning. Also be sure to tape up your guitar pickup as shown in the video. The reason is because the pickups are magnatized and filing away at your frets will create fine metal shavings that will stick to your pickup and you’re going to find it very hard to remove.
You can do it if you want to, but I don’t clean my fretboard every time I change guitar strings. Only once every few string changes. There is no real need for excessive cleaning. Another reason is if you keep using lemon oil on your fretboard, you could put too much moisture into your guitar neck and cause it to warp a bit.
Good luck with changing strings and cleaning your guitar. Remember that if you have any questions about this, I am always prepared to help. Just click on the ” about me ” section and drop me a message.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzBkBkY6tGY[/youtube]
Tags:
change guitar strings,
electric guitar,
youtube guitar tutorials
by admin on June 22, 2009
I’ve been using Ernie Ball strings on my Gibson electric guitar for a while now and I absolutely love them.
Ernie Ball is well-known and a chosen favorite in the Rock guitar industry and is used by guitarists such as Jimmy Page, Slash, Steve Vai, Clapton just to name a few.
My preferred gauge of guitar string is the Ernie Ball ” Hybrid Slinky “, which strings range from 9 – 46. These strings produce a nice rounded sound on my Gibson and its top strings are crisp while the bottom ones deliver a really punchy bass.
Best thing about these Hybrid Slinky strings is that it’s incredibly cheap. I buy a box of 12 each time and that breaks it down to about $3.99 per set of strings. Bad part of it is that my hands sweat a lot when I play guitar and somehow my sweat corrode the strings faster than other guitar players. I wipe the strings down really well but still I will go through a set of strings every 3 weeks or so.
This custom gauge of strings is perfect for heavy riffing in Rock and Metal and also makes a great lead tone. For those of you who play Blues guitar, you will get a great tone for that too.
The strings are super-easy to vibrato and bend because they’re so thin but yet there’s no loss of tone quality. These nickel-plated strings really pack a punch!
I’ve tried Fender guitar strings and also D’Addario’s and I still prefer the feel and sound of the Ernie Ball’s. Two thumbs up!
Tags:
electric guitar,
Ernie Ball,
Strings
by admin on June 15, 2009
Guitar strings gauge on an acoustic guitar are different than an electric guitar
Guitar strings gauge is the term we use for the thickness of a set of strings. The strings are given a set of numbers and basically, the thinner the string, the lower the gauge number, and high gauge numbers refer to thicker strings.
Typically, you will see the string gauge displayed on the packet starting with the high E string. For example, 0.09 – 0.46.
Acoustic guitar strings are different from electric guitar strings. A typical electric guitar gauge is 0.009 while acoustic guitars normally go for 0.010.
Seasoned guitar players sometimes use higher gauges of string like .012 upwards, as these strings produce better tone and sustain. However these high gauge strings are more difficult for a beginner to play as they require more finger strength to bend.
If you are looking to switch to a heavier string gauge and you’re a beginner, you might want to seek the advise of a guitar technician as these strings have a lot more tension and increase the pressure placed on the guitar neck. If your truss rod is not adjusted accordingly, it could very quickly bend your guitar’s neck out of shape.
photo credit: Wouter de Bruijn
Tags:
Guitar Accessories,
guitar strings gauge
Hey there! Mark here. Thanks for visiting. Feel free to drop me an email with any questions that you might have. To know more about me, click on the "About Me" link.
