The BesT ‘Mod’ ever!
Why do we sometimes over-look the most basic part of our guitar: our strings? Dave burrluck considers the importance of a fresh set of wires…
The other day a gentleman came up to me at a gig and asked if I knew anyone who could have a look at his teenage son’s guitar. “What’s the problem?” I asked. “It doesn’t play in tune; we think it needs a new bridge,” he replied. I felt my left eyebrow rising and then asked, “What’s the guitar?” “A Levinson Blade: not sure what model.” I assured him I was sure we could get it sorted, Gary and Christian are good people and I always welcome a chance to get in touch.
Some days later, Dad, teenager and Blade duly arrived. I pulled the guitar out of its gigbag and was a little shocked: I’d never seen one of these rather fine instruments in such a state. It was clearly very dirty and cried out for a little cleaning and TLC at the very least. Then I noticed that the strings were mostly black and caked with gunk. I asked the rather sullen teenager when he’d last changed his strings. I took the mumbled reply as, not recently. I offered that I doubted there was anything wrong with the bridge.
“Give me half an hour, let’s clean up the guitar and restring it then we can see if any more drastic action is needed,” I told them. I removed the strings and set about de-gunking the guitar, finishing off with a quick fret polish, a wipe of fingerboard oil and a good buff.
With new strings in place, and a little light stretching, the guitar played perfectly; string height and intonation would pass a QC from most top brands’ techs. I handed the instrument to the still sullen teenager who, grudgingly, admitted he now didn’t hear any intonation problems. The rather embarrassed Dad, who’d realised the only problem had been his son’s disregard for his strings and general guitar hygiene, passed me £20 and thanked me for my time.
More recently a lapsed Gibson Les Paul Standard player was considering getting back to regular playing. Again, he was having some trouble. “I’ve ‘set up’ my Les Paul from a video tutorial I saw online… but it’s a bit buzzy,” came the explanation. Gawd. I offered to take a look. While far from the filthy state of the Levinson, the LP Standard’s strings certainly felt well-used. Again, I removed the strings, cleaned up the guitar and fingerboard, installed new strings, checked the truss rod and set the action height to a pretty universal 1.6mm on the treble side and 1.8/2mm on the bass. I then checked through the pickups and controls, made a sight adjustment to the over-powerful neck pickup and concluded that like many guitars of its period (1990) it was a pretty good, if weighty, ‘rock’ LP.
Once again, my mate had been trying to ‘fix’ his setup without firstly considering the hugely important ‘clean-up and new strings’ mantra. Do that, then see what’s needed… if anything. The net result is that the LP Standard was playing and sounding like its old self again, Yes, there’s a lack of high-end sparkle which might be down to either pickups or indeed the electrics but until we’d got the guitar in a nice playing condition, how could we possibly tell? I suspect it’s work-in-progress.
My final tale is a little more concerning. Our bass player had mentioned to our covers’ band leader – an inveterate guitar tinkerer – that his bass wasn’t playing ‘in tune’ in the lower positions, especially the low E. I was going to suggest a couple of things but before I could get the words, ‘when was the last time you changed your strings?’ out of my mouth, said band leader jumped in: “I’ll take a look!” He plunked the bass (unplugged) while checking the intonation with a tuner app on his phone and immediately concluded that the saddle needed adjusting and probably the nut height. At no point did he ask the bassist about his strings.
Before you set off on your next modding adventure – be it a pickup or part change, or a simple set-up – do yourself and your guitar a favour: a clean up, a fresh set of strings and a little TLC can cure a host of ‘problems’ that quite possibly aren’t there.