Changing Bass Guitar Strings – How Often?

Over time, bass guitar strings gradually become dull and lifeless. Sweat and oil from your fingers and general dirt become trapped in the string windings. The acid in your sweat will attack the strings and gradually prevent them from vibrating as well as they did when new.

This deterioration in sound quality will be more noticeable with round wound or ground wound strings, which begin life with a very bright sound. New flat wound strings have a more mellow sound and the deterioration in sound quality is not as obvious.

The length of time that bass players keep a set of strings on their bass varies greatly. At one end of the spectrum there players who will change their strings after every gig, while there are others will happily leave them on for a year or more.

How often bass guitar strings will require replacing will be influenced by several factors including how often you play your bass and the amount of acid present in your sweat. There are a couple of things you can do to extend the life of your strings. Help keep them clean by wiping them with a dry, lint-free cloth after every session. You can also clean them with denatured alcohol or use a product made specifically for this purpose. One such product that does an excellent job of keeping your strings clean is GHS Fast-Fret String Cleaner.

There is another technique which is not really recommended, but does work temporarily. This involves removing the strings and placing them in a pan of boiling water for several minutes. This will restore some of the original brightness, but they will become dull again quite soon, usually within a day or two.

Some round wound strings have an extremely bright, zingy sound when new which some players love. Others hate it and can’t wait until their strings have bedded in. If you fall into the second class, it is probably not a good idea to change your strings immediately before a gig.

Finally, another reason for changing strings is because as they age, they are more prone to breaking. This is much less of a problem than with guitar strings as bass guitar strings are much tougher and although they do break once in a while, it is not a very common occurrence.

In summary, if you like a warm sound, then you will probably be happy to use the same strings for a long time. However, if you love the brightness of new strings you will probably want to change them more regularly – say every three months or so.