Robben Ford Discussion

[Aeolian]

Daved,

I wonder if you could share with us some more of your road warrior tips and tricks.

I was putting new strings on last night while the drummer was bringing in his stuff and thinking that most folks don't like to put on new ones even the same day of a gig, but I've seen Daved changing strings minutes before showtime.

Daved, how do you go about making sure new strings stay in tune? Any particular knots at the tuner? Stretching routines?

Also, have you had problems with D'Addario .010's coming apart at the ball end? I've seen this happen to Garth and Chris Cain, and I had another one last night. It starts going flat and within a song or two, breaks at the tailpiece. Another friend said he talked to D'Addario about this and they obliquely acknowledged a problem. His solution is to unilaterally toss the one that came in the package and put on an individually packaged string. He says he has much better luck with this.
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There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
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[juspasinby2003]

Steve,
Yep. I've had the same problem with D'Addarios. I wrote to the company, but they wouldn't cop to being aware of the problem and told me to save the defective strings to send to them for replacement. That was decent enough of them, but I decided to switch to GHS while someone else did the field testing. I have noticed that the problem is exacerbated if you use any oil on your bridge saddles to cut the friction.

By the way, when did Garth switch to D'Addarios? I thought he was happy with the Boomers.

[Aeolian]

Now that you mention it, I think Garth still uses GHS. I think his problem is more from the worn out Shaller tailpiece on his RF. I solved this on mine by putting a Gibson stop bar on but Garth said he didn't like the effect on the guitar so he lives with it eating strings. And his symptom is a little different, it goes pretty quickly. Chris does all these wild over bend and you can hear it going flat on him. And if it goes flat twice in a song, I can tell that it's going to let go in the next one.

Interesting that someone else in a different locale had the same problem with D'Addario's. My other friend thinks that there are some known bad lots in packaged sets which is why he replaces the 10 with one from a paper package. Now I'm inclined to agree. Hadn't had much problem with the last couple batches of sets but the last one did it again. May have to quarentine this last order. Also interesting that you found saddle lubrication exacerbates it. I have Tusq saddles and Chris has either these or the old nylon saddles. That would let the end of the string "work" more. Now that I have big frets on my Tele and can play it out more, it will be interesting to see if similar problems crop up with that.

If Robben and Daved haven't seen this, it would seem that D'Addario knows which are the bad lots and doesn't send them to endorsee's, just us poor shlubs. I still like the balance and response of the wound strings, so I'll live with it, but like you say it feels like we're doing the field testing. Or more likely, there was a corporate decision to go ahead and sell off the defective lots and deal with those folks sufficient motivated to complain by offering replacements, as in your case.

Still curious if Daved has any tricks to counteract this, or specal wraps and knots at the tuner. I use a classical style loop back around with decent sucess.

Wildest trick I ever saw was Scofield changing a string in the middle of a set. He reached up and raked the pick along the string like it was a serrated Christmas ribbon. The string curled up into a nice little coil and stayed out of the way.
_________________
There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com

[StratCat]

Wow - I thought this was just me!

Have been having this problem for about 2 years now, but seems to have stopped with the last batch of strings I got a few months ago. Was driving me nuts too - fixed bridge with Graphtech saddles so just couldn't work out why I kept popping the .010s.

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this but I felt that maybe they've changed the manufacturing process in the last few years? I know this sounds vague but the plain steel strings seem a bit "softer" these days, but not tension-wise... when you uncoil a .017 it almost has the feel of solder. I can't remember it being like this in years gone by, but maybe I'm a bit more observant these days!



Chris
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[juspasinby2003]

Chris,
That's an interesting observation about the stiffness of the .017 gage string. I hadn't noticed the difference before, but, now that you mention it, the wire might have changed over the last few years.

I had assumed, without really examining the construction of the string, that the defect was in the quality of the tie wrap at the string end. I thought that maybe the defective lots hadn't been tied as well and therefore weren't gripping the string as tightly. I had thought of taking a needle nose pliers to the string to try to pinch down the tie so it would bite in and grip better, but I never got around to it. I suppose you could burn on a miniscule dab of solder paste, but I don't imagine that tone would be unaffected.

[edpesco]

unbelievable things happen. chills down my spine. I read about that string problem yesterday and thought what rubbish as I have been using D'Addario 10s for more than 10 years now and never had a problem. Today I put on new strings on a guitar I had just found at the local rubbish depot (!) and guess what happened? B-string broke at the ballend. THIS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. When I looked over my shoulder could I swear there was a big strong guy with a large chin and an even bigger smile......

[charliebrown]