Up front I need to say I prefer the sound of old strings on just about all of my stringed instruments, and that's been my preference for about 40 of the 50 years I've been playing stringed instruments. I'm not saying I'm a slacker on maintenance or anything like that, it's just that I really don't like the bright sound of new strings. I keep all my instruments clean and their setup up to date, and I seriously clean my strings after every time I play them. As such strings tend to last a long time for me -- I have some instruments that have strings on them that are intentionally older than my oldest son who just turned 32 last month. So, that said...
I changed out my 7-year old strings on my main-playing mandolin today. (FYI, I use D'A Flattops on my mandolins.)
The reasons for changing the strings? Most immediately that my ears were blown out from a jam last evening, and everything (including my wife) was sounding dull. Also I did an inventory and discovered that I had only one new set of new-old-stock (sealed) mandolin strings in my possession for two mandolins, so I placed an order for 5 new sets and decided to use up that new-old-stock set. And lastly, I'm breaking in a new flatpick in anticipation of going to our first festival in 19 months, so I was curious to also see what a new set of strings would sound like...
I played the mandolin heavily for about an hour before changing strings so I'd have some memory of how it sounded with the old strings. I know, there's really no completely objective way to compare strings before and after, but I wanted to make some effort.
To my ears, the sound of the new strings is brighter than the old ones, pretty much as expected. Other than brightness, tone-wise the new strings sound pretty much the same as the old ones, possibly a little louder, but not much -- maybe noticeable, so possibly as much as 10% louder. Clarity is about the same. In a way I'm glad, as this experience says my efforts to clean strings after playing them pays off not just in how long they last, but also in how they sound. But I really was sort of hoping for a WOW difference, and that really isn't there. Or at least I am not recognizing that kind of difference..
Where I do experience recognizable differences are in the touch and in the tuning of the new strings...
The new strings are noticeably not as stiff as the old strings; I tend to associate that stiffness of the old strings with brittleness probably from age and long periods of tension.
And the new strings are easier to tune; I tend to associate that with cleaner, less corroded strings that fit the string slots better, and also there are no old bends in the strings that can cause resistance moving over the bridge or nut.
So my task now is to break in these strings enough so I'm not bothered by the brightness. As has been happening since March 2020, I'm jamming online for about 90 minutes every day, so I expect I'll succeed in accomplishing that break-in. New Flattops are also a little less bright than new round-wound strings, so that does help, but to my ears there's still significant brightness that needs to be worn away.
As a person who prefers old strings, I am aware that I have a bias, that is that we tend to over-romanticize the sound of new strings -- although I do also recognize that everyone hears different things from their instruments. But for me, there are some clear and noticeable differences in feel and in tuning -- not life-changing differences for me, but these differences are there and they might be important for some people.
When these new strings are 7 years old I'll probably think back about writing this up and wonder: was it worth it to change them out, or will I wish my strings were 14 years old by then?
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