Re-Stringing Your Acoustic Electric Guitar

Your guitar works by having strings vibrate at different tensions over the resonator cavity, and your strings will eventually wear out.  Different strings produce different grades of sound, and some are appropriate to electric guitars, some work better for acoustic, and a few work equally well for both.

You can tell your guitar strings need replacing when the sound starts to get dull, and you lose some resonance; unfortunately, unless you listen to earlier recordings on the same instrument, it can be hard to hear the difference because the sound changes in aging strings are subtle and shift over time.  Typical time frames for restringing are at least six months, and some acoustic guitar aficionados do it every month.

What you string your acoustic guitar with will depend on the kind of music you like to play - there are manufacturers who specialize in specific products, gauges, alloys and materials.  We'll help you select what you need, starting with the gauge (thickness) of string.  The heavier the gauge, the louder you can play the guitar, and the longer the strings will last in tune.  They hold their note better, in general.  The downside is that heavier gauge strings put more stress on the rest of the guitar, and they can be a bit harder on your hands as you play.  Using heavy gauge strings on a fragile, older instrument, is a recipe for heartbreak.

Lighter gauge strings for acoustic guitars are easier to tune, but go out of tune more quickly.  They're also better for a more improvisational sound.  They're easier to play and form a chord with because they're more malleable under the fingers, and you don't have to press down as hard on the frets.  The resulting sound will be softer, and you'll spend more of your time tuning the instrument.  Medium gauge strings try to get the benefits of both, and are very situational in what benefits they'll give an individual instrument or player.

Guitar strings are made of wire, and the type of wire is usually a bronze alloy.  Nickel, steel and silver are all sometimes used, but bronze has the benefit of sounding 'normal', lasting longer, and being affordable because it's the most commonly made.  Steel string guitars sound different - brighter - than bronze, but tend to be more expensive.  Nickel string is a way to try to brighten bronze strings to the level that steel gets.  For bronze strings, the allow mix is either 'phosphor' or '80/20'.  Phosphor lasts longer, 80/20 sounds brighter, but needs to be changed more frequently.

Another string choice to make is the coating - nearly every manufacturer out there has some sort of preservative coat for their strings.  Many guitarists swear by them, some guitarists feel that they make strings more expensive with no real benefit. For reasons dealing with tradition, electric guitars tend to end up with coated strings more frequently.

As to restringing your guitar, it's a fairly straightforward procedure.  Even so, practice it a few times.  The first few times you do it, it'll be frustrating.  You start by removing the old string and unwind it from the head, then thread the new string through the bridge, and pin it in.  Stretch the string down the neck, tightening it through the eye on the head of the guitar, then tighten the tuning peg - at least one full rotation - so that you can tune it to the rest of the string.  It's pretty quick once you've gotten the practice in.