quote:
Originally posted by plan-x
What I do is thread the string thru the barrel, create a loop, thread it again thru the loop and you've got a knot. Mine don't unravel anymore. This adds about 30 sec. to a string change.
John....plan-x
That's a good idea--I'm tired of carrying around extra e strings all the time.
I love my Parker (as do we all), but I don't see how anybody who's had it happen more than once could blame it on a bad batch of strings. I've owned 40 or 50 electric guitars since 1968, and my '98 Fly is the only guitar it's ever happened to. Oh sure, I've broken plenty of E strings, but only the Fly has unwound them from the ball. When I put on a new set, it's the only string I don't stretch now, because I've discovered the chances of a ball unwind are vastly increased when I stretch the string on installation.
I can always tell when it's about to happen, too; my e starts going flat every 20 seconds or so. When that happens onstage, I call my tech over and just say "the E!" and he knows exactly what I'm talking about--he grabs an e from my bag of 20 extra e strings, and if the guitar makes it through the whole song, hands me my backup and changes the string during the next song.
It's probably happened 30 times in the five years I've owned the guitar, and I've tried D'Darrio, Dean Markely (Blue Steels), SIT's, GHS Boomers, Elixers, those "Trailer Trash" strings (can't remember the brand, but each pack features a characiture of a goofy, buck-toothed redneck), Ernie Balls, Carvins, Darcos, Snarling Dogs, D'Aquistos, John Pearse, and even Snake Oils (Snake Oil is a great-sounding string, by the way). The only brand I've ever tried that it didn't happen to is DR, but that's probably because I've only used those once (a set of Lo-Riders).I've used both 9's and 10's, tuned at concert pitch and tuned a half-step down.
So let's see... in 40 years of playing, it's happened to only one guitar, and it's happened over and over on that guitar despite bi-weekly string changes using a 15 or 16-brand manufacturer pool. Anybody wanna tell me I just coincidentally happened to get
30 bad batches from
15 different manufacturers, and all of them just happened to be on this
one brand of guitar (of the four I currently play live)?