10 pages.... 
And no one told us what Jaco did when it came to cutting, or not cutting strings!
And no one told us what Jaco did when it came to cutting, or not cutting strings!
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Why do folks cut strings?
- Thread starter anightintunisia
- Start date
I cut off about 3” or so after the peg, bend a 90 about 1/2” from the cut end, stick it in the center hole, and try to wind down as close to the bottom of the peg without overlap. I’m imaging some dude running around with a headstock looking like Tom Morello lol. That’s a safety violation on the work site as far as I’m concerned.
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@anightintunisia after 11 pages, do you understand now?
Curious. What basses and what strings do you use? I’ve used GHS, Dunlop, Pedulla, Ken Smith, LaBella, DR, Fodera, Ernie Ball, Elixir, D’Addario, Curt Mangan sets and all of them have had to be cut for my various basses. Fender, Ibanez, Fodera, and Music Man.
Curious. What basses and what strings do you use? I’ve used GHS, Dunlop, Pedulla, Ken Smith, LaBella, DR, Fodera, Ernie Ball, Elixir, D’Addario, Curt Mangan sets and all of them have had to be cut for my various basses. Fender, Ibanez, Fodera, and Music Man.
Im not going to sift through 11 pages. Is this a troll post? It feels like one.
Chewing gum and toilet paper are another two, for me.
Me, I'm a cutter. Always have been, always will be. But to be more specific, with a Fender-style four-in-line headstock, I usually find I don't have to cut the G. The further distance form the nut to the post, and the thinner gauge allowing for more windings without overlap, means I don't have to. But as the strings get thicker, and the posts closer to the nut, more comes off.
I very much agree with you on that. Fender "improved" the tuners and now they are selling stealth string retainers to solve a problem caused by bad design.
I cut my strings so there isn't excess. I like my windings to go down to the bottom of the peg while still staying clean to maximize the break angle (I don't have a Fender headstock). This means that I probably have more wraps than most people. I also don't use silks.
(I know that D string looks a bit derpy. I also know it's not necessary to do wraps like this.)
I would never sell my old strings. I would give them away to someone who needed them, though - apparently strings can be hard to come by in certain areas of the world. I never thought about the length issue, but my guess is that the way I cut my strings will probably work for most six-string headstocks.
Edit: Talkbass image upload always fails me.
(I know that D string looks a bit derpy. I also know it's not necessary to do wraps like this.)
I would never sell my old strings. I would give them away to someone who needed them, though - apparently strings can be hard to come by in certain areas of the world. I never thought about the length issue, but my guess is that the way I cut my strings will probably work for most six-string headstocks.
Edit: Talkbass image upload always fails me.
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I cut my strings so there isn't excess. I like my windings to go down to the bottom of the peg while still staying clean to maximize the break angle (I don't have a Fender headstock). This means that I probably have more wraps than most people. I also don't use silks.
(I know that D string looks a bit derpy. I also know it's not necessary to do wraps like this.)
I would never sell my old strings. I would give them away to someone who needed them, though - apparently strings can be hard to come by in certain areas of the world. I never thought about the length issue, but my guess is that the way I cut my strings will probably work for most six-string headstocks.
Edit: Talkbass image upload always fails me.
These kind of wraps are what I strive for.
The real question is....why do folks NOT cut strings??!!!
I think that's what Frank Ford told us when he guest lectured at Roberto Venn. Maybe it was 2.5 tuners.
I remember he scared me when just cut the old strings off of a guitar. I had always unwound them before that.
I don't cut my strings, and on the E string of my jazz basses I have 6 wraps with the last being perfectly at the bottom of the tuner peg, thus maximising the break angle over the nut. It looks neat and tidy too as the end is poked down the hole in the tuner. No slippage. Strings: D'Addario XLs and Fender flats.
To show their eccentric individualism.
It shouts"I'm a character"!
They may as well add an "arrow thru the head prop" to top off the effect.
Well my point wasn't "do what Fender says", it was that cutting strings isn't some fad limited to certain circles (Talk Bass or otherwise).none of it (my POV re: "cutting strings") depends on fender or talk bass herd-think.
Guitarists usually cut their strings too.
My view is basically if an individual wants fewer windings then they should cut the strings, otherwise don't cut them.
sounds like you should cut them!
makes perfect sense! re: cutting strings, i said in the opening sentence of my first post: "i would if i thought i should in a specific instance, but it's not a "rule." ergo, my view questions 'the wanting' of fewer windings.
I want as many wraps as I can get around the tuning post.
Ideally, the last wrap is as close as possible to the bottom of the peg to maximize the break angle over the nut.
But I also don't want the wraps to overlap - so if I need to cut the string to accomplish that goal, I do.
Ideally, the last wrap is as close as possible to the bottom of the peg to maximize the break angle over the nut.
But I also don't want the wraps to overlap - so if I need to cut the string to accomplish that goal, I do.
I cut my strings to make them shorter. I tried cutting my strings to make them longer once, but it didn’t work. Then I remembered I don’t need them longer and cut them shorter instead.
Why? Any number of reasons...
1. I have never sold a used set of strings in the 54 years I've been playing bass guitars... and I ain't about to start now.
2. You would have very little use for my used strings - unless you wanted to make small animal snares, or goofy jewelry out of them. When I remove a set of strings from a bass, it's because they are well and truly DEAD. They have passed on... they are bereft of Life... they are ex-strings...
3. While some basses have tuner posts that are big enough to wrap several inches of excess string around, there are quite a few that are not. I'll guarantee you that trying that nonsense with the tuners on a Hofner; some Danelectros; or the Schaller guitar tuners on the back end of my headless Kramer Duke, will be an exercise in futility and frustration. I have to cut the strings for those basses. Most of my basses with Gotoh-style tuners won't take much more than 4 winds of a 105 E-string leader - assuming that I don't wind up with some of the speaking part of the string wrapped around it, too; so those strings have to get cut as well. That leaves me with only a few basses with tuner posts that can accommodate a big, messy glob of excess string; TBH, I see no valid reason not to cut those, too .
4. I've been doing it this way for more than half a century. It's worked just fine; I like the way the finished product looks; so I think I'll keep doing it this way. It's not like I'm getting paid by the bass to do it, and I'm in no hurry, either...
In all those years, I've only ever put ONE kind of strings - on ONE bass - that didn't really "need" the leaders cut. The "short scale" TI Jazz Rounds on the 2+2 headstock of my '94 Gretsch Broadkaster are actually short enough as they are, that the A and D strings barely got 2 1/2 winds on the posts. I maybe could have gotten the E and G strings on their posts uncut, too; but... probably not. And, anyway; my OCD wouldn't let me...
But, that's just me. Your bass is your bass; by all means - install your strings any ol' way you want to...
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