When I was a student, I spend most of my time playing the guitar than anything else. I did spend most of my money to buy the axe and accessories that related to guitar. The passion was sooo huge that sometimes, I am able to practise more than 5 hours a day.
Back then, I always changed my string every 3 to 6 months to maintain the good sound and feeling. A rusty string definitely does not produce a good sound, worst, it harden the soloing process.
After started working, I have less time spend on my guitar. I hardly learn new songs and practising new skills. However, I did jam once in a while. If last time I changed the string sometimes in 3 months time, now it is more than 3 years.
Brand
I normally use Ernie Ball Super Slinky for my guitar. I have tried some other brands but I still prefer this pink color guitar strings. For this time around, while shopping, I was thinking to try something new. I bought over the orange colour string called Hybrid Slinky. I believe this strings is more versatile and suit the songs that I played since I play a wide range of genre, from Joget, Dangdut, Blues, Metal, Rock, Indie - you name it.
What's the Different?
The size of the string is slightly different. Hybrid Slinky offers same size string for the first few strings and bigger size for the last 3 strings. This will add a heavy bass sound while maintaining the smaller strings for soloing and plucking.
Super Slinky: .009 .011 .016 .024 .032 .042
Hybrid Slinky: .009 .011 .016 .026 .036 .046
Fret
While I didn't change my string, so can't I clean my fret. All those daki-daki already absorbed as part of the wood. Some might say that is something that raise the value of the guitar as it goes older. But personally, I enjoyed better after clean it up!
Final Result
The photo says it well. Now I started to play some of the old songs that I already forgotten. Surprisingly most of the songs I can't play as good as the old time. Practising will require time and commitment. I am now try to practise back one of the song that I left for sometimes. You can see a lot of "Cliff of Dovers" by Eric Johnson scrobble through my
last.fm page.
Yup, let go jamming after this.