The Quest For Tone: DAddario EXP110

   

     Everyone has their favorite guitar string. Why they have that particular string as a favorite is a complex subject. Obviously no one can try all of the guitar strings available, so how do we get to a point where we can say that a particular string is our favorite?

     Most often it is from a magazine ad or a web endorsement by someone the guitarist in question idolizes. We also talk to one another and share opinions. I recently saw two gentleman guitarists almost come to blows over whether Elixirs are better than Ernie Ball strings. These guys need to get off the net and go practice chord inversions or something. Seriously...

     I have an American Standard Telecaster that I adore. The original strings on it were very nice, and communicated everything about the sound that I had come to love. The US standard Telecaster comes with Fender Standard Tension ST250L, Nickel Plated Steel, light gauge . They are great strings but the folks on the Telecaster forums (You can link to the Telecaster forums HERE) thought that they didn't last very long if you are playing a lot. I practice almost every day, and usually perform every weekend, so longevity is important for me.

     Elixir makes a couple of variants of coated strings (polyweb vs nanoweb) and while I use them on my Taylor, and Fender acoustic guitars, I have never been very impressed with them on my electrics. They sound great and hold up forever, but they are a little too slippery for the style of lead that I play. I like to be able to manipulate the strings without slipping off. One of the folks over at the forum pointed out that they had been very happy with D'Addario EXP110 regular light strings. They are coated similar to the strings from Elixir, but I think they are a little less slippery.
   
     The tone from the EXP's is crisp and dry. It sets a nice baseline for a twangy guitar like the Telecaster. I also put a set on my Yamaha AEX hybrid, which is notoriously brash and thin on the piezo pickup. The EXP's were actually able to tame some of the brashness out of the guitar because there are so many subtle undertones that the ear simply isn't assaulted by so much of the same frequency. They really are a great string.

     Settle in time seems to be about the same as other strings with some stretching going on for a while until they stabilize, but it is on par with the Elixirs. All in all I would recommend trying a set on your favorite electric. They are about $10 online, (I bought mine from Amazon), and I think they are definitely worth the money. I'm was not a fan before I tried these strings, but now I am hooked.

     You can link to D'Addario's website HERE.

Why try and preserve the past? Because it's important!

     When my son +Chris Morris was 15 we found him a classic guitar. It's an old Ibanez from with a set neck and a set of hum-buckers, one of which has a coil tap. The guitar was about 20 years old when I bought it for him. It had belonged to a friend of mine named "Beaver", yes, really, "Beaver". Anyway, the guitar had been originally bought by a dude named Fred Dowdy who was in a band called "Porky and the Beans" yes that was a real band name. Beaver bought it from Fred and proceeded to drag it out every time someone was over and drinking. Countless drunks have punished this guitar throughout the years. It's a great guitar, but it's had a rough life.

     The serial number shows that she was the 5,792nd guitar built in May of 1980. That's the same month that Mt. Saint Helens erupted here in Washington state. The model is an AR-50, but it's a one off. The head stock is not painted like most of the factory guitars made that year. Someone also replaced the tailpiece with a "Bowen Handle" tremolo system. Based on this review it is apparently a decent tremolo option.

     The guitar has been kicked around and I really don't think anyone has done anything with it since I bought it from the Beav. The action is easily .250" at the 12th fret, someone has lowered the neck picup all of the way off of the mounts and the intonation is way off (someone lined up the bridge saddles - for aesthetics?)

     Someone stole a limited edition customer Taylor acoustic from me recently out of the studio. There was no sign of a forced entry, and whoever took the guitar also went through our freezer, and played my drum kit. Here's the weird part though. They left the case. If you were stealing a $3000 guitar I would expect you to take the case, but no someone took it out of the case. The only people that had access to the studio were my two adult sons but they say they don't know anything about it.

     Anyway, this prompted a short inventory and I came across Chris' guitar. I told him I would go through it and get it back into playable shape. The first order of business if the case. It is trashed. Many cases have a small cloth strap on either end that keeps the lid from flopping open all of the way. This case had those straps too, but they have long since rotted out, which allowed the lid to flop down and torque the spliced joint on the end of the case as you can see in this photo.

   
     My plan to fix the joint was to remove the old material, cut a splice out of some left over walnut, and epoxy it into place. The splice won't show because it will be behind the fake fur and padding. I thought about re-doing the case padding for him, but it looks better if it shows its age a bit. All we are doing here is making a safe place for the repaired guitar to live. Below is a photo of the splice being epoxied into the case.

All Your Base Are Belong To Us...

     I like Google. I really do. I see what they are trying to do and it's pretty cool. I like the idea of a Star Trek computer. I actually chose an android OS tablet because of the interconnections of Google products.

     I was an early adopter of Gmail and have relied heavily on it for years. Recently though, I decided that it was time to change my email address after 8 years. Seriously, how many advertisement emails do you need for hair, a larger naughty bit, a hot Russian bride,  or any number of discount medicines? Besides, the email address was a little longer than I wanted to drag around for however many years I have left on earth. It seems a simple thing, so I decided to change it.

     This is where the pervasiveness of Google comes into play. I really like Google Drive in that it lets me work on projects anywhere, and at any time, on any platform. Unfortunately when you change your email you lose everything on your Drive account. Yes, I know you can move it, but it's something that people don't generally think about.

     Not only do you have to let everyone in your email circle know that you are moving to new email digs, but you have to let them know about your new G+ profile, and you have to re-follow anyone you are interested in. On the upside: the numb skull from Pittsburgh who believes he is the worlds greatest guitarist no longer sends me sophomoric emails with insults and links to him gratuitously failing at playing guitar, so there is that.

     Another thing that is really lame and should be well thought out before moving is Blogger. You can pass editing rights to your new profile, but you cannot transfer ownership to the new profile. In some ways this is bad. I lost A lot of work on the sailboat blog. Everything except the most recent post -- which has been updated to the new site. I also lost my other blog "View From The Gutter", which isn't terrible. I started this one in its place. Fresh starts and all that...

     The one part thought that I didn't think about, and is probably the worst effect of moving was my contact list. I can do without a lot of email addresses since they are on people's profiles usually anyway. No, the part I did not foresee is that all of the contacts on your phone that are tied to your gmail profile will be deleted as well. Many of these contacts were from a long time ago. Now I have no idea who is calling me, who is sending me redonkulous text messages. It's sad really.

     So before you move, and maybe even if you don't plan to change profiles anytime soon, make a hard copy backup of all your contact data. I didn't but I sure wish I had.

     Here's a recreation of what it's like getting mystery calls. Don't let it happen to you!