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Cleaning bass strings saves money

Cleaning your bass strings instead of buying new strings is easy and saves money. Bass strings are very expensive, twenty dollars for a good set, and yet they wear out very quickly. And the importance of a new set of strings cannot be overstated on an instrument that relies so heavily on that elusive x-factor known as “pitch.” Every musician is always chasing tone, but bassists are always on the line between “muddy” and “bottomless” as they try to maintain that perfect union of the sonic spectrum. So if you play bass and you’re tired of shelling out twenty bucks every two weeks, do what I do; clean your strings for free.

First of all, I’m sure most of you have heard of boiling the strings to get that fresh sound back; do not do it! Boiling the strings may make the strings sound brighter for a few hours or days at most, but in reality what you are doing is killing your strings, just like headhunter cannibals do to their victims in a Hollywood movie. Boiling the strings can very slightly upset the molecular balance of the metal and create some very unwanted side effects.

The best way to clean bass strings is to soak them in mineral spirits (paint thinner) overnight. It smells a bit, but the mineral spirits will gently clean around the string, inside the winding, top and bottom. You don’t have to scrub or anything, just let them sit in a small bucket. The next day, when you take the strings out of the liquor, wipe them down with a rag that you don’t need or will constantly use to clean your strings. Let the strings air dry for a few more hours. Any remaining alcohol will quickly evaporate as mineral spirits are highly volatile and flammable.

When you put the strings back on your instrument, you’ll be amazed at how amazing they sound. Sometimes even better than new. Clean, new strings will hold their tone for a long time, and best of all, you can clean them again after a few weeks, unlike boiled strings, which weaken over time.

So this little tip on cleaning your bass strings will save you money, won’t cost you a ton of time, and will make you happy to be a bass player since you won’t be constantly wondering about your strings while searching for tone. and bassists admitted it; You are all fans of the tone.

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