Guitar & Musician Forums

String life varies a lot depending on playing habits and environment. How often do you usually change your strings?

About every 3–4 weeks when I’m playing regularly.

I change them when they start to feel rough or lose brightness.

Back when I was in my early 20s and played guitar every day without fail, often for several hours, I was having to change my strings weekly. This was mainly because my fingers seemed to sweat a lot and I think it corroded the strings.

I always used to go for cheap strings as well and, lookng back, I don't think that really helped matters.

Fast forward to today and I mainly play acoustic guitar at the moment. Not very often and certainly not as often as I would like. I use the Elixir strings that have the nano coating. Honestly these strings last me months if not years!

I think the tone does start to degrade over time - this is despite the strings still looking brand new - and with some fresh ones on I really fall in love with the tone I get all over again!

So in answer to the question, the sweet spot for me currently would be around the 3 month mark if I was playing reasonabl regularly.