Not sure where this should go...but...sorry if it's in the wrong spot and sorry if it's a noob question.

So I know how to change my strings, I do it often, as I play quite a bit. I've only ever removed the strings one by one, as pressure needs to be maintained on the neck. For some reason I always have thought that this is the appropriate and safest way to change them...

however...

I want to give the fretboard a good cleaning...is it SAFE to take all my strings off at once? I've got a Paul Reed Smith. What do you guys do? I've watched various youtube vids, and they vary...but I don't want my neck to warp or do any damage to my baby...

One reason to change strings one by one is that you don't need to setup your instrument again(at least it won't go off that much)

it's safe to remove all the strings, but you got to check your setup\intonation after you did all the job anyway if you change it during the day i think it's not that harmful anyway i know it's dangerous to keep your guitar with low\no tension that may cause your neck to bow and you can damage it if you try to recover it fast :)

you can watch some vids at youtube to make sure.

To be honest, unless your guitar is shitty or don't have a truss rod, you can easily get rid of all the strings take a good 30 minutes of cleaning and put them back up without having to modify anything on the setup (if you keep the same string gauge and you didn't play with any screw of course).

 

Truss rod in the neck are here to assure the neck stay with a decent tension even when there's no string which will avoid any change in the overall setup of your guitar but truss rod is just a metal bar (or 2 or even more for the crazy wide neck) inside the neck so it has it's limitation. So if the neck stay under low tension long enough it will start to take a more comfortable position for the wood which is the opposite of the position it should be in for a proper setup.

 

If it stayed without string a bit, better rebuild the tension across the neck slowly to let the wood take back it's position or you might break it and of course check your setup afterward cause the bow of the neck is an important part of a good setup and it will have changed.

Check out this.

Cool, great tips firekorn (ps. been following ur youtube channel, keep it up man)

Thanks for the info and tips guys. :) Time to change and clean her!

I thought removing all the strings at once is bad if you have a floating tremolo.  Isn't that why they say to not remove them all so that those kind dont have to be re adjusted or is that wrong?

@@Xstatic If you don't change the string gauge or anything else in the setup, tremolo or not won't matter, the tension should get back to the same value so the trem should get back to the same position.

 

Depending on the type of trem you can have some slight inconvenience when you get rid of the string all at once but it's in no way something that should be avoided if you have a small idea of what you are doing.

A small idea is all I have I have never changed the strings on my newest guitar and only changed the old ones strings when one broke.  I'm a noob for sure.

String should be changed before they broke because of the acidity of human skin and other factor that change the quality of the string.

 

For player that play daily, it's suggested to change almost every month to avoid the biggest of the tone loss. Also string in a proper setting should not break so waiting for it to change string is probably one of the worst thing any player could do.

g.

 

For player that play daily, it's suggested to change almost every month to avoid the biggest of the tone loss. Also string in a proper setting should not break so waiting for it to change string is probably one of the worst thing any player could do.

I agree with this, I change mine about every 30-60 hours, that comes down to about 30 days. Sometimes if I practice more in a day, ie. 4 hours or so , it's shorter. But you can tell when your fingers start smelling metallic after you play and the strings start sounding dull and 'muddy'

It can't hurt the neck if you take off all the strings at the same time, clean the guitar and then put the new strings on. It can't take more than an hour, so not much can happen. :D

 

source: been doing it that way for the past six years, nothing bad ever happened :D