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Help!  No high E string using magnetic pickups!  Models fine.  


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You read that right.

 

I decided to be super cheap and lazy and bought 20 plain high E (11’s) strings via FleaBay.  I go through ‘em at a good clip and I sometimes like .011 instead of .010.  

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/20-Pack-Single-Electric-Guitar-Strings-Bulk-011-High-E-Medium-11-Gauge-M2I8/332747544409?hash=item4d794c9759:g:7R4AAOSwq75bZgDw

 

Chinese seller supper slow shipping.  I’d kinda forgot about ‘em until they arrived in mailbox.  

 

Threw one on JTV59 and it felt okay.  Sorta felt different but I chocked it up to being 11.  All seemed good enough and I even checked the modeling to be sure there wasn’t any drastic volume/tone difference.  All good or so I thought.  

 

Start our show on a Spank model and all’s well.  However, flipping to magnetic pickups no high E string.  What?  You’ve gotta be kidding me!  

 

1st I thought I’d lost a piezo but no, models sounded fine and balanced volume but my head keep going back to all the threads here and dead piezo.  Ugh!  Eventually resorted to using Lester modeling until we hit a break and swapped-in #2.  

 

So apparently these strings are some sort of non-ferrous alloy and will not generate any signal through magnetic pickups.  I’ve never heard of such a thing.  

 

Could you imagine buying a full set of these and wondering why my guitar pickups died?  

 

Anyway, please indulge my starting a thread but I felt worth sharing since we often hear about low or no string volume issues but only with modeling.  This situation being the complete opposite and after some puzzled moments I got quite a chuckle out of the irony.  

 

Been at this nearly 50 years and still run into stuff I would’ve never imagined possible.  Only from China I suppose?  
 

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9 hours ago, jerseyboy said:

You read that right.

 

I decided to be super cheap and lazy and bought 20 plain high E (11’s) strings via FleaBay.  I go through ‘em at a good clip and I sometimes like .011 instead of .010.  

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/20-Pack-Single-Electric-Guitar-Strings-Bulk-011-High-E-Medium-11-Gauge-M2I8/332747544409?hash=item4d794c9759:g:7R4AAOSwq75bZgDw

 

Chinese seller supper slow shipping.  I’d kinda forgot about ‘em until they arrived in mailbox.  

 

Threw one on JTV59 and it felt okay.  Sorta felt different but I chocked it up to being 11.  All seemed good enough and I even checked the modeling to be sure there wasn’t any drastic volume/tone difference.  All good or so I thought.  

 

Start our show on a Spank model and all’s well.  However, flipping to magnetic pickups no high E string.  What?  You’ve gotta be kidding me!  

 

1st I thought I’d lost a piezo but no, models sounded fine and balanced volume but my head keep going back to all the threads here and dead piezo.  Ugh!  Eventually resorted to using Lester modeling until we hit a break and swapped-in #2.  

 

So apparently these strings are some sort of non-ferrous alloy and will not generate any signal through magnetic pickups.  I’ve never heard of such a thing.  

 

Could you imagine buying a full set of these and wondering why my guitar pickups died?  

 

Anyway, please indulge my starting a thread but I felt worth sharing since we often hear about low or no string volume issues but only with modeling.  This situation being the complete opposite and after some puzzled moments I got quite a chuckle out of the irony.  

 

Been at this nearly 50 years and still run into stuff I would’ve never imagined possible.  Only from China I suppose?  
 

 

Lol... just when you think you've heard it all. Trying to make a country's guitar players think their pickups suddenly died is a super-weird trade war tactic, though...;)

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They were sold as electric guitar strings and they seemed to ring fine on the JTV strummed acoustically.  Main concern were any anomalies models/piezos might suffer.  That’s why I plugged in and checked the models but it never dawned on me to test the mags.  What a very weird and startling surprise.  

 

I don’t even know why these things were ever made and it’s a good reminder that “secret string recipes” for magnetic pickups can make tremendous difference.  I don’t think I’ll be buying strings direct from China anymore.  

 

Older old-timers told me electric guitar string materials slowly changed and refined through the 60’s and later years.  Even if you wanted to sound exactly like Buddy Holly (Black Diamond flat wound) or someone from that era, currently available string materials wiggling over newfangled pickups aren’t the same as were used back in the day.  

 

Of course we’ll never be able to A/B such theories but it’s fun to wonder what those sounds were like in that era.  

 

I've been told by original Cricket and believe Buddy Holly used BD flats on his Strat because out in the boonies that’s what drug stores often stocked for the touring big bands.  Not many full service music stores like today.  

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