Official Luthiers Forum!

Anybody interested? (Lance?)

I need to get some D’Adario EXP 15s. Way more popular than my EXP 17s. At very least I would like to offer the option to my clients.

Mike

I’d love to, but you don’t hear from Lance much these days...

Maybe Lance will chime in? I have not been in here much either. Been busy in my new shop. Maybe same for Lance. Can one of us do this? Who do we contact?

We buy several thousand sets of stings annually and all from D'Addarrio. Strings are so cheap these days at some retailers such as G*itar C*nter that even in a group buy you are saving very little AND tying up your coin for years if you don't use them quickly.

I'm remembering when I was a builder and bought from group buys here too and how they came unpackaged. By the time I used all of my 144 sets some of them were unusable and had corroded.

With all of this said I'm not sure that group buys on strings are worth the effort for anyone especially Lance. I get the same wholesale pricing as the forum could and I would not do it, waste of time for very little savings.

Lastly I also found having sold just under 50 of the guitars that I built that in nearly all cases the buyers wanted something other than the strings I put on it and off they came anyway.... Go figure.

My experience has been the same as Hesh's. Not to mention that the last time we did this it took like 8 months and I ended up getting the wrong sets of strings. It seems no one likes 13's these days so I have a gazillion sets of 13's in PB when I personally like 80/20.

You guitar guys have NO IDEA about expensive strings. Try pricing violin, viola, and cello strings. Even 1/2 price at a wholesale place, the cheapest student sets are $15-30, and the popular sets are $50-100. Student cello strings start at about $50, and popular sets run from about $120-250. Break a viola C string and while a student one might be $7, most are $30-50.
For one string.

Even FANCY guitar strings are dirt cheap.

Enjoy.

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Why be normal?

I too bought during Group Buys. What we got were coils of unpackaged strings. For me, they were EJ16's Phosphor Bronze Light. I took mine and put them in a Baggy and sprayed with WD-40. No corrosion here. I still use them from that group buy. They are great to do the initial string up and set up. I leave them on until the guitar is ready to move on. I check the setup again and put on fresh pre-packaged strings and include an extra set in the case. I buy those from various venders in 10 string packs.

I also notice that D'Addario doesn't seem to be a sponsor here anymore. so I would guess whoever does a group buy will need to set up an account with them.

Edit: One thing I liked about the group buy was the D'Addario tags that were included. I fasten one on the headstock before she goes out the door. Almost makes it look like a real guitar!

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Hesh,

I am still building, moved my shop to an artsy kind of place in the mountains. I'm the only one doing this kind of work there. So I am getting requests for parts, repairs, etc.

I have a bunch of EXP17s, but Need EXP16 and EXP15 to round out offering.

Mike

Just want to set the record straight.

Ann Arbor Guitars is NOT a music store and we don't and won't sell a thing. My participation here is not to make money and in fact Dave is on me every so often to stay away from this forum because of some of the bad info here pushed by a very few.... folks.

I'm still trying... to help where I can because I got my start on my own but found the forum after my first year of building.... Silly me... I know....

Anyway my negativity on the string buy is based on economics and the fact that this takes a lot of time, effort and in the past we waited at times for close to a year to get the goods. The absence of commercial packaging is also not for everyone.

I buy thousands of sets of string annually from Harris teller. We have a D'Addarrio account but I don't use it because Harris Teller (a wholesaler) is a lot more friendly to small quantities of many different types of strings AND I can get my LR Baggs and K&K stuff there. If I need a pick guard for a bass or whatever I can get it there too. You have to be a brick and mortar business and able to prove it to buy from them.

I was asked if I can supply strings to the forum and the answer is no. If you walked in off the street and wanted to buy strings I would tell you no. Who gets strings from us are people who meet our minimum of a full set-up and then they get new strings and they pay for them too, double what we pay because of our overhead.

Early on in our business the State Of Michigan would accept our quarterly sales tax tax returns and payment but did not credit us for same for two years. Then we received nasty letter from them saying we didn't pay our sales tax. I hit the roof and hired an accountant and went to the mat with the dang state showing them cashed checks. The entire debacle cost us nearly $3K to prove we were in complete compliance. I don't give up, ever...

What resulted is this. The state has us on an annual sales tax return now since AGAIN we don't and won't sell a thing. We made the strategic decision to not sell anything retail including pups and parts and instead ask our clients to source what they want us to install wherever they wish and bring it to us with the guitar and we take it from there. All the common parts that are used in repair we have and then some.... but we will NOT sell them at retail.

It's made our lives much simpler, it's dramatically reduced the amount of sales tax that the State gets from us AND our costs with bookkeepers and accountants to account for same went way down.

So when I suggest here that strings are mouse nuts cheap especially at the big box stores and mail order houses that use them as loss leaders. Why wait for this show that in the past has taken a long time and required a lot of effort. Lance is a busy guy too if you have not noticed..........

With all of this said our business is profitable and has zero debt.

So Hesh here is not trying to sell any of you anything, far from it. We don't even offer our courses anymore.

Anyway moving forward again my suggestion is to get strings on your own they are dirt cheap for the most part and then you have complete control over getting exactly the sorts that you want and not having to make compromises and live with uncoated 12's.

I still have a few sets of the D'Addario's from the last buy but won't do that again. I have a plastic bin with desiccant in it where I keep a few dozen sets of the string types that I commonly use. When I need more or if I need something special I usually just get it from Amazon and then add on a buck for handling. Like Hesh, but on a much smaller scale, strings only go with setups or some other repair work so it's not a big deal for me and not worth fooling with.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Keep your eye on the online mail order shops like Strings By Mail. They often times run a buy one get one free and those are even on thier bulk packages. Last time I bought a boat load of those D'Adarrio 10 packs in various sizes.

Thanks JF they are an excellent company too and IIRC correctly they got their start in Ann Arbor. Now they are in Traverse City where I was born "on" the grounds of the Traverse City State Mental Hospital. I was not born "in" the grounds but "on" the grounds I could leave, my father was a shrink there and we lived on the property.

But I digress Strings by mail is highly recommended.

JustStrings.com also is a good choice. In addition to the name brands, they have sets in their own brand (made in the USA) that are a little cheaper. They also sell bulk packaged strings in their own brand.. a pack of 12 of the same gauge. Handy for non-standard string sets. They come straight so you don't have to uncoil them. Slightly cheaper yet than their packaged sets.
They have sales pretty regularly if you are patient and can deal with the spam.
Dave

How much can I save doing a group buy?

I sometimes break strings doing a setup and having a few generic unwound strings is very helpful (those are the ones that often break on you)

I looked into Just String but they have to ship everything UPS/Fedex super fast express that costs 100 dollars just for shipping (more than the strings I wanted to buy, even if I bought 50 sets) so that was not economical.

Daddario costs about 6 dollars a set in Taiwan for their cheapest acoustic or electric strings. EXP costs about 10. If a group buy means I can get them at 3 dollars a set then I'm in, but otherwise I just buy what I need here. I have found "Alice" brand strings sold in Taiwan, at 2 dollars a set, but they are of questionable quality. By that I mean the heat treatment for the music wire is probably suspect so it won't have the right sound...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I think the last group buy I got EXP's for just under $3 bucks a set. It's definitely a good deal but with all the caveats mentioned again for me not worth it.

While living in NZ I commonly used “Strings by Mail.” 10 sets to NZ for less than USD13. I would expect Taiwan to be similar.


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13 each, or 13 for 10?

10 sets EXP16 to my daughter’s house in NZ = $12.83 International Priority Airmail. I just now filled in the website order form. You can pay >$100 to UPS if you prefer.


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Same order from Just Strings ships by mail at $25. They don’t require UPS to NZ.


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I used to buy the bilk packs. But I still haven't used the last batch I bought 5 years ago. Now I use Amazon and Elderly Instruments. The prices at Elderly are better then Strings by Mail or just Strings. A 3 pack of XP Lights is $16 and wait for a sale and stock up. I like buying strings in packages as they last longer.

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Tim, are you just talking about the shipping costs?

Yes, just shipping cost. I was expressing skepticism of Tai Fu's claim that "they have to ship everything UPS/Fedex super fast express that costs 100 dollars just for shipping". Then again, NZ is not Taiwan, but distance is similar.

Gotcha, thanks. The actual price at just stings is only about a buck less per set than getting them across the street for me...

I have a dealer account covering several brands, so group buys have no appeal.


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