Acoustic String Stash

Doing this job, you find some odd things inside acoustic guitars from time to time.

The occasional string ball-end isn't terribly odd, though.

However, I'll admit that this many is a little unusual.

This equals a lot of broken strings on this acoustic guitar

In an ideal world, inside you acoustic guitar should be relatively detritus-free.

Is this a problem?

Well, maybe not. I didn't get to deal with the owner of this particular guitar in person and I don't know if he/she was snipping the string ends and just letting them fall in or whether strings were breaking and the ends disappearing inside the guitar. There are some heavier strings in the horde so it may be the former but, if your guitar is consistently breaking strings, there may be some things we can do to address that.

As to whether it's an issue if you've got a hundred string-ends in your guitar, some of that depends on you and whether you find it annoying to have your guitar rattle like a rainstick every time you move—it'd drive me insane but it's your guitar.

More seriously, though, some acoustic pickups—like those in Taylor's Expression System have magnets. I've had a customer complain his Taylor was making weird microphonic crackling noises—turned out a ball-end had attached itself to the body sensor magnet and its tiny movements were making awful noises (see below).

So, to sum up, maybe clean out the string ends now and then. Also, maybe the gum, half-eaten lollypops, dead spiders, pencil-sharpeners, and condoms—all of which I've found inside acoustic guitars. The condom was (thankfully) unused. I wish I could say the same for the gum.

Microphonic Taylor Guitar

Update: Within days of publishing this post, the microphonic Taylor thing happened again with another customer. This time I took a photo (albeit a little blurry). You can see the string-end clinging to the body sensor.

The body sensor has a magnet and coil element—like a regular pickup—and this magnet can attract stray string ends. The string can move about and it'll cause terrible squeals/screeches/rustling/crackling/general-unpleasantness.

Keep 'em clean, folks.