New Cleaning & Conditioning Technology for String Instruments

There are many guitar string lubricants on the market today that use various components such as graphite, Teflon®, silicone, etc.  These substances all eventually migrate or dissipate with use leaving your strings with little or no lubrication or protection from oxidation and corrosion.  Some will actually dry out and cake up on wound strings. Graphite greases are messy and hard to apply in close tolerance areas such as tremolos often requiring disassembly.  Well, we’ve got a fast and easy solution to your string and instrument hardware cleaning and maintenance.

STRINGTone’s specialized guitar string lubricant formula provides a micro-thin lubricant barrier for silky-smooth playing response and enhanced string vibration for a more dynamic tonal spectrum. Conditioning gives the strings the ability to resist galvanic corrosion and oxidation, allowing you to change strings less often. Areas for treatment include strings (coated and synthetic), metal and non-metal parts including nut, saddle, bridge, pots, switches, pickup covers, tuners, etc. Treated surfaces are dry to the touch in seconds. Dust, grime, and other contaminants are lifted away and removed.

Available in Aerosol and Non-Aerosol Liquid Trigger Spray

Sound Synergies aerosol products come standard with wide-angle spray cap and 5-inch extension straw for hard to reach areas. Spray-on application is quick and straight forward, requiring only a few minutes with a microfiber cloth.

Our adjustable trigger sprayers are constructed of durable high-impact plastic and recyclable spun aluminum bottles. All rubber plugs and gaskets are made from rugged, long lasting Viton® (fluorocarbon rubber) which has excellent resistance to high temperatures, ozone, oxygen, mineral oil, synthetic hydraulic fluids, fuels, aromatics and many organic solvents and chemicals. Click here for liquid trigger sprayer assembly instructions.

Three main elements: construction, gauge and tension of a string set will play a role in your decision about which set to purchase for your instrument.  So what happens to a new string set after initial break-in and you start to put some “mileage” on your strings?

When a string is pressed down on a metal fret of a guitar fingerboard a depression on the underside of the sting will eventually form depending on the number of times the string is “fretted” and pressure applied at that point. These depressions are often referred to as “flat spots” or notches. Certain styles of guitar playing like blues and rock will often include stretching and bending strings during a performance. This also increases stress and abrasion on the strings, nut and bridge grooves. When guitar stings are played hard and over stressed they break readily, especially the high-E, D, and G strings of narrow gauge string sets. They usually break at the bridge or point of highest tension.

One of the areas not commonly examined is what happens to a musical instrument string when it is plucked. When instrument strings are plucked they oscillate which means they vibrate at a fundamental pitch with associated harmonics along the length of the string. The photo illustrates standing waves on a string, illuminated by stroboscope.

An instrument string is essentially suspended between two points, in the case of a guitar, a nut and bridge. The distance and tension between these two points will determine the frequency or pitch of the string. The photo clearly shows nodes that are formed when a string is plucked. A node is a point along a standing wave where the wave has minimum amplitude. For instance, in a vibrating guitar string, the ends of the string are nodes. By changing the position of the end node through frets, the guitarist changes the effective length of the vibrating string and thereby the note played.

This means the string is not only moving vertically, but horizontally along the plane of neck. This simultaneous movement is where microscopic friction and abrasion are created in the internal core of a wrapped string as well as the grooves of the nut and bridge saddle.

Microscopic internal and external friction is increased in the case of larger diameter bass guitar strings that vibrate at lower frequencies with increased motion and energy due to mass dynamics. String abrasion is also increased with metal bridge grooves. There are other factors affecting string performance at the molecular level such as metal composition and surface irregularities.

STRINGTone guitar string lubricant and conditioner is the perfect choice to either eliminate or reduce many problems associated with string wear and contamination.