How to String an Electric Bass Guitar

Guitars get all the attention, but did you know that bass guitars need to have their strings changed too? Well, now you know! Seriously, why hasn't anyone made a hub about this? "Probably because there's already one on guitars, stupid!" they'll say.

But! The difference between stringing a guitar and stringing a bass is mostly in the head of the instrument and how the string is held in place. To keep your bass sounding punchy and bright, it's important to change strings every so often. The frequency of these changes, however, is subjective. A broken string is one of the more obvious signs that you need to put a new string on. For the sake of clarity, the situation here will be that a 4-string right-handed bass needs all of its strings replaced.

Tools: new bass strings, wire cutters, bass guitar (hopefully)

BIG TIP that may make this hub obsolete: If you really want to make things easier on yourself, make a note or even take pictures of how the strings are put on before you take them off. Chances are, if it wasn't strung by you (who I assume does not know how to string a bass), it was probably strung by someone who knew what they were doing. Not saying this is always the case, but it's likely. Use this hub as a manual and your notes/pictures as a diagram.

Now then: To take a string off, just unwind the tuning peg until the string becomes loose. Pull it off of the tuners. If it's a broken string, pull out the bottom part of the string. Throw it out immediately or else it will explode, killing thousands.

There's no standard order that you have to change your strings in, but it's a good idea to change them in a straight order (E,A,D,G or G,D,A,E) so that you don't have to deal with tight spaces for your fingers to work in.

Like all things, you might want to take advantage of the nakedness of your bass and use a cloth  to clean any dirt or dust that has built up on the body. It's okay if it's damp.

Now that your fat bottom baby is all sparkly and clean, get out your new strings. If you get confused about which string is which, here's a general guideline of strings to sizes on a standard 4-string bass: E 95-110, A 75-85, D 60-70, G 45-50.

Some basses are designed so that the strings go through the body and some are designed so that the strings are all on the front. If you have the former, just make sure that any broken pieces are cleaned out before jamming a new string through the body. It shouldn't be difficult to determine if there's something in there.

If you're ready and super pumped, so am I. Some of the terms I use can seem vague but when you've got the instrument in your hands, most of the stuff is logical. Here are the steps.

1. Guide your string through the hole in the bottom of the bridge and pull it over the top of the bridge's guiding grooves. Pull all the way until it can't be pulled further.

2. There's no set rule, but use the cutters to snip the string (pulled straight) 3-5 inches past the corresponding string post. See note* below.

3. If laying flat on its back, most basses have the type of string posts where the string needs to be placed all the way down a hole facing upwards. Then bend it against the gap in the string post to make a 90 degree elbow in the string. At this point, you can loop the string around the post with your hand in a clockwise direction if you've got enough slack.

4. Hold the string down with one (right) hand to stop it from jumping up randomly and start turning the tuning peg with your other (left) hand so that the string post moves counter-clockwise. Make sure that the string moves lower with each rotation (i.e. 2nd rotation is underneath the 1st, 3rd rotation is underneath the 2nd, etc...). As it gets tighter, make sure the string is running through the guiding grooves in the bridge and the nut. The nut borders the head and the neck. This ensures that the string is straight.

5. Turn the tuning peg until the string is tight enough that it at least makes a note when you pluck it. Don't worry about tuning yet because once you put other strings on the bass, it warps the pitch. So just do all the tuning after all the strings are on.

6. Become the string-changing hero of your neighborhood.

note*: If cut too short, thicker strings sometimes won't fit into the hole (step 3). So here's a solution I learned from a burnout at a music store: Use pliers, scissors or some other type of smaller grabbing tool to grab a hold of a stray piece of the string's outer metal wrapping and unwind it until it has become thin enough to fit in the hole. Brilliant.