Joe Bonamassa has revealed his handy trick for minimizing string breakages on Gibson Les Pauls, which expands upon a stringing technique used by Jimmy Page and Billy Gibbons in the 1970s.
Eagle-eyed Bonamassa fans who have closely inspected his Les Pauls over the years will have noticed that the ball end of his strings point towards the bridge, and stick out visibly from the instrument’s tailpiece. This, he reveals, is intentional.
In a new video interview with Guitarist magazine, Bonamassa reveals the string-saving hack that transformed how he strings his Les Pauls. Since adopting the technique, he claims he hasn’t broken a single string in over three years of touring.
Traditionally, Les Pauls are strung by threading the string through the tailpiece, with the ball end anchoring inside. Bonamassa’s method builds on the “top-wrap” approach that became popular in the ’70s.
In this setup, the tailpiece is screwed down flat against the body – something many players believe enhances resonance – and the strings are fed through the tailpiece from the neck side, wrapped over the top of it, and then strung to the machine heads.
“The top-wrap on the Les Paul was something I noticed in pictures of Jimmy Page and Billy Gibbons when Billy was using heavier gauge strings,” Bonamassa explains. “You start thinking about it critically, and you go, ‘They’re decreasing the break angle over the bridge.’
“Now, you could do that by going through the bridge and just raising the tailpiece, but most of us Les Paul wielders tend to like the tailpiece screwed all the way down. So, how do you achieve both at the same time? You overwrap just like a Les Paul Junior.
“Once I did that, I was like, ‘Wow, these 11s – I use Ernie Ball Burly Slinkies, 11-52s – feel like 10.5s. They’re a little bit slinkier, they have more bounce to them.
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“My former tech, Mike Hickey, came up with an extension of the over-the-top wrap,” he develops. “He would cut off the ball ends, put the string through there, then through the bridge, and then go over. That prevented the break angle from being right on the wind, preventing string breakage.”
He admits the method might not be for everyone, but encourages other Les Paul players to try it and find out.
“Now, Ernie Ball sends them us in bulk, but in the very beginning he’d tediously cut the ball ends off and it worked,” Bonamassa concludes. “We haven’t broken a string on a Les Paul – knock on wood – for over three years. And that’s not playing light!”
Bonamassa’s chat with Guitarist also looks at the action of a guitar and the value of finding an instrument’s sweet spot.
“Every guitar has a happy spot where it rings naturally and it’s a case-by-case basis,” he says, noting the instrument itself, and a player’s action preference, as two contributing factors. “You can’t paint in broad strokes.”
He goes on to say that older guitars usually need fewer truss rod adjustments “as the wood has been sitting for a long time, so, they’re kind of cranky and stuck in their ways”. He finds newer models require a little more TLC.
On his preferred action, he adds, “Too low, and I feel the instrument starts to choke. But if there’s too much tension with the truss rod, it’s going to choke as well. When you hit a chord and it’s blooming, the whole guitar will resonate. That’s when you know it’s set up [properly].
“I know people that use super low action and they get great sound out of it,” he concludes “So, it’s just one man’s opinion.”
Bonamassa, however, will be focusing on Strats in the coming months, with his Rory Gallagher tribute shows fast approaching. He has also recently paid tribute to underrated guitar hero Lowell George, whose Dumble Special Overdrive is now a key part of his touring rig.
