New Year Strings?

[64Guitars]

Well, it's the start of a new year and this seems like a good time to put a nice new set of strings on the guitar. I have a couple of sets. Will I put them on? Nope. I can't bear to throw away strings that aren't broken. So I tend to leave them on till one breaks. I used to put a new set on about once a year and keep the old ones as spares in case I break a string and don't have any new ones around. The trouble with that is that the old ones tend to accumulate and now I've got a stack of old, dead strings. So, for the past few years, I've been replacing broken strings with old ones from my stack of spares.

Anyway, I was wondering what everyone else does, so I thought I'd create this poll. It might be interesting to see how the majority answer.

[OsCKilO]

Replace individual strings when they break....

Have to as this suits me and paying live.

[Tony W]

I really don't know how to answer this as a multiple guitar owner, my needs and desires change. On my every day players, I change strings religiously. Prior to a gig, I've been putting on a fresh set of strings. On the guitars that I don't play often, I won't change strings unless I see a bit of rust building up. I've never put bass strings on, and had a bass for 2 years.

[peterp]

I'm not fond of strings that sound dead or have build up rust.
So I change them fairly regularly, especially on the current favorite.
All the guitars got a cleaning, polish and new set of strings just before Christmas.

Except my bass, I've never changed strings on it yet. Bought a new set maybe a year ago but never put them on.

[Geir]

I used to change every 3-4 months when the strings started to sound dull (sometimes more frequently), now I change every 2-3 years when the strings start to sound dull .... yep ... I love those Elixir strings

[Groundy]

When I was playing every night I used to change once a month, Now if they sound a bit dull I use another guitar..lol.....Alex

[Ferryman]

Should change more frequently but a) don't have much time and would rather be recording, and b) can't be arsed. Where's my guitar tech when you need him?

[Geir]

what Nigel said

[chip]

I use EXP110 Coated Nickel Wound, Light 10s and the acoustic equivalent. They last
 quite well. However I am partial to rotosound yellows too, which seem to sound much brighter
 but don't last. The Dano has the yellows , the Gibo, the EXP10s which sees more live action.
  As for frequency, changing strings on the Gibo is a great chore as it takes considerable time for the guitar to settle down after a change, in fact any change of temp, strings, movement causes the guitar to play up, it's just one of those Gibson things, I dread to think what a new ones like, this ones 21 years old so you would have thought it would have settled down by now. Still when it's good it's great.

So about every 2 months electric, 3 to 4 acoustic

[Hook]

I change mine all the time! I have a real high acid rate in my sweat and it just destroys strings. After trying out all the coated brands I settled on the exp 113 custom lights (11's for acoustic). If I have a 4 hour cover gig I'll kill them by the end and one will pop on the next night if I don't change them.