D'addario strings - packaging nuisance

beed84

Hmmm, I think the pro arte's had the stickers on one end but the silver-plated wound ones didn't.  

The string thickness might be obvious to some but I'm not confident enough to think, "yep, that's definitely the B string."  Not only that, since they're a pain to put on I'd like to be certain that I've got the right strings in the right place.

moz91

I've just got 6 a5 envelopes (E's, A's etc) in the front of a toolbox that goes with me to every gig - accumulated loads of spares over the years from breaking in to sets for one string, not to mention the hundreds of free extra .10/.11 E's

asimmd

It is a pain but as i only ever change the full set it doesn't bother me.

Have used D'Addario for years I'm not going to change now.

digitalkettle

Top-tip: when comparing two similar coiled steel strings, give them a gentle squeeze...thinnest string has the most give, obviously...no puzzling over ball-ends.

Phil_aka_Pip

I dislike their bulk packaging. Plastic hoops of about 8" dia., you're supposed to pull on a ball-end and out comes a string. That's usually true for plain strings, and sometimes true for thin wound ones. For A and low E strings forget it. The bundle locks up so you have to take the plastic thing apart

Voxman

moz91 said:

I've just got 6 a5 envelopes (E's, A's etc) in the front of a toolbox that goes with me to every gig - accumulated loads of spares over the years from breaking in to sets for one string, not to mention the hundreds of free extra .10/.11 E's

That's a pretty good idea - only downside is that you've lost the airtight sealed protection which keeps the strings fresh and oxidation free.  

Voxman

Moe_Zambeek said:

Prior to the 'pairing', D'Addarios were all bundled in together were they not? So in fact they're better than they were...

They were 'together' in that all 6 strings were put in the same single air-tight plastic pack, rather than in individual 'envelopes', but within that single pack each string was entirely separate.  Current packaging physically intertwines strings in pairs - and that's the problem.  This has no impact on its eco packaging, so goodness knows why they do this now.

Voxman

thermionic said:

I've just restrung one of my acoustics with D'Addario EXPs and I somehow mixed up the D and G, had to take them off and swap them over. One of the disadvantages of pairing them up as opposed to individual envelopes!

I did that yesterday for the first time ever - with me it was the plain third and wound fourth...how stupid was that (but in mitigation I got distracted by the TV I was watching at the same time! - otherwise string changing is just too damned boring !!)  

>:D<

Voxman

OK guys, for those interested I thought I'd post the detailed response I received from George Santos (Customer Service Product Specialist) of D'Addario:

Thank you for your e-mail.

Over the last five years we have implemented Toyota's Lean manufacturing systems at D'Addario. Lean is a culture of continuous improvement that was perfected by the Toyota company and is utilized by hundreds of thousands of businesses around the world. It has helped us improve our quality, improve our customer service and control our manufacturing costs.

In fact the Lean transformation has been so effective in teaching us world class manufacturing principles that we have been able to apply the disciplines we have learned to every area of our business; from the harvesting of cane in France and Argentina for our Rico Reeds, to developing new products, to the assembly of Planet Waves Pro-Winders in New York. An example of the success of "Lean" at D'Addario is the fact that we have been able to re-shore 50% of our Planet Waves products that were previously being imported from Asia.

In our string production area we have made countless manufacturing improvements. You may not be aware, but D'Addario produces nearly 800,000 strings a day at our Farmingdale New York headquarters. We are proud that even though our volume exceeds our nearest competitor by a factor of two or three times, our quality control and manufacturing consistency has continued to improve and is the benchmark for the industry. We are also proud that all our strings, drumheads, reeds, drumsticks and many of our accessories are Made in the USA. In fact 95% of the products we design and produce are American made.

Recently I visited the Woodstock Luthiers Festival where 98% of the guitars on display were strung with D'Addario strings. When talking to each luthier they all told a common story. When they set out to build their guitars they use D'Addario strings exclusively, because of the quality of their sound and their consistency set after set. D'Addario strings are the reliable reference they use as they build and ultimately set up their instruments.

Part of the DNA of the D'Addario family and company is that "We are the most difficult people to please, not our customers ". We also have a deep respect for our planet and try our best to minimize our impact on our environment.

In the late 1980's we began to develop and pioneer the environmental packaging we use today. It was a major breakthrough as it eliminated the individual envelopes that were required to identify each of the six strings in a set. It created other issues in production that led to the creation of a conveyor system where operators coiling strings for each note in the set would drop their string on the conveyor as it kept indexing. The conveyor would then deliver complete six string sets to the end of the line where they were bagged in a corrosion barrier bag and then inserted in a recycled paper outer envelope. Two pieces of packaging replaced eight; a 75% reduction in packaging material being discarded.

This system eliminated the need to cut down tens of thousands of tress and also improved productivity. It also resulted in a significant price decrease in the early 1990's and has helped us to hold future price increases on our string sets to a minimum.

It is our culture to respond to every single comment, question or suggestion we receive from our end users, in a timely and respectful manner. We also carefully monitor any quality concerns regarding our products and take them very, very seriously. After all it is our culture to maintain the reputation as the highest quality producer of music strings and accessories.

While we only receive a handful of complaints each week historically the most common complaint has been the occasional incomplete set. A user may open a package and find he is missing a string. On our packaging conveyors it was difficult for the person packaging the sets at the end of the line to identify if all six strings were present.

We tested sophisticated check weighing systems to flag incomplete or incorrect sets, but none could detect the many combinations of errors that could occur during the process. About two years ago, someone had the revelation that if we coiled the strings in pairs it would be much easier for the operators at the end of the lines to detect if they had a complete set. Visually it is easier to see three neatly coiled pairs of strings than six randomly mixed individually coiled strings.

We set up one line to package sets this way for over a year. Tens of thousands of sets were put into the market place and we found that this new system virtually eliminated the issue of incomplete sets.

While have seen a handful of complaints from customers in regards to the new coiling system, we trust that the reassurance that all 6 strings will be in the package when you need them will outweigh the negatives.

I'm staying with D'Addario - but I have bought a couple of individually packaged sets to take to gigs just in case I get a string break & need to locate & access a single string quickly.  I'll keep the D'Addario's at home and use these for complete restrings when the 2-coil wrapping doesn't matter.  

WezV

Really good of them to put the time and effort into that response

ICBM

It's really baffling how they can put so much time and effort into getting strings so right…

… and also be responsible for Planet Waves cables.

richardhomer

This appeared in my Facebook feed, which I thought might be of interest to some:

http://www.inc.com/how-i-did-it/daddario-3-million-dollar-rebranding.html

He strikes me as someone who cares a great deal about his business.

longjaw

GuitarMonkey said:

Yes, this is annoying. Even in good light.

Even more annoying when you're colour blind! Does my heed in.

MatthewShreddery

Not as annoying as having to throw away hundreds of Players' Points I had saved up over 12 years, after realising they were no longer giving the free gifts...

p90fool

ICBM;453595" said:

It's really baffling how they can put so much time and effort into getting strings so right…

… and also be responsible for Planet Waves cables.

...or the Planet Waves pedal tuner, 69 quid's worth of unusable shite.

GuitarMonkey

Excellent reasoned response too. Kudos to D'Addario.

fretfinder

Their packaging has never bothered me, but then I don't break strings at gigs and always take a spare guitar with me. So I only ever restring all six at a time. Why don't you just put individually packaged spare strings in your gig bag? And if you break strings a lot maybe it's worth looking at the guitar setup, saddle edges etc?

Voxman

fretfinder said:

Their packaging has never bothered me, but then I don't break strings at gigs and always take a spare guitar with me. So I only ever restring all six at a time. Why don't you just put individually packaged spare strings in your gig bag? And if you break strings a lot maybe it's worth looking at the guitar setup, saddle edges etc?

Thanks & definitely the solution (although at the end of D'Addario response post I did mention that was exactly what I've now done - @thermionic and @ICBM pipped you to it).   But at least we now understand the rationale for what seemed a strange change to the 2-strings coiled together packaging and it was kind of George Santos to take the time to give such a detailed and thoughtful response.

welshboyo

Lovely Cut and Paste reply from D'Addario...

I like them as strings, but the coloured ballend thing is pain in the arse....spare gig guitar or not...

Ernie Gonads for me

GuitarMonkey

welshboyo said:

Ernie Gonads for me

Just taken a set of Ernie Ball Super Stinkys out of the sealed package to find the 1st string rusty along almost its entire length.