when I was in a touring band I restrung and checked setup every show even when we were just playing at home I would get the 2 or 3 guitars I planned to use at home gigs teched up the ay before the show (on tour or for big opening slots I might have a guitar tech to do my bidding, otherwise I did the work myself and would check the rhythm guitarist's guitars once they were restrung the day before the show).... otherwise when not gigging away from home heavily with ourre hearsals being 3 days a week in that band I would restring a guitar before every rehearsal and play the one restrung the previous rehearsal and I would generally give them a look over to see if anything drifted from spec about once a month unless something sounded or felt off to me at a rehearsal. While recording an album with guitar sessions pretty much every other day? everything got restrung and the set-up checked out every week.... every guitar brought to the studio and if something got seriously funky with one and it was too ahrd to straighten out in a day or two we retired the guitar from sessions and got another example... same with tube amps, tubes were tested weekely with backups available, bias cheks if needed. Anytime anything sounds weird to me I get my tools. The tiniest little buzz makes me insane. I hear it. I'm less uptight about it now, but I sued to be psychotic about maintenance. For real and if you are taking thigns seriously you should be too. When you change strings make sure to check intonation once your tuning is stabilizing (should be pretty fast if you put your strings ona dn stretch them correctly) and if intonation is off before you touch the bridhe assembly check your neck. Make sure you keep detailed measurements of YOUR proper setup in each case. With basses in the studio I like to have a flatwound 'dead strings' bass available, something passive like an older P or J. Then the rest of the basses will get treated like the guitars with round wounds, maybe one with pure steel and another with round nickel for varying degrees of brightness that compliment the electronics. The bassist will have a lot of input on this obviously, but we'll have bass options to try out for every song just like trying out different bass amps and cab setups, micing solutions and DIs a big aprt of the sound will be the instrument tone and each abss will be setup for the sessions to provide a distinctive flavor of the bassists range and all but the dead one will get the strings changed with the guitars. But we'll still be checking the intonation and relief on the dead one every couple days just in case. I do a lot of recording at home these days and I Iike to go fast, but time permitting I still like to change strings and go over the setup (although one of my teles has had the same strings for a long while because it sounds good 'broken in')
for a hobbyist? Is et my guitars up once a year. That's sufficiently precise for my purposes... I also tend to use coated strigns a lot and they last me 6 months of the comparatively light use my guitars get now that I no longer gig regularly or toure (and also now that I have twice as many guitars and play each one less frequently in addition to not playing for multiple hours a day)
so in short, depends what level you're doing things at, but if my ears are sensitive then ineveitably someone's ears in the audience are too and they will think your guitar sounds off with dead strings that don't intonate and/or a warped neck... so keep on top of it as a working musician. Maintain your instrument. Know how every part works inside and out and how you like it to perform and know how to make it play that way in a day or less of small adjustments. Learnt eh tricks to making your tuning and setup adjustments pretty stable....
edit:
but yes, tos econd boom, the dead string sound is a thing amongst bassists.... know that the trick for that is to periodically take them off and boil them to get the corrosion and crust off.... they won't get the new tone back but they will continue to intonate which with the crusta nd corrosion dead bass strings will not do after 3 to 6 months of heavy use. but by heavy sue I again mean pro grade use, 3 long rehearsals a week and 2+ gigs or touring schedules with frequent gigs and a lot of exposure to temp and umidity changes. As a bassist you can use dead strings for the retro dead string sound (and yes, flatwounds are the classic dead string sound and labellas are very popular flatwounds that hold up well for a long time) but if you are on the road or even gigging heavily locally where the sintruments are going from a hot or cold van into a climate controlled venue? check your setup a lot. If you have time to check your intonation before the show? do so (you seldom do though). But remember, the better maintained the truss and bridge assembly the better the whole thing will hold up to the rigors of regular gigging so that you tune up spot on at every fret at sound check every night regardless of wether its winter and the venus is hot or if you toured your ass from NYC to Savannah GA as spring turned to summer and your guitars went from weather that was on the chilly side to sweltering in a matter of weeks...
stay on top of it and it won't feel like a chore. Ignore it and it can get so bad it's going to seem impossible
