Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Full Version)

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cube_monkey -> Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 5 2020 23:42:15)

Hello there,

When a company like Cordoba or whoever (well except for a hand made top of the line), do they put the set on that works "best" with the guitar as there are high tension, light tension ect. Or is it more what they get a good deal on?




tri7/5 -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 6 2020 14:11:17)

You might have luthiers who prefer certain sets or tensions on their guitars but from a manufacturer or small workshop standpoint I doubt they put too much thought into it and just throw some standard EJ45's or the like on.




cube_monkey -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 6 2020 19:03:35)

Thank you. I had a feeling that was the case. I do love the Savarez 500cj strings. Course I am a rank beginner on a nylon string guitar (been playing electric forever).
Probably if they put D'addario Classic strings, i prob couldn't tell the difference. :)




Tom Blackshear -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 6 2020 21:24:16)

quote:

Probably if they put D'Addario Classic strings, i prob couldn't tell the difference. :)


Many factory guitar manufactures today do some sort of fine tuning on their guitars, since I began talking about it 46 years ago.

Spanish makers have been doing fine tuning for over a hundred years, and then left off for awhile, but took it back up when more knowledge was shared on the Internet.

Then factories started feeling pushed to add their share in it, due to being challenged to provide the best of guitar tone.

https://tomblackshearguitarbuilder.weebly.com/spanish-sound.html




tri7/5 -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 6 2020 23:48:50)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Tom Blackshear

quote:

Probably if they put D'Addario Classic strings, i prob couldn't tell the difference. :)


Many factory guitar manufactures today do some sort of fine tuning on their guitars, since I began talking about it 46 years ago.

Spanish makers have been doing fine tuning for over a hundred years, and then left off for awhile, but took it back up when more knowledge was shared on the Internet.

Then factories started feeling pushed to add their share in it, due to being challenged to provide the best of guitar tone.

https://tomblackshearguitarbuilder.weebly.com/spanish-sound.html


You really think the large shop built flamenco/classicals in the Cordoba, Ramirez (not the custom shop), Alvarez, Saez etc. lines are really sitting there tuning their guitar tops by hand for a budget friendly guitar which is their primary market? Highly doubtful. I doubt even the small Valencia shops get into it i.e. Sanchis Lopez, Gravina, Atocha.




cube_monkey -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 7 2020 2:24:32)

again. thank you, this is very interesting to me. I will go look at your link. thank you
And I wonder if on a more mass market guitar like Yamaha or something, maybe Cordoba, if they get money from the string company. I've been involved in business too long. :) :)




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 7 2020 2:35:48)

I don't know about Spanish, Japanese or Chinese products, but the last time I was in Paracho every guitar I tried but one had Savarez Alliance fluorocarbon strings on it. I don't like them. The trebles are too skinny and bright for me.

I bought one of the guitars with the Savarez strings on it. When I got it home I immediately tried other sets, ended up with D'Addario EJ-45s. Also ended up not playing the guitar very much, so I gave it to the Austin Classical Guitar Society. They lent it to a high school student, who auditioned with it for college guitar programs. She was admitted to the prestigious University of Texas guitar studio run by Adam Holzman. So I guess it's not a bad guitar, just not as good as the rest.

Tom Blackshear strongly recommends D'Addario EJ-46 high tension strings for his guitars. Last time I was in his shop he told me to take a couple of sets from a box on a shelf.

I have kept on using them. They sound and feel different on the two Blackshear guitars I now have. One guitar is a cedar/Indian Rodriguez model, the other a spruce/Indian Reyes model, so they are meant to be different.

RNJ




BarkellWH -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 7 2020 16:37:29)

quote:

Tom Blackshear strongly recommends D'Addario EJ-46 high tension strings for his guitars. Last time I was in his shop he told me to take a couple of sets from a box on a shelf.


I use the D'Addario EJ-46 high tension strings on my Gerundino. They sound great and hold up for a long time.

Bill




TonyGonzales84 -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 7 2020 17:31:18)

My experience with EJ-46s has been the same as Bill's, but with my Manuel Rodriguez. A point though, the Rodriguez is a 662 mm scale, and the EJ-46s are extremely "hard," to say very high tension. I really notice it with my left hand, especially after playing for a couple of hours.

On my 650 mm scale Charles Sutton, these same strings don't seem anywhere near as hard, yet still have that great tone and long life.




Tom Blackshear -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 7 2020 20:58:30)

quote:

my Manuel Rodriguez. A point though, the Rodriguez is a 662 mm scale, and the EJ-46s are extremely "hard," to say very high tension


It's not the string that causes this but the built in torgue of a particular guitar top that does it. Long and short scales can make this happen. It all depends how any particular builder works with his articulation in the finish out.




kitarist -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 7 2020 21:21:14)

quote:

A point though, the Rodriguez is a 662 mm scale, and the EJ-46s are extremely "hard," to say very high tension. []
On my 650 mm scale Charles Sutton, these same strings don't seem anywhere near as hard,


The longer scale length would do that. In order to be at pitch on a 662mm, the same strings have to be under 3.7% higher tension than on the 650mm guitar since tension varies as the square of scale length, and (662/650)^2 is about 1.037. This is about the same or slightly more of a difference than the difference between consecutive tension branding of D'Addario sets (i.e. between normal and hard, or between hard and extra hard).




orsonw -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 7 2020 23:21:18)

My experience is that the top and the whole guitar are important as well as the scale length for how 'hard' or 'soft' the strings feel under the hands. The string is not the only thing under tension that moves. It's part of a system which includes the guitar. The guitar is also under tension and moves, especially the bridge on the top. The feel/pulsation is effected by the tension in the string and the tension in the guitar, as well as the action/set up.

On a philosophy of science note, guitars seem to be systems that don't reveal themselves completely to reductionist measurement?




Echi -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 8 2020 13:59:21)

quote:

The longer scale length would do that. In order to be at pitch on a 662mm, the same strings have to be under 3.7% higher tension than on the 650mm


It's correct that the longer the scale, the greater the effective tension and yet at the same time you may feel a less stiff string under your fingers wit a longer scale; in other words the string is more easily bendable.
Once I read Mimmo Peruffo of Aquila strings explaining the scientific reason behind but I couldn't repeat it: it's just my experience with a couple of guitar.

Ricardo Sanchis once told a friend that the "pulsacion" of a guitar depends just by the wood used for the top and you have to adapt your strings choice accordingly.




JasonM -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 8 2020 15:12:42)

Yes Echi I’ve noticed this too with longer scale length and string bending. I like a really low action that can be supported by a stiffer top and or the the right tension strings.

I’m envious of you guys who use EJ-45/46. They are inexpensive, good quality, and easy to find. The trebles have never sounded bright enough for me - on my guitars anyway.




TonyGonzales84 -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 8 2020 23:49:31)

Good points, all, and much food for thought. Konstantin is correct with his 3.7% higher tension number for, as Tom and orsonw point out, a system consisting of a vibrating string attached to perfectly rigid supports at both ends. I will sketch some stuff, run a few numbers after digging around the internet for any applicable data on relative stiffnesses of the bridge and of the head, then get back to this. I'm guessing I'll end up needing to look at ranges of relative stiffnesses. I'm also guessing that whatever I can provide will best be discussed as a separate post, seeing as how it appears we've run far afield, relative to the OP's original question!

Echi and JasonM, I'm trying to wrap my head around your good, experience-based points. If I perform a thought experiment where I take a very short string, say a ukelele (on-line I can find a Pepe Romero at 432 mm), and compare how hard it feels compared to a very long string, say a 670 mm scale flamenca, I can't imagine the ukelele ever feeling harder than the flamenca, with both individual strings tuned to identical pitches. Granted, these are two extremes that I wouldn't expect anyone to compare playability on, but they do show where my mind is at. Of course the relative rotational stiffnesses of the respective bridges likely play a big part in this.




kitarist -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 9 2020 1:33:48)

quote:

yet at the same time you may feel a less stiff string under your fingers wit a longer scale;


But TonyG told us how it feels already - that the longer scale with the same strings feels as harder tension - I assume being plucked at the same place relative to the bridge. This is the opposite of what you say he may feel.

What you refer to can be more to do with changing other parameters like distance from bridge or different string material or even different bending stiffness from bulk stiffness.

As for Mimmo, you might be remembering his great point that the true tension after a string has stretched and stabilized is not what the label tension shows. Manufacturers provide the theoretical tension based on manufactured string thickness. On the label it usually looks like high-E string for example, and maybe B string, have quite a higher tension than the rest. But since the trebles and especially high-E is the string that stretches out the most before it stabilizes, the actual stable tension as strung on the guitar is less than on the package because the stable stretched-out string diameter is smaller. So in fact the stabilized tension profile across strings 1-6 is more uniform than it appears on the package. And this might be why the tension profile of unstretched strings was designed the way it was.

@TonyG84: Just a word of caution that the 3.7%, while estimated from an idealized model of the actual system, is a tension difference, not an absolute value. When you look for the effect on tension of adding more real features to the system, it is not likely(*) that the tension difference from adding that would change the 3.7% significantly (i.e. it will modify the actual tensions for both cases, but not likely the estimated tension difference).

(*)For example, 3.7% is the difference in tension, on the same guitar and the same strings, of raising or lowering the pitch by just 1/3 of a semitone. Which makes me skeptical, though open to proof otherwise, that it would make non-trivial change to the tension difference in the different-scales scenario.




TonyGonzales84 -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 9 2020 2:11:52)

I'm 100% with you, Konstantin -- it's probably more like 3.7% higher tension than like 3.0% or 4.4% (just to swing wide numbers around). I only want to get a feel for the relative impact of including the bridge and head as end conditions. I doubt strongly (!!!!!) that I'll build and run a finite element model (I don't need that much more stuff to do, to stay out of my wife's way[8D]), but I am concerned about leaving too much out, in terms of the actual physics of the problem.

Thanks!




Ricardo -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 9 2020 17:57:07)

Always experiment with new strings on a guitar you purchase, new or used. You can ask what they were, but experiment anyway. The tendency for sellers is to use harder tension strings to increase perceive volume.




cube_monkey -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 21 2020 0:41:26)

Thank you! I knew it was something like this.
Very interesting discussion.




Echi -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 21 2020 10:38:10)

Well, a perceived less tension with higher scale is not just a matter of experience: as I wrote, there is a clear formula behind it as the string makers may tell you.
In this case the stiffness may likely be caused by other factors than the diapason, like a stiff top/stiff bridge, wrong set up or a bad geometry.
For a certain time I used to set up guitars for a shop and tried really a lot of flamenco guitars of the same brands: frankly the scale (Long or regular) wasn’t the first cause of ‘pulsacion”. Given the same scale, there was a certain variety.
Btw, many luthiers, when they receive orders for short scale guitars (630 or 640), alert the customer they may perceive an apparent stiffer feeling and viceversa for long scales.
What you can do is just to try different strings, it’s always been like that.




TonyGonzales84 -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jun. 25 2020 0:25:44)

My apologies for the while it’s taken me to do this. I dug around a bit suspecting strongly that in the end I’d end up where I am, namely, the classical expression for the fundamental frequency of a stretched string is as good as I’ll be able to estimate the difference in required tensions at different scale lengths. Konstantin correctly stated this as 3.7% for a 662 mm scale vs a 650 scale guitar. I am including my results here, and not starting a new thread, because I do not wish to over-sell null results, often the yield of “research.”

This originally started with my comment on the relative perceived hardness of EJ-46 strings on a 662 mm scale guitar vs that on a different luthier’s 650 mm scale guitar. I believe it’s given that 1) Tom Blackshear is correct in stating that, the top’s torque response to the strings’ applied loads is the biggest driver in the perceived hardness (the important apples to apples requirement), and that 2) Konstantin correctly states the 3.7 % numerical value for the string tension difference resulting from the classically derived result for a stretched string’s fundamental frequency, and finally, 3) orsonw is correct that the vibrating system has to include the entire guitar. I also believe orsonw’s science philosophy comment, that guitars are secretive where revealing themselves to “reductionist measurement,” is probably currently true, for the method of attack I tried on the problem.

I am including a two page summary, scanned as pdf, of the results I obtained, that I would view as a sidebar or appendix, to be read only if it interests you, and with my apologies for my handwriting!

My hope had been that I could find some quantification of the guitar’s effective mass and stiffness, that I could then incorporate in my glorified back-of-the-envelope analysis, but I found nothing like that (probably because no one’s needed to set up a test lab to measure said quantities!). I did find a (surprisingly to me) large number of finite element modeling of various types of guitars – classical, steel-string, carbon construction, etc, performed at various universities, world wide. These tend to focus on frequency response analyses, showing mode shapes and deformations. I did not know there is so much work being done here!

Echi, I would be very interested in seeing design guide formulae used by various luthiers, especially if they are of similar form at the different shops. I do understand that these are the types of guidelines that would be closely held and guarded.




kitarist -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jul. 7 2020 18:59:42)

quote:

I am including a two page summary, scanned as pdf, of the results I obtained, that I would view as a sidebar or appendix, to be read only if it interests you, and with my apologies for my handwriting!


Hi Tony,

Sorry for not acknowledging this earlier, after all the work you've put in.

I did read it all and found it easy to follow (I did take a few detours to lookup a few things).

I see this spring and equivalent mass approach (two-mass lossy oscillator model) is a go-to for a bunch of papers that have considered the problem. Most looked at the string and bridge moving the soundboard and its effects; some included the effects of the back plate as well:



Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jul. 7 2020 22:46:55)

I add some anecdotal empirical info. As Tom Blackshear recommends I use high tension D'Addario EJ-46s on two guitars he made, #325 (April 2016) and #329. The label is on #329 is dated 2/12/2019, but I first saw and heard it on 11/10/2019. I think Tom had done some fine tuning on it until nearly that time.

The guitars are quite different. #325 is a cedar/Indian "Rodriguez" model. Tom described it as a classical guitar, and I agree. #329 is a spruce/Indian "1987 Reyes" model flamenca negra.

Both are powerful and brilliant. #325 has more sustain, slightly stronger basses. While the trebles are brilliant, they are less brilliant than #329, with a fuller, more classical sound. Sounding one string on #325 excites a strong sympathetic resonance with one or more other strings, while this effect is not particularly noticeable on #329.

The setups are slightly different. #325 is 2.4mm on the 6th, 1.4mm on the 1st at the 12th fret (capo on I). #329 is a very low 1.7mm on both 6th and 1st. #325 doesn't buzz playing classical, the basses on #329 can be made to buzz, but are quite practical for classical playing.

The scale lengths are the same. Despite the very slightly higher trebles of #329, D'Addario EJ-46s have a slightly softer pulsacion than the same strings on #325.

I use medium tension D'Addario EJ-45s on two classicals: a spruce/Brazilian 2006 Abel Garcia, and Jose Romanillos #407, a 1973 spruce/Indian. They are set up at about 4mm on the 6th, 2.5mm on the 1st. The Garcia feels harder on the left hand, softer on the right than Tom's guitars. The Romanillos feels stiffer for both hands, but played just right it pours out beautiful tone and great tonal variety.

Ricardo's son recorded him playing the Arcangel on a cellphone, in an acoustically dead hotel room--thick carpet, drapes, bedclothes, upholstered furniture. Despite having played the guitar myself for nearly 20 years, I doubt that I would have recognized it by the sound of the recording, though Ricardo made it sound great.

RNJ




TonyGonzales84 -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jul. 7 2020 23:49:44)

Konstantin,

Thanks for your reply. Yeah, this is one of the many idealizations I considered in attacking the problem, but in the end, the one that I showed in the summary pdf, I chose because of its relative simplicity, i.e., the non-string part of the guitar I modeled as one equivalent mass-spring system. I could not find any publicly available, online quantification of any part of the guitar's masses or spring rates (understandably, again, because no one's ever required such values). Relative to the one I finally performed, the main difference in a Rayleigh-Ritz analysis using an idealization such as that in your post, would be the inclusion of the respective additional springs and masses in the quotient's respective numerator and denominator.

I settled on a Rayleigh-Ritz attack because I was only interested in the frequencies, and not in the mode shapes, which won't be representative (I hesitate to say "correct") with any form of lumped-mass modeling (meaning, one will never be able to compare lumped-mass analyses with, say, Chladni diagrams, which should be possible with the finite element analyses I did find online).

The Rayleigh-Ritz plan of attack removes the necessity of taking on the full equations of motion, solving the full eigenproblem, finally obtaining the frequencies. Given that I was only searching for the forms of expression of the string length versus string tension, a Rayleigh-Ritz attack should yield the correct form, because the resulting somewhat high leading quantity (guaranteed in this type of analysis) will algebraically cancel out in the comparison of one scale length versus any other scale length. Again, I was interested in the string length-tension expression incorporating the effects of the non-string guitar -- including the air in the body, etc.

This is a very interesting problem that, over time, will lead to many brain farts. I've even wondered if it would be of any value to run a matrix analysis including discretizing a guitar top, etc...but I doubt I'll be "looking for something to do" to that extent...[8D]

Cheers!




Richard Jernigan -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jul. 8 2020 4:13:03)

quote:

ORIGINAL: TonyGonzales84

I could not find any publicly available, online quantification of any part of the guitar's masses or spring rates (understandably, again, because no one's ever required such values).



Al Carruth is a New England luthier who has done a fair amount of quantitative measurement on both nylon and steel string guitars.

http://alcarruthluthier.com/Downloads/stringTheory.pdf

On page 13 he measures the acceleration admittance of the bridge on a nylon string instrument at various frequencies. He comments that this must affect the vibration of the string, but doesn't go into any detail.

Al would probably converse with you if you emailed or telephoned him. I don't have his contact info at the moment, but it should be easy to find.

If you decide to do any finite element modeling, I would like to hear about it. Apparently there are apps for PC and Macs. Last time I was a rocket scientist it was a job for a good sized mainframe. A well known luthier asked me about modeling domed and flat soundboards.

RNJ




TonyGonzales84 -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jul. 8 2020 5:54:59)

Thanks for the info, Richard. I downloaded, and quickly (!!!) glanced at Mr. Carruth's 17 page pdf, seeing PSD looking plots, etc (welcome to Fourier Transform world in order to back out data in time space -- more online searching for data eating software). I'll now skim his note to see what kinds of data I might glean from it.

I will also dig around for publicly available FEA software. It'd be easier than setting up a hand-run matrix structural analysis model, and have much more rapid turnaround time in running what ifs. Basically, my nebulous thinking runs along the lines of modeling a stiffened top, with some sort of Boundary Condition(s) (BCs) along the joint of the top-to-sides. I would use orthotropic elements for the top and everything "stiffening" the top.

Anything I have to report or ask I will do here. I will start a new thread so as not to completely hijack the OP's. Please feel free to add any inputs, suggestions, ridicule...[:D]




constructordeguitarras -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jul. 11 2020 16:23:10)

Please forgive me for going off on a tangent.

I like Luthier brand Popular Supreme 20 strings because I think they sound and feel good on my guitars, so that's what I put on them. But I have a problem with them, though I am not aware of anyone else having this problem with them: the trebles get sharp, especially the G string, as my hand warms them while playing. Has anyone else noticed this with any strings?




mark indigo -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jul. 11 2020 16:34:42)

quote:

I have a problem with them, though I am not aware of anyone else having this problem with them: the trebles get sharp, especially the G string, as my hand warms them while playing. Has anyone else noticed this with any strings?

Yes. All nylon strings I have tried do this do this. I tune up and start to play and the trebles go sharp.




Ricardo -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jul. 11 2020 16:40:02)

quote:

You really think the large shop built flamenco/classicals in the Cordoba, Ramirez (not the custom shop), Alvarez, Saez etc. lines are really sitting there tuning their guitar tops by hand for a budget friendly guitar which is their primary market?


My friend watched em do it in a factory in Valencia. There is one guy who gets the completed guitar, taps the top with ear close, then mashes the top, guitar facedown of course, into a belt sander. Checks again and it’s either more belt sander or it gets added to the pile of guitars ready for finish application. Results are quite good.[:D]




kitarist -> RE: Manufactures choice of strings on a guitar (Jul. 11 2020 18:55:20)

quote:

the trebles get sharp, especially the G string, as my hand warms them while playing. Has anyone else noticed this with any strings?


Yes, it is true for all nylon strings (as Mark says) - also true for PVDF (fluorocarbon/carbon) strings. Though at first seems counter-intuitive, there is an explanation for it. Nylon expands when warming up, just like other materials. However, in a string it expands in the radial direction due to the arrangement of the molecules. So the string is 'trying' to get thicker, therefore it pulls at the ends more (tension increases), thus pitch rises.




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