Wound G string not loud enough, am I the only one?

[DonEsteban]

Just come home from my first gig with my guitar strung with a 0.012 set of strings. The 24w G string is way to low in a loud band situation, very stressful controlling the volume difference via playing dynamics.

Am I the only one? Do you play plain 24 G strings? Back to 11ers?

I switched to a semi distorted sound (with a jazzbox with floating pickup!) as a quick and dirty help for the night and played mainly rock'n rollish songs like canteloupe and watermelonman, but obviously that's not it....

[JakeAcci]

I struggle with dynamic imbalances too. Let's both get some help in this thread!

My plain G was too loud, then the wound was too quiet.

Ultimately it probably is just an issue of practicing with the amp and "manually" controlling the dynamic difference.

[jorgemg1984]

Did you tried to adjust the pole pieces of the pickup?

[Peter C]

If the pickups have adjustable screws on top, right under the strings (pole pieces) turn the one under the G string so that it sits closer to the string. If they are not adjustable, I think I remember that stainless steel strings such as D'Addario Chromes suffer less from this problem than other types.

[beasleybubba]

I personally like the feel and sound of a wound G-string and I haven't had any problems with it being too quiet... but I often struggle with my low E being waaaaay too freakin loud on my Gretsch archtop. Anyone else experience this? Any suggestions?

[mr. beaumont]

I've never encountered any imbalances that couldn't be solved by adjusting polepieces.

Now, if you don't have polepieces, that's another issue. The DeArmond on my Kay, for example, sounds most balanced with flatwounds, specifically D'Addairo (got lucky, as these are the strings I use most often anyway) Sometimes it's a matter of some experimentation to find a balanced (for your guitar) string set.

You might consider bumping up the mass of that wound G--maybe use a G string from a set of 12's. I would not resort to using a thicker plain G--anything over an .18 or so sounds thunky and dead and has terrible intonation issues, IME.

[pingu]

I have top E not quite loud enough .........

[DonEsteban]

Thanks for your input. Here is what I did today.

Drove to the local music shop. "Give me the heaviest plain string you have, preferably a 24!" He disappeared under his counter for a long time and eventually came up with a plain 24 Dean Markley. Due to its age (must have been there for decades) it was rusty, so I got it for free.

Cleaned it with lighter-gas and bingo, the imbalance problem is gone!

Still thinking the gauge is not perfect, finger-feelwise and even in electric sound, the acoustic balance is excellent, as it was with the 24w too. That was why I didn't realized the problem at home in the first place (bought the guitar recently).

Original gauge, Pyramid Nickel Round Wound:

12 16 24w 32w 42w 52w

The 24 w is now replaced with a 24plain and now I'd like the wound ones a bit heavier too. Maybe this would be ideal:

12 16 24 34w 44w 54w

I'll do a test as soon as there is some free time and post the results here.

PS. No don't have pole pieces on this guitar, it's a floating thin-line pickup.

PPS Edit: Just found that there are lots of this heavy gauges now available due to the "drop tuners" in Death-Metal and similar music styles. These kids tune their axes way down and need thicker strings to keep them tunable and playable.

[caravan]

I wish I had a picture of this: You know those refrigerator magnets... the flimsy ones that are a little thicker than a guitar pick. Well, I cut out a round dot from one, about as big around as a pencil and taped it on top of the pickup where the weak G string is. It actually boosts it enough to sound even with the others! Keep in mind that it's polarized so if you need to figure out which side has the attracting pole.

The first one I made was too tiny to do any good. The second one worked perfectly so I glued it permanently onto the pickup with superglue. No one really notices anyway.

I didn't want to go with a plain G string... a wound G sounds better.

[jorgemg1984]

juststrings.com is great for custom sets

[Peter C]

Originally Posted by caravan

I wish I had a picture of this: You know those refrigerator magnets... the flimsy ones that are a little thicker than a guitar pick. Well, I cut out a round dot from one, about as big around as a pencil and taped it on top of the pickup where the weak G string is. It actually boosts it enough to sound even with the others! Keep in mind that it's polarized so if you need to figure out which side has the attracting pole.

The first one I made was too tiny to do any good. The second one worked perfectly so I glued it permanently onto the pickup with superglue. No one really notices anyway.

I didn't want to go with a plain G string... a wound G sounds better.

What a great tip. A keeper!

[DonEsteban]

Replaced my pickup today with a brand new AER floating. Problem's gone!

Didn't even have to adjust the polepiece screws. The old Ibanez floating pickup was just faulty or badly designed.

Observation: Putting one of the little mounting screws on the old pickup. It'll stick only where the A string was or the B string, not on any other location. Seems to have only two magnetic active zones instead of 6 this thing.



PS. AER floating Mr. N. Smith neckmount 111€ made in Korea

[Jabberwocky]

Originally Posted by DonEsteban

...
Chinaman did something wrong here I suppose... :-)...

It is the 21st Century, Senor Esteban. We don't use such pejoratives around here anymore, at least, not where I hail from.

If you get out to know the Chinese, you'll find that they are really no different from you and me.

Sort of falls in together with the N-word.

[DonEsteban]

Sorry !!

Didn't intend to be rude and also didn't understand the connotation of what I wrote, should have been funny!

Sorry again!



PS. I''m not a native speaker.
PPS: Didn't even know what a N-Word is, found it on Google now...

[pingu]

Nigger ........
you're not allowed to say it now