Unwound G String

[Encinitastubes]

I just put on a set of Thomastik 12 gauge round wounds on my 175. The unwound G string is much louder than the rest. I've tried screwing down the pole on my pickup, but it's still not enough. Is this normal? Would a wound G string be better balanced?

[PTChristopher]

>>> Would a wound G string be better balanced?

Yes; much.

I bought a pile of T-I wound Gs just for the purpose of getting rid of the absurd plain G in the BeBop .012 set.

Chris

[Bushwackbob]

As do I. Ditch the unwound and buy a bunch of wound G's...

[Jabberwocky]

What's the (misplaced, possibly) raison d'etre for including the imbalanced plain G in the Thomastik Infeld 12s anyway since it is thrown out for wound?

[Bushwackbob]

Profit?

[RyanM]

I just put on a set of Thomastik 12 gauge round wounds on my 175. The unwound G string is much louder than the rest. I've tried screwing down the pole on my pickup, but it's still not enough. Is this normal? Would a wound G string be better balanced?

Yes, that is normal; the pitch/tension of the G string is really meant to be wound, an unwound string will always be a compromise of playability (bending) for tone.

[PTChristopher]

I guess I have a slightly different take on wound vs. plain.

The T-I Bebop .012 has a plain (.020 I think) G. This is arguably a reasonable choice, but really out at the limit, and I like a wound far better.

So, why wound and plain strings?

Maybe better to say why wound strings since plain ones are so much cheaper to make.

So why wound strings?

Because strings would ideally be perfectly flexible. String stiffness causes problems in actual sound (inharmonicity, attack pitch change, limited sustain, weird harmonic decay, very limited transient harmonics - which significantly contribute to an "acoustic sound"). String stiffness also causes problems in playability with sensitivity to bending and pitch change making our crap-ass intonation on guitars even worse.

So wound strings are a way to get the mass we need for a given pitch and tension, but gaining the flexibility of a fine gauge core vs. a solid rod of steel that is the full diameter of the string.

So why not make all strings wound?

Actually there are some sets that are all wound, but for us mainstream folks,...

An extremely small core diameter would be very fragile. Also, winding a .009 string would be quite a difficult process to control both in manufacture and in actual installation.

Below a certain gauge, the flexibility issues diminish and we figure it is just fine to go with plain strings for both durability and cost.

What is this "certain gauge"?

In my opinion, somewhere around .018 to .020

That is to say a plain string much over .020 is getting to be a steel rod, and a wound string below .018 is getting to be a delicate proposition.

But this is a very arguable range, and there are many exceptions out there.

Now there is also the question of PU sensitivity. Your PU picks up vibrations from non-ferrous metals as well as from steel. But the non-ferrous component does not generate as strong a signal. So a plain .020 G will be considerably "louder" than a nickel wound .020 G.

Adjustable poles can only do so much. If the PU body is quite close to the strings the pole screw will have a more noticeable effect. For a PU that is set well away from the strings, the effect is very limited.

Bending: When you bend a string, it is the core that is doing (almost) all the pitch change. So a plain G .020 will change pitch far more for a given bend distance than will a wound .020 G (with its far smaller core).

Also, for reasons that may be obvious by now, a plain .020 G will require far more bridge compensation than a wound .020 G. The plain string will also be more prone to intonation errors even with a very well set up bridge compensation.

All in my opinion.

Chris

[richard vandyne]

PT - i play a acoustic/electris that has Daddorio flatwounds on it. The g string is 24. can i get a flatwound g that is wound . One that will not be distores or too strong????/ Should I get a 20 wound that is thinner than the rest on my strings. (IN your opinion)

[MaxT]

PT - i play a acoustic/electris that has Daddorio flatwounds on it. The g string is 24. can i get a flatwound g that is wound . One that will not be distores or too strong????/ Should I get a 20 wound that is thinner than the rest on my strings. (IN your opinion)

Do you mean you have a plain, unwound G string?
D'Addario meakes the "Flat Tops" which are half round, in both phosphor bronze and steel. They have a wound G.
I think their "Chromes" are flatwound, but can't reacll the gauges. You might check out their website.

[PTChristopher]

>>> can i get a flatwound g that is wound . One that will not be distores or too strong????

Yes.

But what is your current set (gauge and type of each string, or just say the set number from the manufacturer), and what is thew problem you are having with the G string?

Chris

[Encinitastubes]

Do the TI flat wound 12s come with a wound or unwound G?

[PTChristopher]

The JS-112 (Swing Flats) come with a wound G.

[richard vandyne]

PT- I am currently using D,Addario ecg25s. Their "G" is 24 gauge-If i were to buy a G 24 gauge from another mfgr. that was wound, it would,nt be tuned with the rest of the strings would it? I used to use the Elixir which has a wound g sting but I just didn.t like the squeeky strings. What i would prefer is to buy the ecg s from D Addario and then purchase some wound ones as an aside. Is Possible????????

[richard vandyne]

PT sorry for the last post. I must be getting old in my waning years. just read the cover on my set of D Addarios ECG25 s and low and behold i find that the G" string is in fact a wound string. Problem solved. On ther front of the packet where they name the gauges , there is a "W" right beside the 24 gauge string.

[PTChristopher]

I was just about to suggest writing a "W" on the package to solve the problem.

D'A makes a .024 plain string; I have a few around somewhere. They are not very practical in my opinion. Maybe as a lance or something,...

Chris

[jazzman1021]

Even in my rock and blues days, I used a wound third. Just sounded better to me.

JM

[Woody Sound]

Yes, that is normal; the pitch/tension of the G string is really meant to be wound, an unwound string will always be a compromise of playability (bending) for tone.

Yes, the plain G will change pitch more with the slightest bending, thus pressure when fretting it makes it go much sharper than a wound G.

[PTChristopher]

After my diatribe on strings above, I got a PM.

No, not the usual one asking if I am an escaped mental patient (Why escape when they have wi-fi here at the asylum?).

Two sort of follow-ups on strings (note my pathetically uneducated responses):

>>> A quick comparison of permeabilities suggests that gram for gram, metals other than iron and nickel will contribute on the order of 1% what the iron and nickel contribute to the pickup response. Does that seem reasonable to you? (I am ignoring the possibility of cobalt in the strings).

It does seem reasonable to me. My comment was a very ham-fisted generalization that spans from bronze windings to steel windings - clearly with very different abilities to excite the PU.

I have never really measured the ability of various types of strings to excite a PU. I have pulled windings off of strings and plucked them over pickups. It seems to me that "stainless steel" means many things (chromium and nickel content seems unspecified in the term) and the actual magnetic properties of steel windings may vary quite a bit.

Nickel clearly excites the PU very clearly, but seems (no data measured) weaker than steel both through the PU and in general magnetic attraction. I may be quite inaccurate on this.

Brass/Bronze had no audible effect on the PU, but as I understand it, there must be some very small component of the PU signal that comes from bronze windings.

I also did not mention that string gauge numbers can be off sometimes, AND they can measure the outside diameter of a string. So a plain .020 is solid steel with an O.D. of .020". A round-wound .020 also has an outside diameter of .020, but this includes the air around the round windings.

It is very possible that the oft-observed relative weakness of a nickel-wound G vs. a plain may not be much because of the nickel at all, but mostly because there is less metal there.

I suppose this can all be tested, but I still end up in the same place (even with flatwound strings) - the PU seems more sensitive to plain strings vs. wound of a given gauge.

It is very possible that with steel ribbon windings this is simply not true.



>>> How do we know that when you bend a string, it is the core that is doing (almost) all the pitch change?

Let's invent two strings. One is a plain .032" string - not practical, but easy to calculate. The other is a round-wound .032" string.

To make things less silly and cumbersome, I'll switch to metric:

These strings are about 0.8 mm in diameter.

If we pull both up to tension, maybe a D note over a 25" (635mm) scale, then stretch each string 6.35 mm, note some difference:

The plain string is stretched 1%.

BUT

While the core of the wound string is stretched 1%, the windings are stretched far less. The coil formed by the windings is opened slightly, but there is extremely limited actual increase in the length of the coil wire. I suppose you could argue for as much as a .014% stretch to the windings.

But if we consider that windings can be roughly 60% of the string, the net amount of stretched metal will be notably less than half vs. a plain string.

Now my numbers are very quick and rough, but they are pretty close to what actually happens in terms of net pitch change vs. total stretch in a "bent" string vs. a plain string.

So I suppose we know that the core is doing the majority of the pitch change because it is being stretched something like 7 times as much (or more) as the windings. ( I am assuming a .3mm core and .25mm windings for my hypothetical string.)

OK, that's my story. Both geeky and sloppily un-scientific at the same time, which is a hard combination of the unappealing to achieve.

Chris

[HighSpeedSpoon]

Deleted

Oops! Wrong thread in the cut-and-paste; my apologies for the distraction.

[Nigrut]

I agree with PTChristopher on 1-13-2013 almost completely. The intonation issue with a plain g-string can be addressed ok by lengthening the scale for that string. On an acoustic guitar you'll have to cut out the bridge section for the g-string and turn it around. If that's not enough, you can place a part of a proper size nail behind the bridge and let the string rest on it. What I need, is to know what size plain g-string should I use with the 012 kit that came with the guitar, I just bought? I won't put on an 011 kit just yet. The biggest plain g-string I've ever seen is 021 and in the 011 kit they give you an 018. So probably 019 or 020, huh? Remember, Spanish guitar strings always come with the plain g. A last thing: On the Stratocaster pickup you can push the pole piece for the g-string in (down) to compensate for the fact that you use a plain g-string, lessening the volume for that string. I once wrote Fender about this and they were like fallen from the sky. If Eric Clapton can play our pickups, why can't you? Absurd. You need a lot of force with your thumbs. But don't do this ever, for the outer strings, the e-strings. You will probably break the tonewire inside and there will be NO bass response left in the pickup. You ruined it.

[hotpepper01]

I know that it sounds odd, but I dislike a wound G string. I allways throw out the highest three strings in a flatwound set DAddario Chromes and use single Elixir strings instead for GBE.