The .020 Gauge Interval, Tension, and Building Balanced Sets

[BigInThe80s]

Ok, I have been playing with greenboy's string tension spreadsheet and the D'Addario string data PDF.

Unless I screwed up the numbers, it looks like both of the following sets would be pretty balanced as far as concerns tension:

20 40, 55 (or 52), 70, 95

45, 60, 80, 110

Does anybody here (besides greenboy) do this? If so, was it worth the trouble?


ETA: Almost forgot - where did the typical .020 interval between the gauges come from anyway?

[Marton]

Labella make a 110-85-61-44 set (Deep Talking Roundwounds).

Not exactly what you're looking for, but not very far.

[Marton]

And by the way, in my experience, lighter bass strings and heavier treble strings maybe not be balanced as far as concerns tension, but they're much more balanced tonally.

[BigInThe80s]

Sorry, what I meant was: Does anybody here take the trouble to buy singles to put together a balanced set?

[knuckle_head]

The rule of .020 was and is arbitrary.

I addition, most brands offer increments of .005 which is fine at .100 but sucks royally below .075. If you consider that a .005 spread at .100 is a 5% difference it ain't so bad. At .075 it's nearly an 8% difference.

In more specific terms, a .005 difference at .100 is roughly 3 pounds. At .075 it's 4 pounds. At .050 it's 5 pounds. You see where I'm going with this....

All this said, I offer and recommend balanced sets. I like that it allows nearly no technique adjustment from string to string (especially on bottom) and what it does for output from string to string.

It feels different, and sounds a little different but not radically so.

[ixlramp]

Originally Posted by BigInThe80s

20, 55 (or 52), 70, 95

45, 60, 80, 110

Hi ! That 20 should actually be roughly 35. I put together a tension balanced set for a friend a while back, calculating tensions using unit mass data, the gauges worked out to be 35 50 70 95. The 2nd set looks good though.

Note that the gauge ratio of adjacent strings is very roughly 4:3, this can be derived from physics. The rough rule is:

For 2 strings of equal scale and tension, tuned a fourth apart, the ratio of their gauges will be very roughly 4:3 (note this is also the frequency ratio of the strings).

I always buy singles to balance the tensions, it's certainly worth it because standard sets have insanely varying tensions. Circle K Strings are the first to address this and sell balanced sets:

http://circlekstrings.com/store/

[BigInThe80s]

Originally Posted by ixlramp

Hi ! That 20 should actually be roughly 35.

Good catch. I meant for that to be 40 and have edited the post.

[Metal Mitch]

Originally Posted by Marton

And by the way, in my experience, lighter bass strings and heavier treble strings maybe not be balanced as far as concerns tension, but they're much more balanced tonally.

+1

[ixlramp]

Originally Posted by Marton

And by the way, in my experience, lighter bass strings and heavier treble strings maybe not be balanced as far as concerns tension, but they're much more balanced tonally.

Well this is strange because my experience is the opposite.

High strings are naturally brighter in tone due to being thinner and more flexible. Low strings are naturally duller in tone. The way to balance the tones would therefore be to tighten the low strings to brighten their tone, and loosen the high strings to soften them.

Traditional sets are heavy top and loose bottom, which actually accentuates the change in tone across the set. Balanced tension is a great improvement in tonal balance.

In fact personally I design my sets to have a slight and gradual decrease in tension towards the highest string. This improves tonal balance even more and has many other advantages.