I did a search, couldn't find what I was looking for, it is bassically all in the title. On Fender styled basses, does getting a reversed headstock add tension to the low B string, or is it just a gimmick? Thanks for your time. 
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Does a reverse headstock add tension?
- Thread starter kosmicwizard
- Start date
Static tension? No.
Elasticity of the string? Yes.
Elasticity of the string? Yes.
The nut doesn't move so it is still the same scale length, but since the tuning peg is farther away from the bridge is it going to be tighter or looser or the same when it comes to string tension?
I have a degree in Acoustical Physics - we studied these things. Tension depends pn physical properties of the string and the length from nut to bridge. Adding length elsewhere doesn't change tension at all.
Let me copy a post that I just wrote on another thread, because it's really the same topic. The question was about whether adding extra string length between the bridge saddles and the tailpiece on a short scale bass will increase the "tension" on the strings:
Well, yes and no. The actual tension in the string is the same. The tension is determined by the scale length (the distance between the bridge saddle and the nut), the gauge/construction of the string, and the note that it is tuned to. Adding extra length at either end, between the saddle and the anchor point/tailpiece, or between the nut and the tuner, does not change the tension of the string.
However, adding that extra length at either end does change the sound and feel of the string. It's a factor I call the "snap" of the string, which is often confused with the tension. It works like this: When you pull sideways on the string, as you are plucking it, the string is stretching like a long spring. Then you release it, and it snaps back to straight, overshoots it, and goes into the back and forth oscillation.
When you add extra length to the string at either end, you are making that spring longer. So, you have to pull it farther sideways to get the same feel on your fingertip, because the string stretches easier.
For example, suppose you have two basses, same scale length, same string, tuned to the same note. One has the standard short distance between the bridge saddle and the anchor point. The other has an extra 3" of length back to the anchor point. Again, the actual tension in both strings will be the same.
But, if you pull the string sideways with a force of, say, 1 pound on your fingertip, there will be a difference. With the extended string, you have to pull the string a longer distance to the side to reach that 1 pound load. It's because there's more length of string to stretch.
Now, when you release the strings of these two basses, the extended string has a longer distance to travel to get back to center. The physics of it is that they will both accelerate at the same rate, because the tension is the same. The extended string will take longer to reach center, but it crosses over center at higher velocity and goes farther to the other side before rebounding. This is the effect that I call "snap". Increasing the overall length of the string increases the snap, regardless of the scale length.
How does this affect the sound? Increasing the snap mainly changes the attack curve of the note. It increases the pulse at the beginning of the note, which is why I call it snap. Think of the percussive sound of upright basses. They have a huge amount of snap because of the very long overall string length. The increased pulse can be heard through the amp, and also unplugged.
The funny thing about increasing the snap is that players will describe it in opposite ways. Some will say that the tension is higher, because they hear that extra pop on the note. Others will say that the tension is lower, because the string feels softer to their fingertip. But actually, the tension is exactly the same.
It's the same factor in all those long arguments about reverse headstocks, and how increasing the length between the nut and the tuner of the B string will increase the "tension" of the string to improve the sound, etc. It doesn't actually increase the tension, but it increases the snap. Which may make the B string sound more like the other strings.
Etc.
So, a reverse headstock increases the "snap" on the lower strings, the most on the B, while reducing the snap on the upper strings. That may add more balance to the feel and sound across the strings. But, it's not actually increasing the tension.However, adding that extra length at either end does change the sound and feel of the string. It's a factor I call the "snap" of the string, which is often confused with the tension. It works like this: When you pull sideways on the string, as you are plucking it, the string is stretching like a long spring. Then you release it, and it snaps back to straight, overshoots it, and goes into the back and forth oscillation.
When you add extra length to the string at either end, you are making that spring longer. So, you have to pull it farther sideways to get the same feel on your fingertip, because the string stretches easier.
For example, suppose you have two basses, same scale length, same string, tuned to the same note. One has the standard short distance between the bridge saddle and the anchor point. The other has an extra 3" of length back to the anchor point. Again, the actual tension in both strings will be the same.
But, if you pull the string sideways with a force of, say, 1 pound on your fingertip, there will be a difference. With the extended string, you have to pull the string a longer distance to the side to reach that 1 pound load. It's because there's more length of string to stretch.
Now, when you release the strings of these two basses, the extended string has a longer distance to travel to get back to center. The physics of it is that they will both accelerate at the same rate, because the tension is the same. The extended string will take longer to reach center, but it crosses over center at higher velocity and goes farther to the other side before rebounding. This is the effect that I call "snap". Increasing the overall length of the string increases the snap, regardless of the scale length.
How does this affect the sound? Increasing the snap mainly changes the attack curve of the note. It increases the pulse at the beginning of the note, which is why I call it snap. Think of the percussive sound of upright basses. They have a huge amount of snap because of the very long overall string length. The increased pulse can be heard through the amp, and also unplugged.
The funny thing about increasing the snap is that players will describe it in opposite ways. Some will say that the tension is higher, because they hear that extra pop on the note. Others will say that the tension is lower, because the string feels softer to their fingertip. But actually, the tension is exactly the same.
It's the same factor in all those long arguments about reverse headstocks, and how increasing the length between the nut and the tuner of the B string will increase the "tension" of the string to improve the sound, etc. It doesn't actually increase the tension, but it increases the snap. Which may make the B string sound more like the other strings.
Etc.
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Ah Mr Johnson, I've never been able to verbalize this concept myself when trying to explain it to others.
Thank you, I can explain things better now, and may be stop a certain friend from buying silly .177 gauge b strings and wondering why they don't sound how he expects because he wants more tension.
Thank you, I can explain things better now, and may be stop a certain friend from buying silly .177 gauge b strings and wondering why they don't sound how he expects because he wants more tension.
Here we go again!
For a given pitch/scale length/mass per metre combination, tension will be the same. BUT, and there is a but...
The lengths of string above the nut and below the saddle will affect how the string feels under your fingers and how it responds to bending (which includes stopping against the fingerboard or frets). Longer 'afterlengths' will make the string feel more compliant and less prone to sharpening in pitch when the string is deflected.
If you have access to an electric guitar with a locking nut, try this. Lock the nut and, using one of the strings whose peg is furthest from the nut, try to bend a note up a minor third. Notice how far you need to push the string. Now unlock the nut and do the same. You have to deflect a lot more to achieve the same minor third but the string will feel more flexible and compliant. Alternatively, do the same with a hard-tail and soft-tail Stratocaster - it is easier to achieve radical bends on the hard-tail but the strings feel slacker on the soft-tail even though they are not. Now try bending a minor third on the top and bottom strings and notice how far the string needs to be pushed to achieve the same interval - the big strings are far more sensitive to deflection than the thin ones. Which is why your correctly intonated bass has longer big strings than thin strings
If you don't have access to electric guitars (and why would you ), you could try the same experiment comparing bending on the G strings of Fender and top-strung Musicman basses - the MM will yield greater change for a given deflection.
Why does this matter? As @Bruce Johnson alluded to above, even normal vibration of the string involves some deflection. Deflection = more tension. More tension = pitch sharpening. But as we have seen, the same deflection with a longer afterlength = less pitch change. Knowing that the pitch of big strings is more sensitive to deflection, it makes sense that longer afterlengths on the big strings will help maintain accurate pitch under deflection, even that required for normal fingering of notes.
So IME, reverse headstocks make perfect sense.
For a given pitch/scale length/mass per metre combination, tension will be the same. BUT, and there is a but...
The lengths of string above the nut and below the saddle will affect how the string feels under your fingers and how it responds to bending (which includes stopping against the fingerboard or frets). Longer 'afterlengths' will make the string feel more compliant and less prone to sharpening in pitch when the string is deflected.
If you have access to an electric guitar with a locking nut, try this. Lock the nut and, using one of the strings whose peg is furthest from the nut, try to bend a note up a minor third. Notice how far you need to push the string. Now unlock the nut and do the same. You have to deflect a lot more to achieve the same minor third but the string will feel more flexible and compliant. Alternatively, do the same with a hard-tail and soft-tail Stratocaster - it is easier to achieve radical bends on the hard-tail but the strings feel slacker on the soft-tail even though they are not. Now try bending a minor third on the top and bottom strings and notice how far the string needs to be pushed to achieve the same interval - the big strings are far more sensitive to deflection than the thin ones. Which is why your correctly intonated bass has longer big strings than thin strings
If you don't have access to electric guitars (and why would you
), you could try the same experiment comparing bending on the G strings of Fender and top-strung Musicman basses - the MM will yield greater change for a given deflection.Why does this matter? As @Bruce Johnson alluded to above, even normal vibration of the string involves some deflection. Deflection = more tension. More tension = pitch sharpening. But as we have seen, the same deflection with a longer afterlength = less pitch change. Knowing that the pitch of big strings is more sensitive to deflection, it makes sense that longer afterlengths on the big strings will help maintain accurate pitch under deflection, even that required for normal fingering of notes.
So IME, reverse headstocks make perfect sense.
Here we go again!
For a given pitch/scale length/mass per metre combination, tension will be the same. BUT, and there is a but...
The lengths of string above the nut and below the saddle will affect how the string feels under your fingers and how it responds to bending (which includes stopping against the fingerboard or frets). Longer 'afterlengths' will make the string feel more compliant and less prone to sharpening in pitch when the string is deflected.
If you have access to an electric guitar with a locking nut, try this. Lock the nut and, using one of the strings whose peg is furthest from the nut, try to bend a note up a minor third. Notice how far you need to push the string. Now unlock the nut and do the same. You have to deflect a lot more to achieve the same minor third but the string will feel more flexible and compliant. Alternatively, do the same with a hard-tail and soft-tail Stratocaster - it is easier to achieve radical bends on the hard-tail but the strings feel slacker on the soft-tail even though they are not. Now try bending a minor third on the top and bottom strings and notice how far the string needs to be pushed to achieve the same interval - the big strings are far more sensitive to deflection than the thin ones. Which is why your correctly intonated bass has longer big strings than thin strings
If you don't have access to electric guitars (and why would you
Why does this matter? As @Bruce Johnson alluded to above, even normal vibration of the string involves some deflection. Deflection = more tension. More tension = pitch sharpening. But as we have seen, the same deflection with a longer afterlength = less pitch change. Knowing that the pitch of big strings is more sensitive to deflection, it makes sense that longer afterlengths on the big strings will help maintain accurate pitch under deflection, even that required for normal fingering of notes.
So IME, reverse headstocks make perfect sense.
Yes, you are right, and that's another interesting factor. I hadn't really considered the effect on bending. Using my two examples above, if you bend the string the exact same distance to the side, then the string with the extra afterlength won't go as sharp. But, if you bend to the same amount of pressure on your fingertip, then the two will be at the same sharpness. So, the net result is that it may not make any difference. My guess is that players are bending by feel and listening to the note, so they probably wouldn't notice that they moved the string a little farther.
Articles like that annoy me. The author has an engineering background, so he's real quick to jump in and explain how tension is calculated. Therefore, he explains that tension doesn't change by extending the string at the headstock or behind the bridge. Well, duh. Most of us understand that and completely agree. But he drops it there and never looks at how the sound and feel do change, even though the tension remains the same. I think I explained all that pretty thoroughly in my post above. It's not that complicated.
But no, it's much more fun to "bust a myth". So, the conclusion of the article, and what most readers take away from it, is that extending the string on the headstock or behind the tailpiece does absolutely nothing. Therefore it's all a myth, phony, fraud, etc. But that's a wrong conclusion, based on an incomplete understanding of the question.
We Luthiers have to deal with this kind of crap all the time. I'm one of the few who writes back and tries to honestly explain how these technical issues on instruments work. The real myths are created by articles like that.
Edit: I guess my post above is a little grumpy sounding...
What I mean is this: If the original question of the thread is just "Does a reverse headstock increase the tension of the B string?", then the correct answer is "No, it doesn't." And, that's what that article says.
But the real question should be "Does a reverse headstock change the sound and feel of the B string?" And the answer to that is yes, it does, even though it doesn't change the tension.
The problem is that reading the answer to the first question will lead most people to think that the answer to the second question is also no, because they aren't seeing the whole picture.
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Zombie thread resurrection: I think understand the concepts @Bruce Johnson and @SteveCS detailed above, and agree that more snap on the lower pitch strings would be better.
However, I guess where I'm getting stuck is this: if you had a reverse inline headstock with exact balanced tensioned strings and plucked all of them with the exact same force, wouldn't the lower pitched strings move (flop) around more than if the you used a non-reversed inline headstock?
However, I guess where I'm getting stuck is this: if you had a reverse inline headstock with exact balanced tensioned strings and plucked all of them with the exact same force, wouldn't the lower pitched strings move (flop) around more than if the you used a non-reversed inline headstock?
I dont think people are accurately factoring how much the string does or does not move over the witness point at the bridge or the nut when the string is fretted, bent, or plucked.
IMO a reverse headstock is about aesthetics and potentially to see if we can make tuning even more difficult than when we use reverse tuning keys.
IMO a reverse headstock is about aesthetics and potentially to see if we can make tuning even more difficult than when we use reverse tuning keys.
Well, yes, but "flop around more" isn't the way I'd describe it. The low B on a reversed headstock, with the extra length out beyond the nut, would swing slightly farther out to the side for the first couple of oscillations. But you'd barely be able to measure it. It would be a couple thousandths of an inch for a few milliseconds.
The Snap effect that I described above happens very quickly at the beginning of the note. It's the result of you pulling the string slightly farther off to the side, then releasing it. It builds up more speed as it crosses the centerline, after you let it go. But within a couple of cycles, it's back to oscillating the same as it would with the shorter outboard length and non-reversed headstock. The snap effect is a measureable lump at the beginning of the attack curve. A small increase in volume in the first few milliseconds of the note. Listening to it, that little extra snap at the beginning of the note makes it sound like the string is operating at higher tension/longer scale length. But it isn't. Adding the extra outboard length doesn't actually increase the tension. It changes the attack curve to make it sound like it has extra tension.
DigitalMan;
The amount of movement of the string through/across the witness points is small, but it's there, whether it's a normal or reverse headstock. When you pull the string off to the side, the string stretches in length, maybe 0.025". That stretch will be distributed evenly along the length of the string. So, the amount of movement through the nut slot will be based on the proportions of string length outboard of the nut, to the overall length of the string.
On a normal 34" scale bass, figure that the overall operating string length is 38" (2" tuner to nut + 34" scale + 2" bridge saddle to anchor). If the string stretches 0.025", that means that the movement through the nut would be 2"/36" times 0.025" = 0.0014". About one and a half thousandths of an inch. With a reverse headstock, the number would be 6"/42" times 0.025" = 0.0036", about three and a half thousandths. Those are small numbers, and you'd see similar numbers at the bridge saddle. The string does move a tiny bit through the two witness points as you pluck it. Other than a Floyd Rose locking nut, there's nothing there to keep the string from sliding in the groove.
I realize that this is all tedious silliness to most of you. But hey, that's what we Engineer-types live for! We figure out the little details of how and why things work.
Bruce;
I have a question about that movement of the plucked string over the witness points.
In your calculation it seems to me that only the string is held responsible for the increasted length, by stretching itself.
I had in mind that the bending of the frame was an important part of that increased lenght (a part varying with the stifness of the frame of course, and thus varying with the design of the instrument).
If the frame is bending like I understand it, shouldn't the sliding movement of the string over the witness points be less than what you calculated?
A metal string should be less strechable than a wooden frame is bendable (does this make sense?).
Unless the frame is made intentionally very stiff... But I know I might be opening a pandora box here
I have a question about that movement of the plucked string over the witness points.
In your calculation it seems to me that only the string is held responsible for the increasted length, by stretching itself.
I had in mind that the bending of the frame was an important part of that increased lenght (a part varying with the stifness of the frame of course, and thus varying with the design of the instrument).
If the frame is bending like I understand it, shouldn't the sliding movement of the string over the witness points be less than what you calculated?
A metal string should be less strechable than a wooden frame is bendable (does this make sense?).
Unless the frame is made intentionally very stiff... But I know I might be opening a pandora box here
Oh dear, you are getting into that secret, mysterious subject of how the frame of the bass affects the tone on the string. Many readers will start twitching and stamping their feet at the mere mention of this subject!
Yes, if the frame of the bass is infinitely stiff, then all of the stretching will take place within the string, as in my example above. But, in the real world, the wooden frame of the bass is not infinitely stiff, and it will bend and flex somewhat as the string oscillates side to side. How much the frame flexes versus how much the string stretches will depend on the relative stiffness of the two. On a soft-frame bass, the string may barely stretch at all, and most of the length change is taken up by movement of the frame. How much the frame moves, and how it moves, gets into the whole subject of how the design of the frame can change the tone on the string.
In this case, about how adding outboard string length adds "snap", it doesn't matter much whether the stretching is happening within the string, or within the deflection of the frame, or some combination of the two. It's still a big spring system. Adding extra length to that overall spring means that you get more travel for the same amount of pull, whether the extra length is coming from the stretching of the string, or from the deflection of the headstock.
And you are right, if the frame is doing most of the movement, then there may not be much movement of the string through the witness points. But it depends. If most of the flexing of the frame is going on at the headstock, then the string will be sliding through the nut slot. If the headstock is stiff, but the neck/body joint is springy, then you'll get extra snap with no movement of the string through the witness points. That's one of the hidden features of the Ampeg AEB-1 Scroll Basses. And part of the reason for its unique attack curve.
Yes, if the frame of the bass is infinitely stiff, then all of the stretching will take place within the string, as in my example above. But, in the real world, the wooden frame of the bass is not infinitely stiff, and it will bend and flex somewhat as the string oscillates side to side. How much the frame flexes versus how much the string stretches will depend on the relative stiffness of the two. On a soft-frame bass, the string may barely stretch at all, and most of the length change is taken up by movement of the frame. How much the frame moves, and how it moves, gets into the whole subject of how the design of the frame can change the tone on the string.
In this case, about how adding outboard string length adds "snap", it doesn't matter much whether the stretching is happening within the string, or within the deflection of the frame, or some combination of the two. It's still a big spring system. Adding extra length to that overall spring means that you get more travel for the same amount of pull, whether the extra length is coming from the stretching of the string, or from the deflection of the headstock.
And you are right, if the frame is doing most of the movement, then there may not be much movement of the string through the witness points. But it depends. If most of the flexing of the frame is going on at the headstock, then the string will be sliding through the nut slot. If the headstock is stiff, but the neck/body joint is springy, then you'll get extra snap with no movement of the string through the witness points. That's one of the hidden features of the Ampeg AEB-1 Scroll Basses. And part of the reason for its unique attack curve.
Bryan R. Tyler
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How you feel this difference is also heavily dependent on technique. A player who uses a strong attack and bends their strings vertically may notice this very subtle change much more. I use a very light attack and move the string horizontally for vibrato, so the difference is non-existent for me. Even on basses with far more post-nut length; I have Zon 5-strings with very long headsstocks and a Zon Vinny which is headless and there's no difference for me.
BTW, I get the same amount of annoyance you get from the article's lack of a complete answer from people who still think it increases the string tension
As much as it may seem like a "duh" thing, people repeat it as true all the time here.
