A question of curiosity

[Lance Bunyon]

Flats sound flattish.
Rounds are rounder.

The round wound string was based on the piano string.
It took NASA engineers 14 years to design a bass string which could compete with a Steinway Series A low C.
And then Chris Squire wink wink nudge nudge know what I mean?

 

[Bass Motifs]

Rounds are more wiggly. Like flicking a flexible rope, rather than a lasso. The extra wiggles are the higher harmonics. The poster above with the diagram said it better.

 

[hasbeen]

If your hypothesis about contact surface is correct, roundcore strings would be stiffer than hex core, which is not the case. Quite the opposite. So I am not convinced.

Everything being equal, (string mass, gauge, materials etc), hex core is more stiff because the core itself is less flexible than a round core.

 

[hasbeen]

You are doing the lord’s work here. Thank you.

That's funny. You made my day.

 

[hasbeen]

Merriam-Webster says “dampen” means;
dampen
verb
damp·en ˈdam-pən

dampened; dampening ˈdamp-niŋ
ˈdam-pə-
transitive verb

1: to check or diminish the activity or vigor of: DEADEN

2: to make damp.


intransitive verb

1: to become damp

2: to become deadened or depressed

As for why rounds are brighter than flats; flexibility. The outer winding of rounds is a “round” wire. This adds mass, but doesn’t restrict the bending of the string much because the round wire touching itself has very little surface area actually touching. Touching the sides of two cylindrical shapes together, like two cans for example, has a very small surface area touching vs. touching the sides of two pieces of square tubing together.

Some flats have square shaped winding wire wrapped around the core wire. Some flats might also have a ribbon wrapped around the core with the ribbon overlapped. Both types are less flexible than a core wire wound with round wire.

This isn’t my first hand knowledge; this is some info imparted by John D’Adderio in an old Bass Player magazine from at least early to mid 90s. I just remember reading the article and going back to reference info in the article a few times. I can no longer find it….

Merriam-Webster stopped being an English dictionary long ago. Sad but true. They subscribe to the thought that languages evolve (devolve??). That's how the word "impact" became a verb and now we're saddled with silly words like "impactful".

"Common Errors in English Usage" Invalid Link Removed

In a piano, that's why they're called "dampers" and not "dampeners". They "damp" the strings.

Apologies to the OP for going off-script and my apologies to you for being so punctilious. I'm just a grammar and composition nerd. Ask poor Jeff Genzler and Agedhorse.

 

[Slevage]

Ehh, language always changes. There's definitely use for specific jargon in specific scenarios, but outside of those contexts, I don't really see the problem with people using a term colloquially as long as it makes sense to everyone in the conversation.

Wiktionary lists "dampen" as in "to damp" as the 3rd definition here, with a note on how that usage may be considered incorrect in technical contexts: dampen - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (and you may consider this a technical context, so that's maybe fine here, but you didn't really specify)

Prescribing how people SHOULD use language rarely works. It's better to share something like this as "hey did you know that in physics, these words are used in this way" rather than "you are incorrect and should change the way you talk" (not that you said that, but people online often come across that way).

And no, words changing meaning over time will not lead to the "devolution of language" as some may say. We don't have noun cases in modern English like they did in old English, but we have complicated phrasal verbs and prepositional phrases that get across the same meaning. People have complained about language changing all the way back to some of the earliest written sources we have - and those languages have either completely changed or died out.

Since sound is physics, I’ll stick with the science behind the sound.

 

[Deleted member 394181]

Definitions be, like, real important.

 

[micguy]

OK, an actual Physicist's view of this:

Rounds have windings on them that are separate from each other - each turn of the string is not touching the one next to it, so the whole structure is flexible - free to vibrate at low, mid, and high frequencies. When rounds get old, gunk (stuff from your hands - it's all a bit icky) gets in between the windings, and physically bridges them - the windings are not as independent as they once were. The first thing to go is the higher frequencies - when a string is vibrating at higher frequencies (harmonics), the curvature of the string is greater for those than it is for the fundamental, so the damping (which happens because successive turns are moving apart and towards each other) affects higher frequencies more. If you want your round wound strings to last essentially forever, never playing them with your fingers is the answer - pianos have round wound strings, and they last for decades (much longer than even flats on a bass). No gunk = long life.

Flat wound strings have flat "ribbons" as the top layer of winding - those ribbons touch more than one of the turns in the underlying winding, so when you get the strings, they have pre-installed "bridges" between the lower windings. Though the material isn't the same as the gunk from your strings, the principle is the same - the higher frequencies get damped preferentially. Flat's don't change as much in character as rounds - there is already so much damping from the top wind that a little bit of gunk doesn't add appreciably to the damping that is already there. The top wind may also help block some of the gunk entry, but if you're sweaty, capillary action will wick that into the string regardless, so it's not a panacea for gunk entry.

 

[micguy]

It’s because when they make the strings, the mwah! goes into the flats, and the boing! goes into the rounds.

You haven't experienced rounds on a good hard board - there is far more mwah available with rounds than there is with flats, especially in that scenario. People here talk about techniques to coax mwah out of a fretless - if you put rounds on an ebonol or ebonite board, you don't need to learn anything to get mwah out of it - you automatically get gobs of mwah.

 

[charliethomas]

They subscribe to the thought that languages evolve (devolve??).

Crazy idea! Hoping this was satire but... Go back to 1700 and try speaking your dialect with some English speakers. Do you think they use words the same way you do today? Do you think they'd even understand you at all?

Since sound is physics, I’ll stick with the science behind the sound.

Good call. Though I'd argue that there's a lot more that goes into our subjective experience of sound than the physics behind it. Physics can tell you why the ocean is blue, but not why it's calming for a human to observe blue wavelengths. Edit: to bring it back to sound, physics can help you analyze what overtones are present in a clarinet note, but it won't tell you why you may perceive the timbre as hollow and woody.

Physics doesn't have a whole lot to say about how people use language though.

Love sticking to the science, myself, and in linguistics, the scientific study of language, almost everyone in the field takes a descriptivist approach to language (as any good scientist does in any field), observing and describing how people use it, not telling people how it should be used. The only people who try to prescribe speech are English teachers, style guides, and people on online forums. 2/3 of those arguably have good reasons for doing it.

Not trying to derail the thread, but prescriptivists bring it out in me

 

[Highs&Lows]

So when people talk about their flats "breaking in" its essentially gunk/sweat/finger cheese collecting on the string and damping the high frequencies? Making flats sound even more "flat"?...something to keep in mind next time you buy those "well broken in TI flatwounds" from the classifieds..

 

[Ron Berenato]

When I played with a pick I was a flats guy, when I switched to finger playing round wounds changed my world.

 

[YourGuitarist]

* flats are stiffer which damps (not dampens as some say) upper harmonics.
* With flats, there is full contact between the windings and the core, which is one reason why they are stiff.

The "stiffness" factor is also why even round wounds get "darker" and "thumpier" with age- they get stiffer. This is because of the extra mass caused by the "smudge" that collects in the windings. Also, because of the repeated oscillations, the meta loses elasticity.

Note: More on damp vs dampen. If you "dampen" something, you're making it wet. If you "damp" something, you are "reducing" something, like a vibration.

As a student of engineering, this is rather unintuitive. If stiffness correlates to tension in the string, then the equation for frequency of a simple string suggests that frequency rises as tension rises.

String vibration - Wikipedia

Similarly comparing strings to another mechanical vibrating system: speakers, a speaker's resonant frequency is strongly dependent on its moving mass and compliance (inverse of stiffness) (among other parameters) which generally speaking, as compliance increases (stiffness decreases), the resonant frequency lowers because the lack of stiffness allows for greater excursion of the speaker per oscillation = greater wavelength of frequency = lower frequency. I would imagine that intuitively, the same applies for strings that is, lower tension/stiffness means greater excursion means lower frequency. Looking at my low b string versus my open g string gives an ~affirmation of this.

Another point is that while the buildup of gunk adds to the mass of a string which I would assume dampens it, I don't believe that long-term playing cumulatively tightens the strings, quite the contrary. Again, comparing to speakers which have a break in period, the motion of the vibrating apparatus (string or cone) works to stretch it out which reduces stiffness/tension and lowers the resonant frequency.

While I am posing a disagreement, I invite you to elaborate on this as just doesn't make sense at first glance. I also invite some other technically minded people @fdeck @agedhorse @Passinwind .

Now there's a total possibility that I'm speaking out my a** and if someone has the definitive technical answer, please take the long route as I believe that benefits us all and it's a lot harder to argue with math.

It is worth noting that real bass strings do not exactly follow the simple string equation because that equation assumes that the strings are massless and even more, a bass string consists of an inner and outer winding which surely complicates it.

 

[Drop1]

* flats are stiffer which damps (not dampens as some say) upper harmonics.
* With flats, there is full contact between the windings and the core, which is one reason why they are stiff.

The "stiffness" factor is also why even round wounds get "darker" and "thumpier" with age- they get stiffer. This is because of the extra mass caused by the "smudge" that collects in the windings. Also, because of the repeated oscillations, the meta loses elasticity.

Note: More on damp vs dampen. If you "dampen" something, you're making it wet. If you "damp" something, you are "reducing" something, like a vibration.

In the car audio world we say dampen. We treat the highly resonate metals in the vehicle with materials designed using mass , weight and density to tame the panel vibrations. Same for studios. I've heard "damp" used occasionally but it's usually dampen, at least in the areas I frequent.

 

[5StringBlues]

I'll take potent potables for 500, Alex.

 

[Drop1]

Ok.
So if I understand correctly, it's basically mass + flexibility. But also how much the chosen materials interact with the magnetic field of the pickups .

I don't know the technical tern for this, what is the varying degree of magnetic attraction in different materials called?

 

[Alan Ace Cooper]

why even round wounds get "darker" and "thumpier" with age- they get stiffer. This is because of the extra mass caused by the "smudge" that collects in the windings.

Detective Adrian Monk would be horrified! LOL!!

A fellow bassist was complaining about the dust that gathers up around the pickups. Uhh… that’s not dust. That’s the grounded up skin from your fingers courtesy of the Round Wound strings.

 

[YourGuitarist]

I would like to qualify my argument by noting that I am making an assumption that tension and stiffness are correlated but they are different physical quantities.

Stiffness (engineeringtoolbox.com)

Whereas tension is an internal force across the string and in a more complicated sense also the speaker cone.

 

[Drop1]

Detective Adrian Monk would be horrified! LOL!!

A fellow bassist was complaining about the dust that gathers up around the pickups. Uhh… that’s not dust. That’s your grounded up skin from your fingers courtesy of the Round Wound strings.

I changed to dr hi beams a month ago and they took all my calluses away. I had been playing coated elixir nanos. After switching to steel, I have to wipe the body if the instrument down daily. The steel takes off a LOT of skin. Makes me nervous about my frets.

 

[YourGuitarist]

OK, an actual Physicist's view of this:

Rounds have windings on them that are separate from each other - each turn of the string is not touching the one next to it, so the whole structure is flexible - free to vibrate at low, mid, and high frequencies. When rounds get old, gunk (stuff from your hands - it's all a bit icky) gets in between the windings, and physically bridges them - the windings are not as independent as they once were. The first thing to go is the higher frequencies - when a string is vibrating at higher frequencies (harmonics), the curvature of the string is greater for those than it is for the fundamental, so the damping (which happens because successive turns are moving apart and towards each other) affects higher frequencies more. If you want your round wound strings to last essentially forever, never playing them with your fingers is the answer - pianos have round wound strings, and they last for decades (much longer than even flats on a bass). No gunk = long life.

Flat wound strings have flat "ribbons" as the top layer of winding - those ribbons touch more than one of the turns in the underlying winding, so when you get the strings, they have pre-installed "bridges" between the lower windings. Though the material isn't the same as the gunk from your strings, the principle is the same - the higher frequencies get damped preferentially. Flat's don't change as much in character as rounds - there is already so much damping from the top wind that a little bit of gunk doesn't add appreciably to the damping that is already there. The top wind may also help block some of the gunk entry, but if you're sweaty, capillary action will wick that into the string regardless, so it's not a panacea for gunk entry.

So why is it that the bridging between what I assume is the outer winding preferentially damps high frequencies?