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Physicists develop bass string theory

R

rocmonster

Oct 31, 2011
542
692
#1
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/physicists-develop-bass-string-theory-nczkd2r69

Excerpt for those who don't have a sub (like me):

Bass guitarists of the future could sound even better than Paul McCartney, Lemmy or John “Ox” Entwistle, a new Scottish study suggests. And they won’t need to improve their dexterity — instead they’ll harness the qualities of new strings invented by a physicist.

Jonathan Kemp has developed the strings using new construction techniques, which will mean that bassists should be able to play higher notes in a more pleasing harmony, taking them into tonal zones they had previously failed to reach.

The bass guitar strings were created by a Scottish team who tweaked the production process.
 
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#8
Guys: it works. I studied the pictures, cut a small piece of golfer's lead tape and wound it around the E string in approximately the same position on the E string on my 30-inch bass. As you all know, short scale basses are particularly prone to inharmonicity on the low E string coming up the neck - the pitch wobbles all over the place, even on the best short scale basses.

It works! I have a good Korg tuner that is very sensitive. By looking at my tuner, and using my ears, I could tell beforehand I had the same initial sharpness of pitch as in Dr. Kemp's videos, and after a second or two everything settled down. The initial sharpness of pitch was noticeably better after installing the lead tape. Moreover, setting the intonation by the 12th fret harmonic, then fretting the 12th fret note, was more accurate. Not by much, mind you, and not as much improvement as on the videos, but noticeable.

Golfer's tape is about $10 a roll, for a six-foot roll. Using a 13/32 inch long strip on my B string and a 11/32 inch long strip on my E string each time I change strings, well, that is a helluva lot cheaper than (current exchange rate approximately) $70/4-string set plus shipping.
20200419_150421.jpg
 
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#11
MattZilla said:
@iiipopes it looks like your E is kinked at the pickup. Maybe try the experiment with an undamaged string for even better results?
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I don't have any short scale strings. I just got the bass in the last week to have a project to tinker with while we all wait out the virus. And of course, the Asian strings are crap that won't hold tune in any event, so I pitched them. That string is a placeholder until my real set of short scale strings gets here. I used a string that I cut down and was no loss if it didn't work. Of course I'm going to try it on a new string when the set gets here. I just don't feel like trying it on any of my standard scale basses yet.
 
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#13
Spectrum said:
Every note that guy played in that video sounds awful, nasty harmonics like he's playing through a ring modulator or something. His argument was lost on me.
Click to expand...
It was supposed to be that way, with the treble boosted and the fundamental truncated, in order to emphasize the out-of-tune harmonics Dr. Kemp's strings are designed to fix. Yes, out of tune harmonics in that context, being plucked very, very close to the bridge, does indeed make that ring-modulator effect. Another aspect of it, which has to do with the string vibrating longitudinally, that is, from nut to bridge, as opposed to laterally, from which we get conventional pitch and overtones, is a function of the metal of the string itself and is called a "clang tone." I first learned about clang tones when I was first doing my research for my fanned fret twenty years ago.

Clang Tone on Variax Guitars

Listen carefully to the narrative, and Dr. Kemp talks about inharmonicity in piano strings as well, which especially have inharmonicity in the lower octaves, and provided the inspiration for weighting bass guitar strings as well as some piano strings. That is one reason grand pianos have "stretch" tuning to lower the octaves beyond the mathematical numbers, and why there is the inherent metallic clang of the lowest notes of a piano when played forte.

Invalid Link Removed

We had a small piano in my undergraduate music department that should have been burned at a frat kegger, because no matter what you did to it, it would not stay in tune with itself in the lowest three octaves. It was not going flat, it just had the worst case of inharmonicity and clang tones I have ever heard in a piano. It had bad scale, bad hammer placement, bad action, and everything else to make a person not want to play piano. But I digress.

Now - in addition to my first experiment in a similar manner, pictured above, and trying it again when my short scale strings get here next week for the bass pictured above, I need to get into my string stash and find a taper core B string to see if it works better on a standard scale bass.

Yes, we have come a long way since Leo wrapped wire around a gut string at the point he mounted his pickup in his original Precision Bass to get it to work at all!
 
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#16
KBD:
That any subject here has already been discussed doesn’t matter. We have plenty of topics here that get discussed many times.

popes:
There’s no need to snipe back. Hit the report button and/or move on.

Sniping at each other is unnecessary and unproductive.

thanks
 
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#17
I've been prone to inharmonicity all these years, without ever knowing it.

Speechless.

All I can say is that modern technology has granted us insights into thousands of subjects that were not possible until technology and new discoveries and methods caught up to allow such things.

On the other hand, it can be quite the proposition to re-invent the wheel. Time will tell whether this is a new direction . . . . or not.
 
#19
There is so much wrong with this it isn't funny. Overtones, which he calls inharmonicity are part of the sound of an instrument. They give it character. If you don't want them use a sine wave source and sound like a cheesey '80's synth. It is how you use the sound that makes it music. BTW, stretch tuning on a piano and other piano tuning methods are used because we use even tempered instruments not perfect temperament. That is also the cause of some harmonics being more dissonant. No amount of snake oil is going to repeal the laws of physics.
 
#20
The video keeps talking about inharmonicity, but it does nothing to demonstrate it or even indicate that the strings do anything about it at all.

Inharmonicity is overtones not being multiples of the fundamental. If you strike A110, you'd expect you overtones to be 220Hz, 330Hz, 440Hz, 550Hz, etc. The degree of which they are off of their expected values is the inharmonicity of the sound.

What they showed in the video was pitch drift. Pitch drift from initial strike to settling is a different thing altogether. If your pitch is drifting that much, play with a lighter touch. If I play hard, my initial pitch is +10-15c sharp. If i play soft, it is +4-5c.

Notes being out of tune as you move up on the neck is intonation problems.
 
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