The fatter the string, the fatter the tone?

[micguy]

Take your A string and downtune it to match your E string. Now you have two E strings: a fat one and a skinny one. Play them and you'll find that the fat one is brighter.

Not my experience - I've done that; the E is duller.

 

[micguy]

Nope, the fatter strings were plucked harder to get the same amplitude.

There's the rub - you're hearing a technique difference; striking a string vs plucking it.

Having another look at the waveforms you posted, I don't see any consistet difference in harmonic content - I think you've got some confirmation bias going on.

 

[Jay2U]

There's the rub - you're hearing a technique difference; striking a string vs plucking it.

I'd say plucking with comparable mechanical amplitudes, not striking it beyond reasonable limits.

 

[AboutSweetSue]

Yeah, I don't know.

 

[Jay2U]

Regarding comments about how hard I hit the strings, this mainly affects the attack. The waves shown were recorded well after the initial strumming.

I'm considering to tune the middle two strings of my G&L to A and make a video with the actual tones produced.

 

[Rock Salad]

The .100 F# looks like a sub octave going on!

 

[Tim Skaggs]

The graphs do kinda inversely support what I tell folks when they see my band play and make a comment about how we look. I tell them to look at us with their ears and we'll look a lot better, and younger!

 

[micguy]

[QUOTE="Jay2U, post: 22106776, member: 181071"]The waves shown were recorded well after the initial strumming.
[/QUOTE]


There's another rub - the longer you wait, the less harmonics you'll have. Unless you automate plucking and the timing of when you're sampling the waveform for analysis, you have a very uncontrolled experiment.

I suspect that's a lot of what you're seeing here.

 

[Rayjay]

Good luck getting people to believe this. I've been trying for 25 years!

To my ears, lighter gauge strings produce more fundamental and more pleasing overtones while thicker strings, and also longer scale lengths, produce more pronounced overtones compared to the fundamental - better for harmonics but the sound is thinner and more precise. Same phenomenon as tuning down a whole step or so.

Some have mentioned the attack- was it EQUAL- to which I answer "who gives a crap." You pluck lower tension strings with less force to get a thick, round tone whereas you can attack higher tension strings with more force, if you chose to, because you can. Its not apples to apples- true- but its more like comparing the flavors of a few different types apples to see what you like better.

 

[BAG]

This thread might interest you too. It was an experiment done on string gauge effect on sustain.

 

[Ric5]

I don't think so!

On a 5 string bass fat strings make the bass boomy … lighter strings bring out the mids

 

[Stranger Danger]

Construction and materials of the string have as much to do with it as gauge.

 

[Stranger Danger]

I don't think so!

A fatter string requires more tension in order to make it's higher mass resonate at a given frequency. More mass and tension require more energy for the same amplitude. Apart from the fundamental tone, harmonics appear along the string. The more energy, the more harmonics. As those harmonics are multiples of the fundamental frequency, the result will be a richer tone, not a fatter tone.

As the proof of the pudding is in the eating, I analysed the waveforms produced by both, thin and fat strings. It can be clearly seen that the percentage of harmonics versus the fundamental frequency depends on string gauge. In other words: Thinner strings produce more boom.

In the graph tone, gauge and tension are listed.

View attachment 3251726

Looks like ventricular tachycardia. Somebody get the crash cart.

 

[Double E]

 

[Element Zero]

 

[Cliff Colton]

Take your A string and downtune it to match your E string. Now you have two E strings: a fat one and a skinny one. Play them and you'll find that the fat one is brighter.

Maybe the fat one sounds brighter because you reduced the tension on the skinny one.

 

[David Jayne]

Maybe the fat one sounds brighter because you reduced the tension on the skinny one.

That's exactly the point.

 

[Cliff Colton]

So the fat one is brighter because of greater mass or greater tension?

 

[TKenrick]

I'm not sure that this is right... surely the thread topic should read:

"The fatter the bass player, the fatter the tone"

Now there's a scientific fact if I ever saw one.

 

[mikewalker]

So the fat one is brighter because of greater mass or greater tension?

the tension is building.... TOWARDS A CRITICAL MASS!!