What effect does string gauge have on tone ?

[steve_rolfeca]

Other way around. A lighter string will be more flexible and thus have a larger vibrational amplitude at the fundamental frequency. As such, the harmonic overtones will be quieter with respect to the fundamental.

Sorry, but you have it backwards. A lighter string will be less stiff, and therefore free to vibrate at shorter divisions of its overall length, which gives it more "zing", thanks to the extra upper harmonics. It will also have better intonation, since it acts more like a theoretically perfect string at shorter lengths, and less like a rod or bar.

No guitar or bass string is perfect. Even extra lights have a stiff core, which is why they can spring back after you do a gentle string bend, but kink when you make a sharp bend to insert them into a tuning peg.

It's also why overly heavy B strings start to have more intonation problems, why strings of similar construction always sound darker (ie, more fundamental and less harmonics) as they get thicker, and why you get less zing up at the top frets. Remember, with an imperfect string, shorter = stiffer, and thicker = stiffer, too.

Even differences with winding materials (ie flat va roundwound, hex vs round core wire, etc.) can affect harmonic content through stiffness, which is one of the reasons why floppy TI flats sound brighter than stiff Labellas. But that's a different subject...

 

[FunkMetalBass]

Sorry, but you have it backwards. A lighter string will be less stiff, and therefore free to vibrate at shorter divisions of its overall length, which gives it more "zing", thanks to the extra upper harmonics. It will also have better intonation, since it acts more like a theoretically perfect string at shorter lengths, and less like a rod or bar.

No guitar or bass string is perfect. Even extra lights have a stiff core, which is why they can spring back after you do a gentle string bend, but kink when you make a sharp bend to insert them into a tuning peg.

It's also why overly heavy B strings start to have more intonation problems, why strings of similar construction always sound darker (ie, more fundamental and less harmonics) as they get thicker, and why you get less zing up at the top frets. Remember, with an imperfect string, shorter = stiffer, and thicker = stiffer, too.

Even differences with winding materials (ie flat va roundwound, hex vs round core wire, etc.) can affect harmonic content through stiffness, which is one of the reasons why floppy TI flats sound brighter than stiff Labellas. But that's a different subject...

Detune your G-string to D and pluck it and the D-string equally. Which has more upper harmonic content? My ears hear that the thinner string is beefier and the thicker string has more going on in the upper harmonics. I suspect a quick frequency analysis would agree.

Supposing we have two strings of identical construction, with different gauges, that are plucked identically (that is, we displace the string the same amount). Both strings will have the same vibrational amplitude at their fundamental. However, the larger gauge has more mass, thus more tension and more potential energy. Since we've just converted that potential energy into kinetic energy by plucking, the rest of the energy is exerted proportionally into the other modes, meaning that the thicker string would have more upper harmonic content.

As for intonation issues with big strings and fretting high up on the fretboard, I think those upper harmonics are partially to blame. As you said, a string is an imperfect system. Not only does it move around a bit differently as you decrease its speaking length, but if you are even a few cents off with the fundamental note at each fret (something that we probably wouldn't notice with notes below 100Hz), the harmonics are going to be increasingly far off, so they sound wonky and out of tune. Increase the prevalence of the harmonics, and you've increased the out-of-tune-ness.

 

[walldaja]

Anyone notice any problem with the notch in the nut when they went from .95 to .105?

 

[AdamR]

You should be fine at 105.

 

[Baird6869]

I tend to use mediums. Heavy only on a bass I down tune to C#.

The heavier strings have better tension for lower turnings IME.

Beyond that, I buy whatever is on sale from Ernie Ball, GHS or Rotosound!

 

[Darnell Jones]

Other way around. A lighter string will be more flexible and thus have a larger vibrational amplitude at the fundamental frequency. As such, the harmonic overtones will be quieter with respect to the fundamental.

Yup. It's why short scale sounds tubby and long scale sounds zingy and tight.

 

[king rew]

you can test for yourself. tune your low E string up to F#. then tune your A string down to F#, the same note. You now have a large gauge string and a small gauge string playing the same note. analyze for tonal differences. from doing this myself, I found that the lighter gauge is more fundamental and bassy, and the heavy string is harmonically richer.

But I'm on the same page as some of the others in this thread: nobody can tell in the real world how they sound different. Get what feels right to you. While it's true that light gauge strings are easier to press down, you can technically get lower action with higher gauges due to less amplitude to the vibration at the same pitch versus a light gauge string.

 

[Darnell Jones]

you can test for yourself. tune your low E string up to F#. then tune your A string down to F#, the same note. You now have a large gauge string and a small gauge string playing the same note. analyze for tonal differences. from doing this myself, I found that the lighter gauge is more fundamental and bassy, and the heavy string is harmonically richer.

An excellent test everyone should do before posting in this thread

It does go against "common" wisdom and seems counterintuitive. So does the tone I get from a 120 low B.

 

[Chris V]

I've moved slowly up though the gauges over the years, and have settled on heavy strings (50, 70, 90, 110) in the end, because I like to be able to really whang on the thing without the string "farting out" (sorry, I don't know how else to describe it). I enjoy all the nuance I can get from just plucking lightly for a fat, clean tone, to hammering down with my finger tip from a couple inches up in space when I want to push it. I found that I couldn't do that with lighter strings, though I have also found that I'm rolling a little more treble into my amp these days, too. Maybe I'm just going deaf, though.

So, essentially, I find I have a wider dynamic range to my playing with heavier strings.

I keep the steel hex-core DRs on my fretted J-bass & my T-bird, and nickel D'adarrios (used to be GHS heavies, but I got too many dud E's) on the fretless P & J & the Rick.

I wish DR made a hex-core nickel in the 50-110, but alas. The hex core feels stiffer than the round core, by just a bit.