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PART 1 " THE MODERN STRING ERA a.k.a. THE BRIGHT SIDE OF SOUND"
Once upon a time...It was April of 1970 and I was a young kid of 15 years old with his newly acquired Fender Telecaster. You know the scene, blond, maple neck, real Jeff Beck-ish. Needless to say, I felt like GOD! That was until, I broke my left index finger the very next day while playing volley ball in P.E. class!!! The splint really worked quite well for playing full barre chords, I must admit! After my non-dexterous digit healed, I was jamming full-tilt in many garage-based blues bands as at that particular point in musical time, we were heavily influenced by Albert King, Jimi, and Ten Years After.A few months later, in August, we were sadly informed by the local music store manager that our extra unwound B and high E strings were no longer available free of charge in our then favorite string sets. JEEZ! This meant that we would have to go to the store every time we broke our plain .008 and .011 gauge strings unless we bought extra replacements from the all too in- famous "Gauge Box". As I recall, I would change strings about every month and a half or so. Then, something VERY strange happened.
The string sets were NOT THE SAME as before! They were considerably brighter, twangy, and more brittle-sounding then what I had remembered. What's more, they didn't last six weeks...they were as DEAD as a doornail in 3 days! With this sad anecdote, we begin our entrance into the modern era of string production and development.
1994: MOST LIKELY A NICKEL-PLATED STRING IS YOURS
In this first installment, we will concentrate on the nickel- plated steel type of electric string to begin with as it is the most common string available today. We will also get a bit into stainless steel strings as they are a major factor in the creation of the modern bass "sound".
Today's strings are typically composed of a steel cover wire coated with a pure nickel plating. This cover wire is wound around the core-wire of the lower three strings (e.g. E, A, and D strings). In total, nickel-plated strings have an eight percent content of pure nickel. The unwound or plain strings are actually tin-plated mandolin wire.
Most of today's manufacturers have their core-wire exposed out from the cover wire between two to five inches. The relationship between the size of the core and the cover wire is called the CORE-TO-WRAP RATIO. This ratio is CRUCIAL to the string's feel, bendability, sustain, and longevity. For instance, if the core- wire is too small in relation to the cover wire, the string will lose volume and also have a a vastly shorter life span. On the other side of the equation, a thick or heavy core wire will have the same life span problems as a string with a real small core size. So, the real trick is the marriage of the RIGHT SIZE of the core wire to the correct size of the outer wrap or cover wire. If these are properly calibrated, your tone, sustain, bendability, and long life will be greatly enhanced! Other problems which can occur with a heavier core string is that they will take longer to stretch out and reach their optimum stability, and their ability to stay in tune for any reasonable length of time. In addition to this, heavier core strings lack ease of bending due to the extra tension they put on your instrument!
When the CORE-TO-WRAP RATIO is optimal, strings will stretch out and stay in perfect tune within seconds. Having too large of a core-wire makes a string's flexibility factor suffer. It must also be pointed out that how you maintain your guitar will affect your string's overall performance. For example, watch out for nuts that pinch the string and inhibit its ability to vibrate correctly. As you try out the many brands of strings available today you will readily hear and feel the difference between them. Be sure to re-set the guitar's intonation when changing brands even if you don't change the gauge combination. Have your technician give your instrument a good going over beforehand so you can really tell the string's own characteristics.
STRING GAUGE SIZES VERSUS "THE BIG TONE" THEORY
Now, here's something to think about...I'm sure that many of you have thought that bigger string gauges will give you a more massive tone. Well, that really depends on quite a few factors! Among them are: what kind of pick you use, how hard you play, which kind of amp and speaker(s) you use, how loud you play, what type of tubes you employ, that is, if you use 'em! Of course, these are just a few components that are involved as string action (or height) can affect volume as well.
Here's a neat comparison: Stevie Ray Vaughan versus Trevor Rabin of the latter few YES albums. SRV in his final days used a pure nickel semi- flatwound string of the following sizes: .011,.015,.019,.028, .038,and.058 respectively. He got a really BIG sound as his reading of Jimi Hendrix' "Little Wing" on the album "The Sky is Crying" aptly points out. Stevie had a very hard touch with both hands most of the time. This, in conjunction with his amps, pick, and E flat tuning gave him a very dark, rich tone.
I wonder just how many players realize that Trevor Rabin used .008-.038 nickel-plated strings on "Owner of a Lonely Heart" from the "90125" album in 1983. His first three chords of that song definitely woke up a few people! Bear in mind that Trevor was in standard pitch and also used a Stratocaster just like Stevie Ray. What's the difference? Well, for one thing, Rabin has an extremely light touch with both hands, AND he uses a really thin Swedish "sharkfin" pick! When I saw YES live, his amp setup was ridiculously simple...An old Marshall half-stack with one microphone on it and that old MXR Pitch Transposer! I also remember his tech was installing some of Seymour Duncan's "Hot Stack" pickups in his '62 Strat (Hi, Seymour!). Trevor's live tone was just incredible. Even with all the variables, the heart of your sound is in your TOUCH versus your tools. Both players have really heavy sounds even though they are miles apart from each other musically. As this series expands, we will explore many other sonic examples.
STAINLESS STEEL VERSUS NICKEL-PLATED STRINGS
As I mentioned earlier, I would touch upon the stainless steel type string as it is used quite frequently in today's music, especially in its application to bass guitars. But, before we explore its impact on bass instruments, let's look at its functional qualities. I can't help but wonder why they call it "stainless steel". It should really be called "rustless steel" as it's hard to imagine a dense metal having the capability of getting stained! I'm sure that stainless steel was used as an alternative for those players with Ph problems in their sweat. You all know that "You are what you eat!" and what you eat can affect the longevity of your strings! It is true for alot of musicians that this steel alloy does last longer because of its hardness. It's HARD alright, and if you've ever tried a set of these strings, the difference is VERY noticeable. From the moment you put your fingers on them, they feel incredibly abrasive on a standard electric guitar. They are extremely bright and snappy, and to me,they sound very weird as they produce a sound that can only be described as the difference between a tube and a transistor amplifier. In other words, a tube amp gives you a warm and even harmonic content where solid-state amplifiers sound "funny" to our ears because of the odd or uneven harmonic series they emphasize. Now, this effect seems to occur in the guitar's natural frequency range as it is higher in frequency then the bass' lower frequency range. Therefore, stainless strings are much less harsh sounding on a bass as compared to the guitar. This is precisely why they are so good for that slap-style of bass playing. The real pitfall of stainless steel strings is that they can eat your frets alive in a New York minute, not to mention the fact that they are more difficult to bend. We will get into this in a little more depth in a future column.
SUMMARY OF PART 1 As we have seen, strings changed radically since that Summer of 1970, and virtually all of the rock music from that point forward had a different sonic personality as the result. We have discussed CORE-TO-WRAP RATIOS and their effect on a string's performance and how they can influence your own playing and techniques. We have explained the differences and similarities of most of the brands of strings due to the fact that every company has its own formulas for their nickel-plated strings.
We can now foresee that each string has its own characteristic nuances, and this is just the beginning. Now it's going to get really fun as next month I plan to delve even deeper into the past and reveal the secrets of the "Vintage 60's" and what makes this era so great. After all, this is a vintage magazine RIGHT? Until then, experiment with the information at hand and if any of you need or want answers to specific questions, Please don't be shy to call or write in. We have many surprises in store for you! See you next month.
Copyright 1994 by Dean Farley
Reprinted from "Vintage Guitar" March 1994 issue.