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PART 4 "PRECISION MUST BE THE DECISION OR "THE EAU d'STENCH" (about bad strings)
First off, I would like to thank the readers of Vintage Guitar for the overwelming response to this article series! Never in my wildest dreams did I expect all the supportive and enthusiastic calls and letters. Not only that, but I have received more than a few string samples which date from 1969 to the 1940's and beyond!Thanks are due to Mike Longworth of Martin, Terry Frank of Terry's Hi Action Guitars, Jim Reinhardt of Ontario, Canada and kudos also to Fred Zadick of Fred's Guitars, Ken Fischer of Trainwreck Circuits, Gerald Weber and Terry Oubre of Kendrick amplifiers, Lindy Fralin, Phillip Kubicki, Alan and Cleo Greenwood and their amazing staff of warm, wonderful people whom without their assistance, this column would not be possible. A big tip of the hat to Jeanine and Edwina for preserving the`soul' of these articles, as their enthusiasm and advice will not be forgotten in my lifetime, that's for sure! Please keep those calls, cards, letters, and especially those crazy strings coming in, as we plan to have a photo collage of their envelopes complete with their specifications and their date of production.
I have decided to take a quick respite from the 'sixties' to address a situation which needs explanation as it is all too common in the string making community. We will concentrate our focus of this month's installment on the issue of defective strings and how they effect you, the end consumer. Right now, I would like to introduce my friend and colleague, guitar technician extraordinaire Stephen White, of Berkeley, California, who will discuss the technical mysteries of how you can spot defective strings you will encounter along your aural trip into the "tone zone". Be forwarned...Stephen will definitely open your eyes to things to which you probably haven't given even the most remote thought!
Hello, my name is Stephen White; I have been repairing and building guitars and electric basses in the Bay Area since 1979. Dean has invited me to submit a deranged, vitriolic critique of the current state of string manufacturing, so here goes: Defective strings are undoubtably the single most common product failure encountered by musicians today.
Basically, strings SUCK! Consider your own experience: how many times have you installed a new set of strings on your favorite saw, only to find that one or more of the new strings (probably the `G' string) didn't tune up well, or sounded `funny'? You probably thought to yourself `Gee, my ears aren't working right suddenly...' or, `Wow, what's wrong with my amp?' Well, Guess what, Holmes...I'TS THE DAMNED STRINGS!
Time after time customers call me on the phone, screeching and howling about `mysterious problems' with their guitars, which wind up being `just' defective strings. AAAARGH! Believe it or not, in my repair work, a string has about 30 seconds to perform correctly, or it's history! I find that between 5 and 15 percent (depending on brand) of all `G' strings (.016" and heavier plain strings) are defective. This is totally appalling. Can you imagine guitarists putting up with ANY other product failing one time in seven OUT OF THE BOX? BRAND NEW?? AAAAAAAAAARGH!!
THE EAU d' STENCH
The problem is, string failure can be subtle. Un-tunability, `double-tones' (hearing two pitches simultaneously), weird oscillations of pitch, `deadness' (poor high- frequency harmonic response) and bizarre `sitar' sounds are all symptoms of funky-butt defective strings. If you think that you might be trapped in this hellish labyrinth, here are some (relatively) easy tests that you can perform in the privacy of your own little God-fearing American home...the first test for spotting defective strings is actually performed right when you remove them from their individual paper envelopes.
By un-winding the string and letting it hang down from the ball-end, you can instantly spot the most common string problem: BENT new strings! Gentle `wave' curves are usually okay, but actual tight bends or kinks (say, a 45 degree bend in 3/4") mean that your nice, new string is TOTALLED! Don't even bother to put it on your bad saw; it won't ever, ever play in tune. Forget it! Now, for the second test. Some of you lucky souls out there have access to a micrometer. Using this tool, you can check the thickness of the string in question every inch or so. If you find a deviation in thickness of more than .0002" (two-tenths of a thousandth of an inch) on a plain string, you're smelling THE EAU d' STENCH!
Two or three `tenths' (tenths of a thousandth of an inch) are acceptable (barely) in a wound string, but any more that...YOU'RE BITING! Now, I realize that most of you probably don't have a micrometer at your disposal (you may be able to borrow one from one of your friends who works on cars; they almost always own one), so here's a way to check for deviations in PLAIN string thickness by hand (this test won't work on wound strings).
Tools that you will need for this test:
1) Your hands
2) A basin of water as hot as you can stand in which to soak your hand
3) A stable place to lay your guitar Completely slack (de-tune) the string in question, and lay the guitar on a very stable surface. Soak your hands in a basin of hot water, (bet you couldn't guess this part), this will sensitize the nerves in your finger-tips. Note: Guitarists will get better results using their right hand for this, since their left-hand finger-tips SHOULD be very calloused.
GENTLY pinch the string near one end and slowly slide your finger-tips along the string, feeling for any variation in thickness. This might sound crazy, but you can (with practice) actually feel the difference between, say, a .016 string and a .0165 `lump', IF the change in size happens pretty abruptly. Usually, at least in my experience, string gauge deviation is either consistant along the entire length of the string (a `.010'string that's actually .0095, for example) or the gauge deviation is more like a lump; THESE can be detected. Plating quality (or the TOTAL LACK thereof) is also critical to the string's performance and life span, and it's just possible that the overall standards in the string `biz' for plating are EVEN LOWER than they are for gauge accuracy. AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHH!!! (if you don't believe me, examine your strings under a magnifying glass; then start building pipe bombs!)
Next we'll discuss wound strings, after my blood pressure medicine kicks in... If you think plain strings are rank, just contemplate the hellish impossibility of taking a crummy, out-of-tolerance, lumpy, twisted (literally-the hexagonal cross-section of the core twists) hex-core wire and wrapping it with a miserable, bilious nickel-plated wire that you wouldn't dream of bringing home to mother (it's a very loose wire!) Seriously, though, the difficulties in producing top-notch wound strings are far greater than in doing plain strings.
The tension with which the outer layer is wrapped onto the core-wire (for example), is absolutely critical and only a very narrow range of tension will work. Typical symptoms of over-tightened windings are `scuffing'; shiny spots on the surface of the winds or areas where it looks as though the string has been flattened. Symptoms of loose winding are more obvious; The aforementioned bizarre `sitar' noises on fretted notes (`sitar' noises on the open note are usually caused by a mis-cut nut), insane fuzzbox-like sounds when playing with clean amp settings and sudden disintigration of the winding on one section of the string.
Double-tones on wound strings can be caused by mis-tensioned winding, lumpy core-wires, or by the OTHER big problem with strings on electric guitars; the magnetic field of the pickups! Magnetism of pickups is a horrendous problem (if you're actually trying to play in tune) which has been largely ignored in previous discussions of guitar problems. I will be talking about proper set-ups for guitars and basses in a future column, but for now I will just say that in general, wound strings are more sensitive to magnetic interference than plain strings because they are normally stretched to lower tensile loads; i.e. they are tuned to lower pitches.
I realize that I've been ragging on these string-things pretty hard, but the point is--- it's almost impossible to make a guitar string well enough, and in my opinion, most of the current crop of string- winding companies are too concerned with the `unit cost' of their product, and not enough with basic quality. Cheapskate, bone-head guitarists are largely to blame for being too bloody `price sensitive'... in other words, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!
Bass strings... I haven't talked about about bass strings at all, yet...well, think about this-- I mentioned previously about how wound strings have all the problems that plain strings have, PLUS the insane problems with trying to perfectly wind another wire around the core-wire? Did you realize that larger bass strings are mostly made by taking a wound string and putting a THIRD layer onto it? 'Nuff said? (YEEEESCH!). Well, that's enough for one rant, I guess.
If nobody takes out a contract on me, I'll be back to talk about intonation and other matters tonal! Until next time, always remember, if someone gives you a hard time about your technique, just tell 'em, `Hey, pal, I can play just as LOUD as the next guy!' CIAO! Anyway, kids, I sincerely hope that Stephen has shed a little light on the problem that plagues us all at one time or another; As stated in earlier columns, education is the prime directive here, and we are not afraid of the truth.
Now, you readers will be spending less money in your local amp repair shop and less time sitting in the mobile hearing test bus! It is our desire to make you accutely aware of your musical environment so you can really enjoy playing like never before. I'm certain that you subscribers out there in "V.G land" would rather be grooving on tone, than cursing at yourself because you're frustrated at creating what you truly want to hear.
Next month, we will resume our exploration on the "Fab Sixties a.k.a. The Glory Years Part 3. Of course we will be happy to answer any questions you may have for us. One simple request: When you guys (or gals) are writing in, PLEASE be sure to include your daytime telephone number so I can contact you quickly as I prefer to solve your problems, or answer your questions in person, as it is much more time effective for both parties. To be brutally honest, I have been extremely busy due to the response to this column! Thanks to all of you.
Copyright 1994 by Dean L. Farley
Copyright 1994 by Stephen White/Guitar Tech
Reprinted from "Vintage Guitar" June 1994 issue.