When you hear a bassist describing his or her gear, the type of strings they use is rarely mentioned. This is mainly because roundwounds have become the norm for the vast majority of us. However, there is plenty more to strings than how they are wound.
Strings are under our fingers all the time and have an immense effect on our tone, so it's interesting that they rarely get much attention. Sure, for some players, the search for the right strings is a life-long pursuit, but many others simply stay with whatever they started out with. But again, there's more to talk about beyond flatwound, halfwound, roundwound, and taperwound.
All electric strings have a core, which is what shoulders all the tension. Unlike the two or three highest strings on a guitar, the bass guitar's counterparts always have an outer winding. This winding raises the mass-per-length to lower their natural frequency, while keeping stiffness and dampening low. And this gets even more important the lower we go in frequency.
It isn't generally a bad thing, since it doesn't make us sound like synths, but things can get really ugly for thicker strings once we move up the neck.
Another factor for a string's tone and feel is the ratio of core and winding. (The core is usually 33 to 66 percent of the outer diameter.) Additionally, there are several different cross-sections of cores—round or hexagonal. And we haven't even talked materials yet! There's nickel, stainless-steel, gold, bronze, either solid or plated versions, and, finally, there's the influence of the different coatings introduced in the last two decades to consider.
There are myriad reviews and guides on how to choose strings that try to describe the differences in tone and feel with more or less depth and detail. In my opinion, any good one should be a long one!
Let's not forget about an often-neglected issue: intonation. There have been several attempts to improve intonation with compensated nuts (Earvana, Buzz Feiten, etc.) and True Temperament fretting, but there are also differences in intonation for different string constructions.
Fig. 1 — As seen in this cross-section of a "lumped" strings bridge area, the smaller the inner-winding diameter, the denser the package and mass.
Photo courtesy of Kemp Strings
The "bass sound" has changed massively over recent decades by getting way treblier and present for cutting through in the mix. (Check out Michael Thurber's excellent video on YouTube entitled "Story of the Bass.") The result is a much higher portion of upper harmonics, and the way these intonate and their inharmonicities can't be adjusted like the intonation of the natural frequency. An ideal string or oscillator would have its first upper harmonic at exactly twice the frequency, and so on. Unfortunately, the strings' finite stiffness makes them behave less than ideally, where the second harmonic is too high. It's even worse for higher partials. It isn't generally a bad thing, since it doesn't make us sound like synths, but things can get really ugly for thicker strings when we move up the neck.
One can fight inharmonicity of an open bass string by increasing scale length. That's the reason there's such a huge difference in the perception of the low end between a small piano and a concert grand, with the shorter of the two showing a much higher pitch glide. Put simply: Adding winding and mass to the string at the bridge area (Photo 1) means raising the specific weight-per-length when moving up the neck. This mass fights the raising stiffness when fretting up the neck, finally reducing the shift of upper harmonics. This construction, coined "lumped" strings (Fig. 1), has been researched specifically for bass by Dr. Jonathan Kemp at the University of St Andrews in the U.K.
For those who would like to dig a bit deeper into the subject, you can find Dr. Kemp's peer-reviewed paper at kempstrings.com, but please be prepared to absorb some serious math and physics! That said, it's refreshing and encouraging to see something going much further and deeper than the same old "and the vibration travels through the bridge and resonates with the wood."
[Updated 7/26/2021]
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Chops: Intermediate Theory: Intermediater Lesson Overview: • Learn different ways to arrange scales. • Combine various sequences to create more intersting lines. • Solidify your technique by practicing unusual groupings of notes. Click here to download a printable PDF of this lesson's notation. |
Neutrik’s Timbre plug, made for toggling between capacitors.
Let’s begin with some typical additional capacitance values that certain lengths of cable (or capacitors) can bring to your system:
• 10’ vintage coiled cable (approx. 3 meters) -> 1 nF
• 15’ vintage coiled cable (approx. 4.5 meters) -> 1.5 nF
• 20’ vintage coiled cable (approx. 6 meters) -> 2.2 nF
• 30’ vintage coiled cable (approx. 9 meters) -> 3.3 nF
• Ritchie Blackmore-style, ultra-long vintage coiled cable -> 4.7 nF
I listed standard values here, so you should have no problem getting caps to match them in any local electronics store or online; the type of cap doesn’t really matter and will mostly be dominated by size, but I’ll share more about this in a minute.
Let’s quickly summarize the first installment of this column from last month’s issue: From a technical point of view, added capacitance shifts down the resonance frequency of the pickups, so they sound fatter, especially when using overdrive. This is exactly the reason why a lot of distortion and fuzz boxes with a vintage voicing use an additional cap at the input section; the resulting overdriven tone is fat and warm.
This month’s mod, which involves adding a capacitor to your signal, works best with vintage-flavored single-coil pickups (approximately 2.4 H inductance) or a typical old-school PAF-style pickup (approximately 3.8 H inductance). Modern high-output pickups are often sporting inductances of 6 H to 8 H, and don’t sound very good with this mod—when adding more cable capacitance to such pickups, the result is a dull and wooly tone without any clearness and definition. If you want to make your single-coil guitar sound more Les Paul-ish, you should try a 4.7n capacitor. It will shift the resonance frequency of your single-coil pickups down to the typical PAF ballpark, making for a very cool and usable old-fashioned guitar tone. It might feel a little muffled when playing clean, but ultra fat and punchy when using overdrive! In general, values higher than 4.7n are not recommended.
We have two options for where to install our cap.
On the Guitar Cable
This is the easiest location to add additional capacitance to your system, with several mod options:
1. The lightest mod ever isn’t a mod at all—it’s to simply buy a vintage guitar cable and plug it in whenever you need it! I don’t know of any company that offers modern guitar cables with intentionally high capacitance.
2. The Neutrik company offers a special angled plug, called the Timbre Plug, that you can solder to any guitar cable of your choice. The plug has a 4-way rotary knob on top to toggle between different capacitors. In addition to a bypass setting, the plug offers capacitances of 1nF, 2.2nF, and 3.3nF, letting you simulate different cable lengths on the fly.
3. You can add an additional capacitor to any guitar cable of your choice to convert it into a “longer-sounding” cable. You simply open one of the plugs to solder the cap between the hot and ground—that’s it. Small, 2.5 mm contact spacing ceramic caps are easy to put into a standard plug and are your weapon of choice here. It’s essential to only add the additional cap to one of the two plugs, but it doesn’t matter if you plug this side into your guitar, an effect, or your amp. This method allows you to build yourself some cables that simulate their older, longer relatives.
You can add an additional capacitor to any guitar cable of your choice to convert it into a “longer-sounding” cable.
Photo courtesy SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
Inside the Guitar
You can also add a cap (or several) inside your guitar if you only need this mod for one instrument. If you’re looking for added capacitance with all your guitars, you’d be better off choosing one of the techniques mentioned above.
1. The easiest way is to solder your additional capacitor directly to your volume pot; this way it has a fixed value that can’t be changed and is always engaged. This operation is very simple to do, and you can use regular-sized caps for this.
You can add a cap (or several) inside your guitar if you only need this mod for one instrument.
Illustration courtesy SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
2. If you want to make the cap switchable, such that you can run it either bypassed or engaged, you can install a SPST mini toggle switch or use half of a push-pull or push-push pot, which usually sport a DPDT switch underneath.
This drawing shows how to make your additional cap switchable.
Illustration courtesy SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
3. If you want to use more than one cap to simulate different cable lengths, your weapon of choice is a rotary switch, setting up a kind of Gibson Varitone wiring without the inductor. Because we are switching capacitances, it is essential to run an additional 10 meg resistor in parallel to each of the caps, and to use a make-before-break, not a break-before-make, rotary switch to prevent loud popping noises when using the switch while your guitar is plugged into an amp. Leave the first lug of the rotary switch open for the bypass position without an additional cap.
If you want to use more than one cap to simulate different cable lengths, use a rotary switch.
Illustration courtesy SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
4. If you want to make this mod even more flexible, you can add an additional “cable simulator pot” to your system. The pot should have the same resistance as your volume pot, and should be wired to your volume pot. This way, for example, you can add a 3.3nF or 4.7nF cap to the extra pot, and dial in as much cable capacitance as you like.
You can also add an additional “cable simulator pot” to your system.
Illustration courtesy SINGLECOIL (https://singlecoil.com)
On the Pedalboard
The idea of putting a rotary switch or cable-simulator-pot solution into an external unit to create a kind of extra-capacitance stompbox to use with all of your instruments is just around the corner, and yes, it’s possible! However, I don’t recommend this, because it’s physically located after the volume pot in the guitar, which means less volume (no unity gain) and less high end. But don’t worry: If you are looking for a pedalboard solution to simulate different cable lengths (which, as we defined earlier, means to shift the resonance frequency of the pickups), there are some active solutions on the market offering such a feature, usually in combination with a boost or buffer functionality. To name just a few, you should look into the Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster, Stellartone Micro Pedal, or the i2e Audio AG1.0 The PURR. Along with some other brands, these pedals will do the trick, and they’re not difficult to build if you are looking for a DIY solution.
So far, I’ve received several emails from readers asking for some more DIY guitar tools, so next month, we will look into some sustainable and environmentally friendly DIY guitar helpers—all of which you can build yourself easily by upcycling things you already have at home. Stay tuned!
Until then... keep on modding!
