![]() When your top string has been on for three months, it will be different than when it’s only been on for a week.” “It carries on stretching for quite a long time so its properties will change. Tests also show that the sound of nylon treble strings changes over time. Nylon strings may look the same, but there is a wide range of nylon fibers (synthetic polyamide) on the market. Not all nylon strings are made of the same material The first nylon strings reportedly had a metallic sound but they quickly improved, becoming the de facto choice for guitarists. Nylon soon made its way into a wide array of everyday items including toothbrush bristles (1938), women’s stockings (1939) and eventually guitar strings (1944). The dominant era of gut strings came to a close when DuPont invented nylon in the lead up to World War II. You can read more about gut strings and why they sound different in our article, Gut guitar strings: the temperamental sounds of history. Harpists use a much higher tension on the longer strings, probably to keep the feel similar across the full range of strings, which brings the damping threshold more into play. Many harpists still prefer the sound of gut strings over nylon – the research shows why. It means gut strings actually sound more bright than nylon. However, Professor Woodhouse’s study show that the damping threshold that cuts out overtones is higher than nylon strings. Guitarists often claim that gut strings produce a more warm and resonant sound than nylon strings. They also remain popular for some other stringed instruments, such as the harp. ![]() Gut retains some popularity today with guitarists playing antique instruments, who want to replicate the sound of the era. They are sensitive to temperature and humidity, which makes them difficult to keep in tune, and break easily. Unfortunately, they come with a long list of drawbacks. ![]() Gut strings – sometimes called catgut – are hand made from the intestines of animals such as sheep or cows.Īll stringed instruments, including the guitar, were strung with animal gut or silk strings until the advent of nylon in the 1940s. This greater mass, and the nature of each material, raises the damping threshold for both gut and fluorocarbon. Gut strings are more dense than nylon while fluorocarbon is more dense than both. However, there are ways to create both a brighter and louder sound – by changing the string material. But it will be different whether that’s good or bad depends on what you’re trying to do.”Ī good example using nylon strings is to play a G note at the 12th fret of the third string and compare its tone to the same note played on the first string at the third fret. “You can always make less twang by playing you can’t make more. “I’m not saying the damping threshold always means it’s bad and unmusical but it always has this characteristic lack of twanginess which you can’t get away from,” Professor Woodhouse said. It shows that a thicker string will tend to be louder but less bright, while a thinner string (with lower tension and impedance) will be quieter but brighter-sounding, according to their research paper. Source: Choosing Strings for Plucked Musical Instruments. Each string can be plotted on the graph (the x-axis is string frequency x string length).ĭesign chart for nylon strings. The greater mass of heavier strings creates more vibrational energy – they are louder than lighter strings.īut research by Professor Jim Woodhouse and Nicolas Lynch-Aird has also shown that the trade-off is a less bright sound, as seen in the following design chart for nylon strings. In most cases, this means heavier strings are harder to play, but there are just as important sound implications. It is a key factor that determines string tension, which is the amount of force required to tune the string.Ī heavy string will have a greater mass than a light string, and so require more force (string tension) to bring up to pitch. String sets generally come in light, medium and heavy gauges (although there are no standard definitions). How a string’s gauge, material and tension affect brightness and volume
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