Importance of String Tension

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String Tension:What It Means and How It

Became Important

Roger H. Siminoff PO Box 2992

Atascadero, CA 93423, [email protected] • www.siminoff.net

April, 2014

© Copyright 2014, Roger H. Siminoff, Atascadero, CA 93423. All reproduction rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, published orredistributed without the prior written permission of the author.





strings rather than sets. In the 1970s, Gibson madeits strings available to purchase individually by thegauge but, unfortunately, string loads (tension) werenot listed on the packages so musicians could notmake well-informed choices. In several articles, weprompted that string loads should be published onstring packages.

By 1979, when I started FRETS Magazine, I be-came more focused on bringing the subject of string

tension to the forefrontbecause I believed theissue was critical. Westarted a monthly columnin FRETS called “StringClinic” in which wemeasured the gauges andloads of every string in aset, and we reported theresults to our readers. Inaddition, the editors (JimHatlo, Rick Gartner, andI) would play an instru

-ment with the testedstrings and comment onwhat we heard.

The rst six or seven is-sues brought some com-ments from readers, butthe column went seem-ingly unnoticed by thestring manufacturers.

After about six or seven

months, we began to getcalls and letters fromvarious string manufac-turers whose tone rangedfrom, “This is interesting;can you tell me more?” to“All you are doing withthis column is confusingthe musicians!” A fewwere more emphatic:“Please stop this column!Do you realize what amess you’re making!”

One manufacturer com-plained that monitoring,measuring, and reportingstring loads, as well asprinting new packagesand ads would impose an

enormous nancial burden on his business.

I’m pretty stubborn, especially when I believestrongly in something so the FRETS String Cliniccolumn continued. More than once, Jim Crockett(publisher of Guitar Player, Keyboard, and FRETS Magazines at GPI Publishing) called me into his of -

ce to read a letter from another string manufacturer – who was also an advertiser (yes, read: $$$$). Jimwanted to double check that I was still on the righttrack. “Are you convinced that your ndings arecorrect?” he’d ask. “Can you substantiate and rep-licate your tests?” And, each time I would look himin the eye and say, “Yes, Jim. I’m absolutely surewe’re on track here and are doing the right thing!”With that, Jim would write back to the advertisersand politely say, “Sorry, but the column stands.”

Some believersA few string manufacturers saw merit in what I wasdoing. I was a consultant to Gibson at the time, andBob Lynch, president of Gibson’s string division inElgin, Illinois, engaged me in the process of mea-suring the loads of every string Gibson made andanalyzing the relative loads of strings in their sets.We then prepared new string sets with balancedtensions and sent them to Bruce Bolen (Gibson’shead of R&D and customer relations at the time) forhim to personally test as well as for him to distrib-

ute to prominent musicians who were using Gibsonstrings. Within about eight months of our work,Gibson began producing string sets with balancedloads and began reporting its string tensions on thetheir packages.

Bringing it to the manufacturersThe concerns from other string manufacturers didn’tgo away. In fact, it got downright testy at times. Onone occasion, two key members of Ovation’s stringdivision made the trek from Connecticut to Cali-fornia to visit with the staff and me to see how wewere measuring the strings loads, and to challenge

why we felt this topic was important. Things werea bit uncomfortable in the morning, but by the timewe got through with lunch, described our rationale,showed them our testing methods, and demonstrateda few instruments with balanced and non-balancedstrings, they had calmed down a little, but were stillfrustrated that we were “stirring the pot.”

With the hope of easing tension and getting someconsensus, we thought it would be benecial togather all of the string manufacturers (somethingthat had never been done before) at a meetingduring the 1982 NAMM (National Association of

Music Merchants) Show in Anaheim, California.The meeting was scheduled for February 7, 1982 atthe Inn at the Park Hotel, and invitations went out toall of the prominent domestic string manufacturers;most said they would attend, but a few could not.In attendance, representing FRETS Magazine were two editors, Jim Hatlo and Rick Gartner, JimCrockett, our publisher, and myself. Industry at-tendees were Dave Holcomb (GHS), Bob Lynch(Gibson), Ernie Ball (Ernie Ball), Chris Campbell(Dean Markley), Jim D’Addario (D’Addario), andPaul Damiano (Kaman). John Dusinski (Martin)responded saying he wouldn’t be able to attend, that



he “believes there is already standardization be-tween manufacturers,” but he did think the subjectshould be pursued. Neil Lilien (Guild) had a meet-ing conict and could not attend, and Stan Rendell,former president of Gibson, and Dick Sievert (bothof Sterlingsworth strings) wrote back that they were“not attending this NAMM but very much wantedto be involved in future string tension efforts.”

Lunch included the normal casual-but-guarded con-

versation among competitors, small talk, and techtalk. And, Jim Crockett was occasionally reminded,half-jokingly, that FRETS was nancially supportedby many of its advertisers sitting at the table. Andthere was some chatter about how FRETS could notpossibly support its ndings about string tensionmaking a difference.

After lunch, armed with a bunch of ip-chart draw-ings and some photo enlargements of our StringClinic column, I reviewed much of the same nd-ings that you read earlier in this article and wentinto some areas of string tensions and downloadpressures with greater detail. Using two new “iden-tical” Mossman guitars (Stuart Mossman [1942-1999] brought what he felt were identical guitarsto NAMM for us to borrow for the test), we mea-sured a string’s tension (load) right there to dem-onstrate our procedure and the equipment we usedfor measuring. On one guitar we installed a set ofstrings with balanced tension, and on the other astandard set of strings (I’m intentionally omittingthe string brand here). Our editor, Rick Gartner, anaccomplished guitarist, demonstrated both guitarsand put on a good show playing identical numbers.

He mentioned that he was making every effort toapply the same attack and emphasis in both perfor-mances. Just about everyone agreed that the guitarwith balanced strings sounded better. At that pointthere were all kinds of subjective comments alongwith some objections. The strongest common threadthat emerged was, “Yes, those might be two ‘identi-cal’ guitars, but everyone knows that no two guitarsare alike.” “The more balanced one,” some said,“is most likely just a better sounding guitar!” afterwhich you could hear the rush of a soft “YESSS”and mumbles of agreement and nods of heads com-ing from the room.

It was something we hadn’t planned for, but I be-lieved in our data and was willing to take a calcu-

Jim Crockett remembers...This was a very controversial project. Roger Siminoff’s role at FRETS Magazine far surpassed that of simplydoing interviews and writing articles. His innate curiosity, coupled with his engineering skill and boundless en-ergy is brilliantly evidenced here. He took on a task that was often controversial and rarely even thought about, yet with his relentless perseverance (and talented staff), he was ultimately able to show the string industry thatstring loads were serious concerns, or should be, and his resulting impact and respect within the entire stringinstrument eld has opened eyes and impacted manufacturers in ways no one could previously have imagined.

Jim Crockett, Founding Publisher of Guitar Player, Keyboard, and Frets Magazines April 2014

lated risk, so I turned to Jim Hatlo and Rick Gartnerand asked, “How quickly can we move the stringsfrom one guitar to another?” I told Jim Crockett ourplan and he promptly got up to say a few things andprovide some cover while Jim, Rick, and I fever-ishly swapped strings. When we were done, and theguitars were up to pitch, Rick performed again.

There was now a hush, and within a minute or so,most sheepishly agreed that the balanced sound

moved with the string set from one guitar to anoth-er. We said nothing and just stood there and lookedat our guests, allowing them time to reconsider.

Change is slowIn the year following our meeting, there was a lotof follow-up discussion. We continued to do ourFRETS String Clinic column, and the interactionwith string manufacturers turned from negativecomments to increased dialog about our ndings.Some manufacturers sent us sample string sets toevaluate while a few others still pushed back hard.It took almost a year before we noticed that manystring manufacturers began to print string tensioninformation on their packages, and today we ndthat most string manufacturers not only providethe data, but some have become highly proactive

promoting string tension information. As of thiswriting, D’Addario has a String Tension 101 docu-ment on its website, and the company provides ten-sion data on their packaging for all their string sets.Other manufacturers, like GHS, report “high ten-sion,” “medium tension,” etc. (which is somewhathelpful).

The upshotHaving string tension information available enablesyou to make better choices about the total loads you

want to subject your instruments to, as well as pro-vides you with data to achieve better string-to-stringbalance from your instruments.



For the luthier or musicianIf you are a luthier, you’ll want to consider how theoverall string load or down pressure affects the struc-ture of your instrument. The goal is to have stringswith tensions that can evenly and effectively excitethe bridge and soundboard system. There are no spe-cic rules for this since much depends on the bridgedesign and how you build and brace your instrument.But, being sensitive to string loads, coupled with a bitof experimentation, will get you a long way down the

path to great-sounding instruments.

For the musician, being aware of string load dataprovides another method for you to know more aboutthe strings you are selecting. String gauges alone donot tell the whole story – especially on wound strings.Your wound strings are made of a core or inner wirewrapped with a covering or “wrap” wire, and there aremany ways to achieve the same overall gauge. For ex-ample, a .024˝ (twenty four thousandths) string couldbe made of a .012˝ core with a .006˝ wrap wire (.012˝

playability of each string will be greatly different.

Here are some general guidelines: We learned that formandolins and mandolas with two-post bridges, thestring downward loads should be at least 10% to 12%

greater on the outer pairs than they are on the innerpairs. However, the key for us to arrive at the idealloads was nding the right core-to-wrap wire combi-nations through extensive testing.

For banjos with three-footed bridges, the three stringsover bridge feet should have at least 10% to 12% moreload than the two strings that sit over the bridge’sarches. For xed-bridge guitars, the string-to-stringtensions should be either very similar or linear (exam-ple only – not real values: 16, 16.5, 17, 17.5, 18, 18.5pounds), or mapped in a somewhat parabolic curve.

EpilogDuring the few years that followed our initial workon string tensions at FRETS , I was working on deec-tion-tuning systems at Gibson for the F5L mandolinproject, and it soon became apparent that the issue ofthe loading of the bridge on moveable-bridge instru-ments was as important, if not more important thanthe strings’ linear tensions. After all, it was the amountof down pressure that dictated just how much a givensoundboard and bracing system would deect, andhow that deection interacted with the energy beingsent by the strings through the bridge. To this end, weactually measured the amount of deection on the bass

+ .006˝ + .006˝ = .024˝). Oryou could make one with a.014˝ core wire and a .005˝wrap wire (.014˝ + .005˝ +.005˝ = .024˝), and there aremany more possibilities.Each combination you comeup with will have a .024˝result, but the tension and

and treble side of the bridge of a Loar-signed F5mandolin in the fully relaxed (strings fully slack)and up-to-pitch states. This testing was the basis forthe “deection tuning” we did instead of using anaudible tap tuning process.

Since the down-pressure increases as the string-break angle increases, we also needed to measure

downloads at various string break angles (for moreon string break angles and relative loads, see http://siminoff.net/string-break-angle-loads/).

It has since become abundantly clear that manag-ing the amount of download each string presents onthe bridge structure on movable-bridge instruments,and taking into consideration the proximity of thestrings’ position on the saddle relative to the loca-tion of the bridge post(s) is vitally important to theinstrument’s balanced tone and timbre. The conven-

tional two-posted mandolin bridge has a design awin which the inner A and D pairs sit on a relativelyexible portion of the saddle and are further fromthe bridge posts than the outer E and G pairs. Thisanomaly can be compensated for by adjustment inthe strings’ downloads; it is something we’ve beenfocusing on for the past two years, and will an-nounce our solution in mid-2014.



An example of the communications from strings manufacturers indicatingtheir opposition to our ndings on string tensions, and our recommendationto provide musicians with data.

Supporting documents



Jim Crockett’s column in the January 1982 issue of FRETS was published inadvance of our NAMM Show meeting with the string manufacturers. (p.2)

Documents

Importance of String Tension