String tension

[shark]

Last night I had a discussion with a friend of mine, about string tension. He said that if you put Baritone strings on a regular guitar, the string tension is lower than if you put them on a baritone guitar. Is this true? it sounds kinda goofy if you ask me

Edit: I kinda formulated it wrong, what I meant to say was: if you put baritone strings on a regular guitar, the tension would be less than if you would put regular strings on a regular guitar (both times the guitar is tuned the same)

 

[PoorMan]

Re: String tension

Your friend is wrong...

Asuuming the same scale length, setup, guitar, tuning, etc...the only variable is the guage of strings. Baritones typically have thicker strings than standard electric guitars. You have to pull a thicker string tighter to achieve the same note as a thinner string = more tension.

It's like this...tune your guitar with .009s and then with .012s and the .009s (thinner strings) will have less tension.

 

[MikeS]

Re: String tension

Because of the wording of the questions, there are two entirely different answers.

On same guitar, same pitch, only variable being strings... lighter weight strings will have lower tension than heavier strings.

Now, take a set of .013 on a 28" scale and tune to B standard. Then put the same .013 on 25.5" scale and tune to B standard. The tension will be lower on the 25.5" scale. So, if you put a set of baritone strings on a standard scale length and tune the same as you would the baritone, yes the tension will be lower. If you tune the standard scale length to E standard, then the tension will be higher than if you used a traditionally thinner set of strings. Make sense?

 

[shark]

Re: String tension

I was thinking the same thing.... but he was telling that baritone strings where made for guitars with a longer scale, so the tension would be less on a regular scale.... seemed odd to me

 

[baritone]

Re: String tension

I use a few different guitars with the same string gauges (12-56), the same tuning (B-standard), and different scale-lengths (27.75, 25.5, and 24.75). Logically, the longer scale lengths would have higher tension, but based on feel alone, the 24.75 is the only one that feels floppy. Although the 27.75 and 25.5 have the biggest difference in dimension, they don't feel too different.

 

[blueman335]

Re: String tension

The reduced string tension is why guys that bend strings a lot, like me, tend to use 9's and 10's, rather than heavier gauges.

 

[Kommerzbassist]

Re: String tension

I was thinking the same thing.... but he was telling that baritone strings where made for guitars with a longer scale, so the tension would be less on a regular scale.... seemed odd to me

Assuming each pair has the same tuning:

tension baritone set in baritione guitar > tension baritone set in normal guitar (comparable to extremely downtuning the normal guitar)

tension baritone set in normal guitar > tension normal set in normal guitar (comparable to using a way lighter gauge set of strings in the guitar)



Generally for the same given set, the shorter the scale, the lesser the tension...
...and for the same scale, the lighter the set, the lesser the tension.

ok?

 

[vinterland]

Re: String tension

but he was telling that baritone strings where made for guitars with a longer scale, so the tension would be less on a regular scale.... seemed odd to me

That would be correct assuming same tunings on each scale. The longer the scale the greater the tension to achieve pitch.

Why do you think a bass can tune so low?

 

[shark]

Re: String tension

That would be correct assuming same tunings on each scale. The longer the scale the greater the tension to achieve pitch.

Why do you think a bass can tune so low?

I formulated it wrong again, **** you Leffe :biglaugh:

I know that a baritone has a greater string tension than a regular guitar, but the fact that baritone strings have lesser tension on a regular seemed strange....