Silk and Steel Strings

thecolourbox

Tannin said:

thecolourbox said:

Am i right in assuming the "squeal" is the string-scrape noise I was on about?

Exactly. And it seems to be a particular issue with silk & steel strings. Some are pretty OK (GHS & John Pearse - both silk & bronze, though I don't know if that is significant), while others are downright blackboard nails. The La Bella Gypsy Jazz strings I have on my little Mineur right now are shockers! They do seem to be mellowing down a bit now that they have been on a fair while, but to start with they had probably the loudest squeal I've ever heard. 

Anything with a silver coating seems to have a lot of squeal too. My surmise - both for silver-coated strings and for various other types - is that squeal is caused by the texture of the string surface - both the gross texture (fat winding wire (e.g. Ernie Ball phosphor bronze) squeals more than skinny winding wire (e.g. D'Addario Nickel Bronze) and the micro texture (some strings, including all the silver coated ones I know but also many others, have a slightly rough, grippy texture under the left hand, while others are more slick-textured).

There is nothing you can do about the gross texture, obviously (other than buy some different strings), but the micro texture changes as the strings wear in and your fingers polish them. The trouble with that is they tend to be worn out and dead before the texture wears off enough to stop the squeal.

What you CAN do is polish them yourself. Get one of those rubber nail buffer things people use to put a fine buff on their fingernails from the chemist. It will cost about a pound and seems to do the trick very nicely.  You only need to buff the top of the strings (this is the only part your fingers touch, obviously) and it only takes a couple of minutes. It makes a substantial difference to micro-texture squeal and doesn't seem to impact tone much.

Or, of course, you can do it the proper way, which is to improve your sloppy left hand technique. (Do as I say, not as I do!)

That's quite interesting (and from somebody who clearly knows what they are on about) as I don't actually find it's a problem when I've used Silk & Steel, only when I change to normal strings as I have done here. I'll try the nail file polishing technique on these new ones though before I change them back I think, could be worth a try. 

A lot of really good useful info there, thank you. I'm not an acoustic guy at all really, I mostly just see it as a tool for accompanying me singing and just want it to sound like "an acoustic guitar", but of course I have to balance that against the OCD and bad habits from electric playing where I get bogged down in the detail of what I want and don't want when really it doesn't matter as long as I can have an action/tension that's achievable, and can play the chords.

As such, I don't really have the time, patience or motivation to put in the hours of repetitive practice that I know is required for better technique - I already have to do that for piano so my guitaring is mostly something I like to keep as fun and as a kind of ear training, and to enable me to record more and occasional public performing. The bookings I have seem to want specifically acoustic style otherwise I often just use my electric on clean to be honest as it's easier and my bad technique is less obvious!

Tannin

Soupman said:

@guitarjack66 said:

How would you remove or severely lessen that string squeak? I get it on everything and with various string brands.

... recently fitted some Everlux coated phos-bronze strings from Headway (based in Oxford) as they were £12  (- a good saving against Elixirs).

Everlux blurb states they are UK voiced, USA materials, made in China. So covering all bets then 
They are good strings 
 

Well, good by Chinese string standards, which is to say not especially. 

guitarjack66

Soupman said:

@guitarjack66 said:

How would you remove or severely lessen that string squeak? I get it on everything and with various string brands.

Fit Elixir nano coated strings!
I use these all the time, but recently fitted some Everlux coated phos-bronze strings from Headway (based in Oxford) as they were £12  (- a good saving against Elixirs).

Everlux blurb states they are UK voiced, USA materials, made in China. So covering all bets then 
They are good strings, warm, well balanced & loud. On first fitting them I found the bottom E and A strings felt like a rasp under my fingers - very coarse. Also noticeably more squeal then Elixirs.  So had to adjust technique a little to lift fingers off when moving up & down the board.
Used to them now, like them but will probably go back to Elixirs.
 
 

Tannin said:

guitarjack66 said:

How would you remove or severely lessen that string squeak? I get it on everything and with various string brands.

1: It is essentially a technique thing. Simply, play cleaner. With practice you can reduce it enormously. But of course that takes work and practice and concentration. Where's the fun in that?

2: Use strings which squeak less than other strings. Flats do not squeak at all. Zero. None. Zippo. Double-wound strings don't squeak much; heavily coated strings (e.g., Elixirs) don't either, although they feel as though you are playing with condoms on your fingers. Normal, everyday strings (not flats or coated or anything) vary a lot. Some brands squeal far more than others. 

3: see para 4 of my earlier post. 

With respect I play every day. Not nearly enough though,nowhere near as much as I'd like. I do have Elixirs but not sure which exact make they are though. Are the Nano a particular type of Elixirs rather than Phosphor Bronze etc?

Tannin

Cheers Jack. 

Seriously, it really is a technique thing. A good clean player has no trouble with squeal because his technique avoids it. I am not that player! Trust me on that - I'm sloppy and lazy and have 50 years worth of bad habits. I can clean up my playing a fair bit when I put my mind to it, but I have to concentrate and tend to make other mistakes instead. I should work harder at it. In the end, playing for myself I tend not to notice squeal much. It is Mrs Tannin who notices - it drives her up the wall and she says so!

Elixir make two common acoustic string types - phosphor bronze and 80/20. They also have two common coatings - Nanoweb (thick) and Polyweb (very thick). Most likely you have Nanoweb phosphor bronze, though they could be 80/20.

Elixir say that Nanowebs (or Nanos) have a thin coating, but that is only by comparison with Polywebs. It is much thicker than almost all other string coatings. It is different also in that it is applied AFTER the string is wound. Nearly all other coatings are applied to the winding before it goes onto the string. They (the other coatings) tend to be harder and last longer and interfere with the sound less, but mostly do little to reduce squeal. 

(Although those other coatings last longer, that doesn't mean the actual string lasts longer. Gunk can still find its way in under the windings and deaden the string (which tends not to happen with Elixirs). So you can end up with a string which sounds past its best even though the coating is still intact.)