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There's been a lot of chat about the appliance of science to guitars in these parts recently so this seems rather timely. A friend/former colleague of mine is both a professional acoustics/physics researcher and a rather tasty guitarist. He's developed a concept for new strings and the results/paper has just been published. I'm glad it has because I found out about it a while ago and wasn't allowed to tell anyone!!
Here's the idea:
" “While string sets have been available before with balanced tensions, those strings have featured different sensitivities, with all strings bending through different pitch intervals when the player performs identical movements.
“The laws of physics prevent equalised feel between different plain steel strings. With the new strings the properties are controlled to ensure that four of the strings (the plain G and the overwound D, A and low E strings) on a standard electric guitar bend through the same pitch intervals for identical player control changes, whether that be through conventional pitch bends (dragging the strings through a certain distance along a fret to increase tension) or through use of a tremolo/vibrato arm.
“The clearest demonstration of this is through listening to chords played on these strings during tremolo arm use.”
The new strings mean that chord bends can be achieved that have not been possible before on standard guitars, such as Fender Stratocasters with standard tremolo units or guitars with the Floyd Rose locking tremolo system."
https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/news/archive/2017/title,1614331,en.php
The strings can be heard in the videos on the link, there's also a link to the public access paper that explains how they work. They were custom made by Newtone.
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Comments
Is this the same as those "calibrated" strings for Steinberger TransTrem systems? Or am I thinking of something else?
Thanks for the link, will have to read it over the weekend. (Now I'm dreaming of a multistring electric "Dan Bao" that can slide chords.)
I'm not sure how this feeds into my theory of "Bigsbys and JMs sound better than Strat trems because of how the extra length affects the pitch change". Maybe this is an extension of that (i.e. trem use sounds better when the strings are downtuning to the same degree and the longer string length gets closer to that result with normal strings)
Either way, the vids certainly sound great.
I’m pretty sure I bend in tune on any guitar, fitted with any string.
A long time ago I had a guitar with one of those Washburn Wonderbar trems that you could set up like a Transtrem - it did work, when set up right - but it just sounded wrong!
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I suspect @ICBM has a point though. What we like about the sound of electric guitars is more to do with dissonance and imperfection than perfect harmony.
but i would still be interested in trying a set or two. It's a good option
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transtrem beats wonderbar because you can lock it in position and have instant drop tunings. It's not just a trem. Never set one up with a strobe tuner though... it is a quick road to madness
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What the paper said about string afterlengths and tremolo/bending range is worth reading too. It's an issue that often comes up around reverse headstocks and the Hendrix thing, so it's good to see a clear explanation of what's going on there.
Could be interesting, but I would imagine you’d need a guitar specifically for the strings set up with a big wobbly trem. But the effect sounds useful.
I like the tensions of the string I use in normal playing, I wouldn't want slacker feeling lower strings, so I could not anticipate putting them on all guitars.
But definitely worth a try, a cool idea. SRV would have put a set on Lenny, if they had been available in the 80’s.
Also, given that the instrument is by definition not intonated 100% correctly anyway yet almost everybody rejects "true-temperament" fretwork, who cares?
I know I don't. I'll rely on my fingers to compensate, because that's a big part of why I sound like me.
This.
Simultaneous equal pitch bend of all notes is what you would expect from a sample replay keyboard. Steinberger TransTrem users such as David Torn taking an interest makes sense.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Slash has been at it rather longer than a year...
FTFY