They have to as the bass side of a regular set usually has more tension on it. Never understood entirely why, mind. Except that chuggier is obviously better. I started out balancing for three reasons- could never get a plain "g" to stay in tune, the high "e" is almost always the one that snaps and I thought maybe the wierd neck twist I always get might have been to do with the more bass tension (it wasn't). Now my fingers are just used to them.
It's definitely all explicable by the laws of physics- just not entirely by simplified ones. I calculated a balanced tension set using simple math, then realised on consulting the tension chart that wound strings have different ratios of core to wrapping thickness, which threw the calculation into a cocked hat and left me with a set almost as unbalanced as regular 10s.. Less non-compliance with the laws of physics, more subtleties not accounted for by simple models
Ya, and with some of the alternate tunings, all bets are off on the best compromise for tension.
Wow, Lester, it sounds like you've got your act together and measured everything down to the micron. I admit I was not familiar with the details of your Epiphone, not knowing that it has a one-piece combo bridge/tailpiece. Here is one more thought: the longer the length of string between the bridge and tailpiece, the softer the strings will play because the string behind the bridge will give a little bit. On my own Custom solidbodies I generally place the tailpiece twice as far from the bridge as it is on a Les Paul. This both softens the action and fattens the tone, and it ensures that the strings will not touch the body of the bridge. Since, on a one-piece combo bridge, there is no string length to speak of behind the saddles, there is no "give" like their is on a two-piece setup. So it seems that short of tuning down, the only way to improve the action is use lighter strings. BTW, this is not just some shit that I am making up. The information comes from Jimmy D'Aquisto, who was interviewed by Irving Sloane for his book, Steel String Guitar Construction. Jimmy used this knowledge to customize the action and tone of his archtop jazz guitars after they were built, in order to meet the buyer's preferences. The chapter on archtop construction clearly states that shortening the tailpiece (in effect, lengthening the string between the tailpiece and bridge) will soften the action. I hope this is helpful.
A number of amps were damaged by variacs being pushed to 130+
yes, compacted into "m", the string mass in the simple equation.
See above. They're hidden in the mass term in said equation.
Pretty much. It's the core that stretches, the windings just separate very, very slightly over it. But not a super complicated set of equations.. as the core stretches lengthwise it also reduces a bit in diameter, an equation containing Poisson's ratio for the steel tells you by how much. Pythagoras' theorem would tell you the new length of the string between nut and bridge due to the bend, from which you could calculate the extra portion of the mass which is now between nut and bridge, then there'd be a third equation for factoring in the increase in tension due to the side-loading causing the bend- once you have those three independent variables updated you can rearrange the initial simple equation to get the new frequency (dependent variable) due to the bend.
I can see the idea behind this- feeding less voltage/current into a tube amp than it's expecting gives you nice sag and reduces headroom, but feeding more than it's expecting (ignoring the fuse) causes red-plating, sometimes cool electrical fire effects between electrodes if your tubes are a little gassy, and then burns out all your filaments. Provided it doesn't destroy every other component on the B+ rail first, of course. Nasty business..
Exactly.
