Stratocaster string 'tightness'...any way to get a slinkier feel?

Voxman

A friend of mine has a 63 Strat with Gibson frets and a locked down trem. He plays the same D'addario 9-42s as I do yet the feel of his strings are noticeably 'slinkier' than any of my 4 Strats.

I learned that on a guitar with a stoptail (eg LP, SG etc) raising the stoptail reduces the string angle over the saddle, giving a slinkier feel. But there's no similar adjustment AGAIK on a Strat.

So why does my friends' 63 Strat feel so much easier to play? 

If I can't figure it out, I might try eg an 8.5 set on one of my Strat's to see how I get on with them. 

DrJazzTap

Is his action lower than yours? Relief on the neck? 

Voxman

DrJazzTap said:

Is his action lower than yours? Relief on the neck? 

His action is a little higher-I play with quite a low action. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I can't think any slight differences in action and or neck relief are significant factors here?

Re set up I should add that the nuts on each of my Strats are well lubricated and the string trees are not overly tightened down to slightly reduce the break angle. 

BillDL

Voxman said:

A friend of mine has a 63 Strat with Gibson frets and a locked down trem ........

If your Strats have floating trems, then try locking one down and see if there is a difference.

When you say "Gibson frets", do you mean wider and roughly the same height, wider and taller, or wider and lower?

I would hazard a guess that the frets are the main contributing factor to the differences in feel, but there's not much you can do to test that without getting a refret on one of your Strats.

StuartMac290

Voxman said:

DrJazzTap said:

Is his action lower than yours? Relief on the neck? 

His action is a little higher-I play with quite a low action. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I can't think any slight differences in action and or neck relief are significant factors here?

Re set up I should add that the nuts on each of my Strats are well lubricated and the string trees are not overly tightened down to slightly reduce the break angle. 

Raising the action and having a touch more relief will make a HUGE difference to the slinkiness and bendability of a guitar, as will taller frets.

ryanverbena

I've always suspected it's the cumulative effect of lots of tiny variables. Individually, each difference in angle, geometry or setup may be too small to measure meaningfully or have any noticeable impact on its own, but in summation they can add up to a guitar that feels noticeably different on a macro level.

CarbonCopy

StuartMac290 said:

Voxman said:

DrJazzTap said:

Is his action lower than yours? Relief on the neck? 

His action is a little higher-I play with quite a low action. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I can't think any slight differences in action and or neck relief are significant factors here?

Re set up I should add that the nuts on each of my Strats are well lubricated and the string trees are not overly tightened down to slightly reduce the break angle. 

Raising the action and having a touch more relief will make a HUGE difference to the slinkiness and bendability of a guitar, as will taller frets.

I aagree with this, especially for relief which is often overlooked. My starting point is no relief and then introducing some if needed to stop buzzing based on my playing style and the condition of the frets.

I also always check the string height at the nut height which again can be overlooked.  This has a lot of effect on the first few frets.

Large frets definitely help as there's less friction between the finger and fretboard and easier to grab the string when bending. 

Brio

Reverse the headstock. 
It does give a slinkier feel to the high strings and tightens the bass strings.
A bit of a trickier retro mod.
It may be to do with nut break angles. It may be because I saw someone in a video say it.

timmypix

Brio said:

Reverse the headstock. 
It does give a slinkier feel to the high strings and tightens the bass strings.
A bit of a trickier retro mod.
It may be to do with nut break angles. It may be because I saw someone in a video say it.

Other way around - it makes the bass strings slinkier as there's more string travel with a lower tension behind the nut, much in the same way as raising the tailpiece on a tuneomatic/stopbar arrangement does the same thing at the other end.

impmann

Was the board re-radiused when the Gibson frets were installed?

A 63 Strat *should* have a 7.5in rad board but it could well be that that when the fatter frets went in, the luthier flattened that radius to suit. That *might* be the difference.

stickyfiddle

Nut height is the one thing not mentioned so far. It’s a tiny variable but can have a huge impact on feel, especially on the first 4-5 frets. 

On the topic of total string length (which also includes floating vs decked and reverse headstocks) there are a couple of different factors: 
1) the effort needed to push the string down to fret a note, or to bend a string a given partial distance
2a) the distance needed to move the string to bend a tone or semitone 
2b) the force required to push that string that distance to make that bend. 

There is also the number of wraps of the string around the tuner post - the wraps are part of the total length of string under tension, and so extra wraps will also change the feel

BillDL

Taking that one step further, are the depths of the holes in the trem block different?  If one has shallower holes and the other has quite deeply drilled holes where the balls of the strings are much closer to the underside of the bridge plate, the total length of the string under tension will be greater on the one that has shallow holes.

HAL9000

I once owned a pair of Telecasters. One was the usual string-thru-body affair, and the other was a top loader. The top loader felt noticeably slinkier presumably due to the shallower break angle, and the shorter string length.

Blueingreen

ryanverbena said:

I've always suspected it's the cumulative effect of lots of tiny variables. Individually, each difference in angle, geometry or setup may be too small to measure meaningfully or have any noticeable impact on its own, but in summation they can add up to a guitar that feels noticeably different on a macro level.

I can’t think of a better explanation. A couple of years ago I bought a Fender Am Pro 2 Telecaster. I was amazed at how much slinkier it felt than I expected. Noticeably better than higher end guitars I already owned. It even compared favourably to shorter scale guitars. I’m a constant tinkerer with relief and action trying to optimise the feel of my guitars, so I don’t think set-up is the variable here. And I bought it from EBay without playing it so it wasn’t a result of trying lots of guitars and picking the best one. A pal who knows my guitars came and played it shortly after I bought it and totally agreed that it was exceptional.

The only explanation I can come up with is that I fluked a really good one. Nothing in the specs explains it.

ICBM

In addition to all of the above, there is one other huge difference - some people perceive a physically stiffer string (ie one which requires a smaller sideways movement to raise the pitch by a given amount) as stiffer… but some perceive it as ‘slinkier’ because it’s quicker to raise the pitch - and vice versa, some people find a physically less stiff string which requires a wider sideways movement to raise the pitch as harder to play. This makes all the calculations and explanations completely backwards if you’re in the second camp! Neither is wrong, but it can be very confusing.

ie for me, a Les Paul Junior is ‘stiff’ and a Jazzmaster is ‘slinky’ - but I know some people who think it’s the other way round, and this can make setting up their guitars the way they like a bit tricky without a bit of extra thought.

musteatbrain

I have changed my trem block on my Suhrs because of that and it made a significant difference 

stickyfiddle

Blueingreen said:

ryanverbena said:

I've always suspected it's the cumulative effect of lots of tiny variables. Individually, each difference in angle, geometry or setup may be too small to measure meaningfully or have any noticeable impact on its own, but in summation they can add up to a guitar that feels noticeably different on a macro level.

I can’t think of a better explanation. A couple of years ago I bought a Fender Am Pro 2 Telecaster. I was amazed at how much slinkier it felt than I expected. Noticeably better than higher end guitars I already owned. It even compared favourably to shorter scale guitars. I’m a constant tinkerer with relief and action trying to optimise the feel of my guitars, so I don’t think set-up is the variable here. And I bought it from EBay without playing it so it wasn’t a result of trying lots of guitars and picking the best one. A pal who knows my guitars who came and played it shortly after I bought it and totally agreed that it was exceptional.

The only explanation I can come up with is that I fluked a really good one. Nothing in the specs explains it.

It's all the variables stacked and compounded together.

It's not magic, but it requires immense attention to detail to be aware of and pay the necessary time to every single one. 

Similar to the age old question of "what makes a guitar sound great?" - there are something like 30 different factors. From this thread alone we have 

• Fret height (taller frets reduce finger-to-board friction, easier to grab for bends)
  
• Action height
• Neck relief
• Nut slot height
• Nut lubrication
• String tree break angle
• Trem blocked vs floating
• Fretboard radius (possible re-radius when refretted)
• Reverse headstock (affects break angle and string length behind nut)
• Number of wraps around tuner posts
• Depth of holes in trem block (affects total string length under tension)
• String break angle over saddle (top-loader vs string-through Tele comparison)

On top of that I can think of: 

• scale length (Gibson 24.75" vs Fender 25.5" is the big one though obv not relevant in Strat vs Strat)
  
• String age and condition (older strings feel deader but sometimes slinkier)
• String brand and construction (hex vs round core; round core feels more flexible at the same gauge)
• Nut material (bone, brass, synthetic — affects binding/friction)
• Saddle material and finish (affects friction during bends)
  
• Fretboard material & condition of fretboard (even assuming both rosewood one can be smoother or more "grabby" than another)
• Neck finish on the back (sticky finish increases perceived resistance)
• String tree height and tuner post height (affects headstock break angle and friction in nut)
  

These are mostly TINY factors but they'll be non-zero. Add them together and you could easily get a perceiveable difference 

Greatape

Relief really affects sound. My Tele wants a bit of relief to let notes bloom, whereas my strat wants less for more spank. I'm not convinced it makes a significant difference to feel, though. 

Winny_Pooh

ICBM said:

In addition to all of the above, there is one other huge difference - some people perceive a physically stiffer string (ie one which requires a smaller sideways movement to raise the pitch by a given amount) as stiffer… but some perceive it as ‘slinkier’ because it’s quicker to raise the pitch - and vice versa, some people find a physically less stiff string which requires a wider sideways movement to raise the pitch as harder to play. This makes all the calculations and explanations completely backwards if you’re in the second camp! Neither is wrong, but it can be very confusing.

ie for me, a Les Paul Junior is ‘stiff’ and a Jazzmaster is ‘slinky’ - but I know some people who think it’s the other way round, and this can make setting up their guitars the way they like a bit tricky without a bit of extra thought.

Interesting.

For me slinky means lower string bending tension as well as tension to press down to a fret. So a 23 3/4 " inch guitar with minimum relief and low cut nut and low action is "slinky" with 10s, a 25.5" guitar with the same setup less so.

I only ever use more than 0.05" relief if I get buzzing on the 1st & 2nd frets

Winny_Pooh

timmypix said:

Brio said:

Reverse the headstock. 
It does give a slinkier feel to the high strings and tightens the bass strings.
A bit of a trickier retro mod.
It may be to do with nut break angles. It may be because I saw someone in a video say it.

Other way around - it makes the bass strings slinkier as there's more string travel with a lower tension behind the nut, much in the same way as raising the tailpiece on a tuneomatic/stopbar arrangement does the same thing at the other end.

I've had one of these reverse headstocks. The bass strings had more tension and felt *less* flexible as a result. Deadened in a way as they felt thuddy.

Strangely, with all that extra string length at the bridge a Jazzmaster is different, the low strings feel stiff but weirdly flabby and unresponsive to fast pick attack. 

Adding a bigsby to a guitar also does this but to a much  lesser extent that I dont mind at all.

ICBM

Winny_Pooh said:

I've had one of these reverse headstocks. The bass strings had more tension and felt *less* flexible as a result. Deadened in a way as they felt thuddy. 

Strangely, with all that extra string length at the bridge a Jazzmaster is different, the low strings feel stiff but weirdly flabby and unresponsive to fast pick attack.

You're one of those backwards people .

I think Voxman may be too .