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

Winny_Pooh

@ICBM my brain is hurting, I'm just going to stay in bed today and try not to think about it

Voxman

Thanks everyone. Re the neck radius on the 63 I dont know if its original or been flattened a bit. But all my Strats are the more modern 9.5" radius anyway, even my 69 which was flattened from the original 7.25". Frets on the 63 are Gibson medium jumbo frets.  

Locking the trem down would give a stiffer not looser feel as you'd lose the give from the bridge movement.  And just to clarify, by slinkier I mean a looser string tension feel that makes bending easier. Aside from my 69 which is a hardtail, 2 of my trems are set up semi floating with only a slight upward movement whilst my 2009 USA Standard is set fully floating. 

I agree its likely a combination of factors. Its not that the 63 feels better it's just that I was puzzled as to why it felt different. Whilst on my SG Standard, Epi Sheraton and Berlin Pro I found that I preferred the feel with the stop bars raised up a little, I didn't like it when the tension felt too loose. As with everything its about finding the right balance that suits each player. 

Re relief, all my guitars are set up with less neck relief (ie more righty tighty) to promote a lower action across the neck. My latest Am Pro II Strat has tall thin frets. All others are medium jumbo. 

I might try 8.5's on one Strat to see if that gives me a more slinkier feel. 
  

Aidanspaghetti

I've always found that new guitars to me feel stiffer until I personally have restrung them. Not a solution but more of an observation. No help, sorry!

DrJazzTap

Sorry I should have stated. I always get confused with back bow and up bow. I think back bow should be the physical bow in the neck. Its the other way around. 

It throws me, I use feeler gauges and look for a sweet spot. For me its 0.008 at the seventh fret using a feeler gauge and fretted straight edge. 

Ive found that when a guitar has zero relief, it feels tighter to me. I guess because the neck is pulling more against the string tension?

I didn't even think that the strat could have been re radiused after a refret.  Me being a dumb dumb. 
I did find my old American standard slinkier compared to the lsl. That was 22 vs 21 frets though. Same strings etc. 

koneguitarist

Going back years ago, a friend of mine had a 65 tele which was incredibly tight feeling, he could play 10s on my tele but struggled with the 9s on his. We looked at all sorts of measurements and never did determine why. 

About 10 years later he rang me up to tell me it had gone “easy” to play. Ne explanation just seemed to have become looser feel to play.

allen

I wish that there was some real science or engineering to this. There are a lot of 'feelings' to what people say about this, and people are notoriously unreliable in science.

When I think about this I wonder about a few things:

- people talk about the amount of string behind the bridge or nut being a big factor, but it will only make a difference if the string slides over the nut/bridge when being bent, and even then it must be very marginal.
- if the string does slide over the nut/bridge it is effectively getting longer, so making the pitch go DOWN (all other things being equal). However, since the pitch is obviously going up this might imply a type of gearing as ICBM is kind of referring to. Because the string is getting longer it has to go further to get to a certain pitch, so as the distance travelled (relatively) increases the force is spread across a longer distance, making it easier to push.
- separately as the note is bent, because the string is sliding up (along?) the fret, it also makes the string get longer, so the stretch has to be more, same gearing effect.
- the friction of the string moving up the fret would seem to be a noticeable factor
- since the increase in pitch is coming from the string becoming tighter, it seems sensible that the metallic composition would also be a significant factor.

No wonder I don't answer my wife truthfully when she asks 'what are you thinking about?' 

And by the way, I did quite a few calculations about string tension and scale length (did a youtube video) and the stuff that people say about strings on Jaguars feeling like 'rubber bands' etc. is nonsense - the difference in tension is nowhere near as much as people think.

stickyfiddle

@allen there absolutely is science behind all of this. It's well-understood engineering outside guitar world, but guitarists love to believe in mojo. 

When you bend, the string does get longer (both total length and ringing length) but the increase in tension is greater, resulting in an increase in pitch. Friction with the fret is a huge factor - it's why freshly polished frets feel lovely. 

I've been meaning to model this properly to help people understand. I might see if Claude can help. 

Brio

Don’t forget that high action equals more tension when fretting a note.

CarbonCopy

stickyfiddle said:

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. 

Apart from when I mentioned it four posts before. 

rossi

Its taken me   a lifetime  to sort out my perfect Fender neck .10-12 inch  radius ,22 fret ,medium jumbos .9-46strings  low action especially near nut .i really could have done with this in 1959 when I first picked up a guitar.I have stopped playing for years which kinda slowed up  my development a tad .

fastonebaz

My charvel san dimas fr has super low action and the 9s are nice and bendy with low tension much more so than any of my other guitars.   I put it down to the FR springs giving a little

BillDL

I wonder whether anybody has actually attached a tensiometer to a string while doing a 3-step bend to gauge the increased tension and had somebody else use a micrometer to measure the changing diameter of it while doing so, or perhaps it might just be more interesting to talk about it instead? 

paulnb57

I wonder if neck profile affects “feel” could it be that the neck profile puts the fretting hand in a slightly different position on the neck while fretting thereby giving a different feel to string tension? I dont really obsess about neck profile, but if given a choice will go fatter, but my Tttides aluminium necked jobby has an uber thin profile and its a joy to play, seemingly effortless

stickyfiddle

CarbonCopy said:

stickyfiddle said:

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. 

Apart from when I mentioned it four posts before. 

Yes of course, but you can’t assume I’m actually reading what people post here! Ridiculous!  

allen

BillDL said:

I wonder whether anybody has actually attached a tensiometer to a string while doing a 3-step bend to gauge the increased tension and had somebody else use a micrometer to measure the changing diameter of it while doing so, or perhaps it might just be more interesting to talk about it instead? 

Exactly my question: has anybody done any real science on this?

Stratavarious

I find that strats are very sensitive to setup to get them really slinky.. relief especially

stickyfiddle

allen said:

BillDL said:

I wonder whether anybody has actually attached a tensiometer to a string while doing a 3-step bend to gauge the increased tension and had somebody else use a micrometer to measure the changing diameter of it while doing so, or perhaps it might just be more interesting to talk about it instead? 

Exactly my question: has anybody done any real science on this?

I am literally working on it

Lewy

This could just be coincidence but the two slinkiest/loosest feeling bolt on guitars I’ve ever owned had one thing in common and that was that the truss rod wasn’t working that hard as in wasn’t tightened much to get the neck where I wanted it. I don’t know if that’s a thing.