Guitar Tone Part 1 - Strings

Many are confused about what makes a particular electric guitar sound the way it does. There are many construction methods and supplies involved in building an electric guitar and although you can recognize most guitars as looking and sounding like guitars, there is an incredible amount of variation from a Gibson Hollow Body to a Parker Fly.

The first part of this series on Guitar Tone is on Strings. Further articles will cover the Neck, Bridge, Wood, Construction Methods, Pickups and Electronics. I chose to break this article up into sections because it was getting extremely long and hard to make sense of. I plan on making a summary of the most important aspects of guitars that affect their tone for those who want a more practical guide. As it stands, this one covers a lot of ground!

The characteristics of all the parts of a guitar shape its tone. The oscillation of its strings cause the guitar to resonate and the resonance of your guitar then interacts with the oscillation of its strings. A guitar made out of styrophoam will sound different than one made out of cement. The vibration of the strings is the only "sound" transferred to your amplifier. Although the guitar has a huge tonal role, it is all through its interaction with the strings that its various components show themselves sonically--unless you use Piezo Pickups...more on that later. The timbre of your strings interacting with the resonance of the guitar is filtered through your pickups, electronic controls and then your amplifier, speakers and bedroom.

The main characteristics of a guitar's sound (any musical sounds, for that matter) are envelope, attack and sustain, and frequency response, commonly grouped into lows, mids, highs as well as harmonic structure.

When you are rocking out, you hear your guitar, your high gain amp, your blown out speakers and your rattling picture frames, but all that ruckus starts with your strings. As your strings get covered in finger grease they lose their shine and become dull. This sound can be effective in some circumstances, especially on bass, but most guitars rock hardest with fresh strings.

As the aforementioned grease builds up, strings lose their high frequency vibrance and, in doing so, much of their harmonic content. Kiss your pick squeals goodbye. They may also get little gunk balls attached to them, which can affect the way your strings oscillate. If a string is not equally weighted at every point along which it vibrates, its intonation will be off and certain notes and chords will not sound completely harmonious with each other.

Guitar strings come in many different forms: steel, nylon, nickel, gut and probably some more I don't even know about. Each of these string types has its own sound and use. Steel strings are used on some acoustic guitars and resonator guitars. Nylon and gut strings are used on classical guitars. Nickel strings are used on electric guitars because they disrupt the magnetic field of the guitar's pickups, transfering those physical oscillations into electric ones that can then be amplified.

The thickness of the strings you use makes a big difference in your tone for a few reasons. Firstly, the thickness of your strings affects how tight they feel as you play. This will affect the way you play guitar, because the stiffer the string, the harder it is to fret and bend. Playing on .08 (thickness of the high E) gauge strings like Yngwie Malmsteen, you will be bending pretty easily. If you play on .13 gauge strings like Stevie Ray Vaughn, you will be having a much harder time making the same bends. Of course, it wasn't a problem for Stevie, so find out which gauge works for you.

Another thing to think about with string gauge is the fact that thicker strings are tighter, and tighter strings tend to have a better intonation. You may notice that if you switch to very heavy guage strings your chords ring out very clear and tight. This is because when strummed hard, loose strings tend to play sharp at first and then ease down to the proper notes. This is most prominent with the low E and G strings, because they tend to have the least amount of tension than the rest of the strings in your average pack. If you can't compinsate for this with your own technique, heavy strings may be for you. They also make it easier to jump around while you play ;-p

If you decide to change your string gauge, make sure to get your guitar set up again, because the tension on its neck will be different, therefore changing its action and intonation.