Any conversion from a 1-dimensional measurement to a 2-dimensional measurement will involve some squaring operation. 100% of the time. Increased exponent = added dimension of measurement. Example: string diameter to cross sectional area: pi x (diameter/2)^2. The squaring operation is right there in the formula. This is a useful thing to know. ~~~ Here’s a puzzle that is easily solved with this intuition. If a human was shrunk down to the size of a fly & placed into a blender, how could he escape? Answer: He could just jump out. This is because his mass (proportional to volume) decreases proportionally to the *cube* of his height (1 dimensional measurement, height -> 3 dimensional measurement, volume), while his muscular strength, given by the cross sectional area of his muscles, decreases proportionally to the *square* of his height (1 dimensional measurement, height -> 2 dimensional measurement, area). Cubic functions grow and shrink much faster than square functions, therefore the shrinking human’s mass decreases much faster than his strength. Compared to a full-sized human, the fly-sized human has a lot more strength than he does mass. Thus, while I can only jump less than half of my height, the fly-sized human can easily jump a distance several times that of his own height.
Thanks for making this video. As you said in the beginning, Hendrix used whatever was available. Fender's "Rock & Roll" No.150 set (.010 - .038) (which he did use) was available since 1966 and was never discontinued in his time. The big core to wrap ratio was not a cost-cutting measure as the wound strings were also rolled to reduce finger and bar (slide) noise (and they don't sound bad). GHS' Nickel Rockers are very similar in construction (and possibly derived from Fender's sets). Also, balance is not just about tension. What Fender probably tried to do was put together a light gauge set with balanced volume through the staggered pickups.
I think that's it, the completely unbalanced tension of that Fender set was probably a workaround to accommodate the fixed staggered pole pieces. Those were arranged to balance out a set with a wound 3rd and a proportionally lighter 5th and 6th, so they had to make some awkward changes to lighter sets.
@@leonardo.rafael The manufacturer was V.C.Squier which Fender bought before Ernie Ball or GHS (started by two former V. C. Squier employees) were established (around 1964).
The square of the diameter (or actually the square radius) is important because the volume of the string is π r² h. The volume of the string determines the weight of the string and the weight of the sting determines how much tension you have to put on the string to get a certain frequency.
Scott from @Stringjoy - a boutique guitar string manufacturer - really put his foot in his mouth on this one 😂 It makes sense too, the thicker a rubber band is, the more tension it will need in order to hit a given note.
Well, Force equals mass times acceleration. So light strings are easier to play, but have less sustain. Tensile Strength also relies on the cross section of the material (=The thiccness of the string). Thats why you shoulden't put them chonky bois on a Gibson if you don´t know what you are doing. So yeah, in the end it´s just good ol' physics. Kinda funny that i started playing to have a balance to mechanical engineering but the deeper i dig the more it comes back to me...
one would also point out that greats Albert Lee and Danny Gatton played Ernie ball 10s with the swapped .15 for the G as well. So i guess there's something to be said of less G in the mix on fixed pole pickups, and/or just having bends for days.
The area of circle is 'proportional' to the square of the diameter. When we talk about proportionality in mathematics, we say two variables ( in this case, the cross sectional area of a circle and the diameter of a circle) are 'proportional', if this mathematical relationship follows: V1=KxV2 or A= KxD^2. Where K is a constant (a number the does not change). Ok, so we know that the area of a circle equals pi ( approx. 3.14) times the radius of the circle squared. Or, in terms of the diameter; pi times the square of the diameter divided by 4. So in this case K equals pi divided by 4, which is a constant. Therefore, The statement: The area of the string is proportional to the square of the radius is true. You don't need to know that value of K to look at the relationships of the area of the strings because the areas are all proportional to the square of the diameters . If we square the diameter of the 1st string let's call it 10 (it's actually .010, but that doesn't matter as long as we multiply all the other diameters by 1000.) 10 squared equals 100. The 2nd string is a 13, 13 squared is 169. So, Roger Mayer is saying the the increase in electrical output from the 1st string to the 2nd string is 69%. It doesn't matter that we don't actually know the true value of cross sectional areas of the string. Because we treat both numbers the same. We multiplied both of them by 1000. And we divided out the constant pi/4. The proportion relationship of the area of the 2 strings remains in tact. The area of the 2nd string is 69% larger than the area of the 1st sting. We don't need to know what the actual areas are. Not that any of this really will help your guitar playing, but music is actually very mathematical.
@@Stefan-Van-der-Pulst he's saying that when you say something is the "square" for comparative purposes, it doesn't matter what constants you apply to the calculation. He's talking about how power _scales_, not getting an absolute value for power output, so constant factors are irrelevant. For a simple example, if I say that person a is twice as tall as person b, then it doesn't matter if I say that they are 3ft and 6ft tall, or .914m and 1.83m tall, or even if I say that person A is 4.57 bananas tall, and person B is 9.14 bananas tall; whatever constant I apply, the _ratio_ (person B being twice as tall) stays the same. So, similarly if you say that power output scales with the square of the diameter, or the square of the radius, or pi r squared, that's all the same thing; it's just applying different constants - diameter is just twice the radius, so the constant factor of 2 is irrelevant, as is multiplying by pi. Diameter squared and pi*r^2 are, when talking in ratios/comparisons rather than absolute quantities, exactly the same thing. Basically, what the dude said at 5:55 in this video is nonsense. When he said "I really don't understand" he was right though 😅
I'm an old bastard so I remember the Fender strings with those gauges and if my memory is correct they were simply called Fender Rock and Roll Strings. They were very popular way back in the day. Probably the best seller. You didn't have to lower the bass side of your pickups with those strings like you do now and I believe those strings were not as loud as modern strings. I could be wrong but that's how I remember them.
Buyers of the official jimi hendrix brand product don't get limited to 1 set of strings. Its Perfectly acceptable to choose and use super slinky sets of strings.
Also worth remember is the when Jimi bent his top E and B strings, the G would be bent with them. Therefore if the G's only a 0.15 it will make bending the E & B strings significantly easier...
The actual size on the 68' Black Strat with the same strings on it Jimi had on (now in possession of Uli Jon Roth)Fender rock n' roll strings, light gauge size .10-.38, switched the .10 for a .09, that was the actual size on his 1968 "Black Beauty" Strat that Monika Danemann had for 26+ years & now belongs to the great Uli Lon Roth who was her longtime boyfriend. The guitar still had or has the original strings that Jimi had on them & there was a very in depth article which can be found online on the guitar where the strings were measured & the contents of the case were listed in detail. Thats about as accurate as you can find on his actual string gauge.
Well the official jimi hendrix brand has made all that irrelevant in 2022. We're not going backwards in our life. The owners club are moving forward. You're Wasting your time struggling in the past. You're 30 years behind us. Uli may have an old guitar but we own everything else including the 1990's jimi hendrix official sound. And the 2000's official jimi hendrix sounds. Etc. Etc.
This is ridiculous man. You're directly paraphrasing an article and claiming things aren't true that actually are (just misreading them?). Yes, the electrical output IS proportional to the square of the string gauge. Okay now if you reread that a few times you'll see that bringing up "square strings" completely overlooks the physics of how pickups turn string vibration into an electrical signal and makes a superficial observation that leads to a wrong answer. Remember, you're paraphrasing an engineer.
So, pi*d^2./4 is the area. We know that pi/4 does not change so can be considered a constant, leaving the diameter squared as the main variable in the equation. Simplifying the equation like this is an example of a "rule of thumb" that many older engineers use on the fly to allow them to make percentage based comparisons faster, in some cases without the use of a calculator. If a number is squared in an equation it makes a difference on the resulting percentage when making a comparison, so we can't compared the diameter alone, it must be squared first.
I once as a kid asked my classical guitar teacher why the low 3 were metal while the top 3 were nylon. He said the metal was to add mass, or weight, to the low strings so that they vibrated slower without having to wind down the tension. Ive used this rule of thumb in selecting guages for recording songs that are bottom or top light or heavy and it hasnt failed me
I have been following jimi's music for 51 years & studing all his video footage. I may be wrong but I will never know for sure but I believe the undersize G was very helpful in his soloing & in particular his reverse bends which he used alot in his playing. He would start with the string bent up & let it down to get his reverse note efect which was realitivly new at the time .
not really, you can't adjust the poles on the strats , yeh you can move the pickup, but Jimi was playing lefty , so his pickups were studied to work the other way around, plus the magnets have different lenght too, that's one of the reason they choosed to modify a bit the gauge
In 2022 there's over 100 official jimi hendrix sounds available to buy and use. Buy the official right-hand version to use. There's no problem in 2022. You're allowed to use different sets of strings. Sign up And buy into the brand and you're good to go. You just keep hurting yourself and we'll keep living the life.
Gee, what a coincidence. Jimi played mostly a Strat at the same time that Fender came out with their very first light gauge 10-38 set. At least in my area (pre-internet) this Fender no150 set (different gauges today) was the first plain 3rd light gauge set available, period. Were Ernie Balls available at the same time? Maybe, but not in my area music stores. I used them but I thought these gauges were weird even back then. A .038 6th string?? I thought the top three sting gauges were just fine. Before this Fender set, I was using the old banjo trick. I used a Banjo 1st sting, ball end (.009 or .010) and then dropped in the 1st to 5th strings from a regular gauge Back Diamond set (I'm talking gauges more like a light gauge acoustic set). I'd be surprised if Jimi didn't actually use the Fenders but then again I don't really care. I did see Hendrix live and in many You Tube videos. He was out of tune about half the time and spent the other half tuning.
You're so right. In many (most?) of the live recordings we have he's wildly out of tune. To be fair he was probably dropping acid too, so... I've played 10-38 and they don't go out of tune any more than any other set.
Fender 150 light were what was available at the time.. I used 10-38 FenderL150. I really like the 38 on top espesially on my 335, and on a Les Paul it was more slinky. In the late 60's and mid 70's they sold for about $3.50 a set !
He was talking about 𝝅r2 the area of the diameter of the string. The numbers make a lot more sense when you look at them that way as opposed to gauge. The same goes for electrical wires.
Total speculation on my part, but I did wonder if Hendrix's left-hand technique of using his thumb to fret the 6th string was associated with playing a lighter string gauge than normal. Not saying that it's the reason, but it would seem to me to facilitate fretting with the the thumb.
The Sustain on the Stringjoy Broadways is unreal, I was like WhA! My noise gate doesn’t cut off my sustain either, which really surprised me. I also measured the voltage being fed into the speaker from the amp and there was a very slight increase when I switched from SIT strings to Broadways. I know Nickel sounds weaker but the pickups do pick up more from the nickel strings.
The Fender Rock’n’roll 150 sets was what Jimi used and I don’t think he had much to do with it. Hendrix used to bend a lot that G string with his first finger and the lighter gauge might have helped a lot. try it for yourself it makes a lot of sense ;) and that’s the only way to play some of Hendrix’s licks the proper way anyway. Also because of the staggered pickup pole magnets which have D and G raised, the .015 helps having a better string to string balance. Duane Allman as well as Rory Gallagher were also using those same exact strings. I have just tried out my first set of Stringjoy strings and love them so much that I am going to re string my other instruments with them ;)
I've been playing Hendrix gauged strings for a while and what I noticed right away was the low end wasn't as intense which tends to happen with a cranked marshall stack. Even with the bass all the way off it's very easy to collide with bass frequencies playing through a loud marshall stack and I think having a lower gauge E and A really helps keep some distance between those frequencies. For the G string well just listen to band of gypsies album. When he bends that G it just sounds so spooky. That twangy sounding bend really catches my ears! When we're talking Hendrix tone we're talking cranked marshall stacks! This may not have been a reason, this could all be bs but I can bet Hendrix experimented with different gauges through a cranked marshall stack at some point. There's a whole new world of tone when your cranked up that loud. P.S. If I had a dollar for everytime I said marshall stack I'd have 5 dollars.
I'm starting to dislike the sound of my Stratocaster through a Marshall amp. The low end is too breathy and lacks heft and meatiness. I'm thinking a plunking an EMG-85 into the neck pickup hole.
@@RStevenPage its designed to not have a low end. It was taken away at the factory. The eMG is just a pick up so that won't change anything. You have to buy into a different brand philosophy.
The areas of the cross sections of the string is what we should be comparing. And the area of the cross section is pi times radius squared. So for strings measured by diameter the relative signal strength compared between strings is proportional to the diameter / 2, squared.. Comparing string diameters won't cut it. . However, wound strings sometime have air tiny gaps around their core so things don't quite hold compared to plain strings but it's probably close enough for government work. Obviously pickup pole heights, position and pickup types will factor into relative volumes. Even your amp, pedals or mixer will have a significant effect. I guess the best thing to do is just try things until you get the sound or even just the feel you want. Me I just stick to 008s to 038s.
I never really got into Hendrix, but it’s always interesting to see what works for other players. I personally could never go lower than a regular 10-46 set for standard, at least for the low strings. I don’t really like low tension and use Jazz III picks which are on the heavy side
You will the older you get, I went from 12's to 11's and then 10's, now I'm at 9's. Gibbons plays 8's. Just what happens, when you get older arthritis sets in joints of the hands and wrist. If I could back I'd start at 9's, plus it has been proven it doesn't improve your sound, it's a myth. Now if you're an aggressive player and play hard as hell, I can see it maybe. Rick Beteo( may have misspelled) has a video on it, check it out. 🤘
@@dalton7145 You’re probably right, and I think I would like 9.5s. I thought about trying them next time I change strings. 9s are a little too light at the moment
You're At least 30 years behind lots of guitarists. and the industry. When You say hendrix we're not really sure what you're talking about cause you're so far behind. The brand has been around for 30 years. People keep disrespecting brands and its at your peril. You're the 1 who's missing out by listening to guitarist gossip. Its Disrespectful to even say to the buyers of JH brand product that there's a set of strings which JH used. If you buy into the official brand YOU GET MORE OPTIONS, not less. We got the choice to use 100 different sets of strings. We're NOT limited to 1 set. You have a problem and that's because you're 30 years behind everyone else.
Fender vintage staggered pole pieces were for pure nickel flatwound strings with wound g string. So, if you put plain g string, your g string should be thinner to get right volume. Or, your g string would be too loud.
They were called Fender Original-150's. Jimi already used them and Roger Mayer admitted that originally. But a few years later, I think he may have needed to elevate his importance to Jimi's sound and he added some details, none of us understand. Jimi was already using them.... that's the truth. Original-150's, I believe those were the lightest gauge sets of the mid-1960's. A lot of people were playing flat wound strings and they were pretty heavy and sounded dead, even when brand new. Fender made the 150's up until 2012. The Fender-150's also came in normal 010, 009 and 008 typically gauged sets too. Typical gauged sets were called Fender 150's, but the set gauged like Jimi's were called Fender Original 150s. I still have one set from 2012 that I haven't used yet.
Currently I'm finding, with 10 13 17 26 36 46, that the two heavy strings, A + E, just seem too fat... My hands and mind just feel like they are cumbersome... Just ordered 2 new sets, standard gauges, but each a bit unique, for experimentation- one is pure Nickel, the other has wound G. I'm going to use them thoroughly (waste not want not), but I'm already thinking ahead to trying a thinner A + E in the future. Maybe 34,42. Thing is, I'm not a guitar tech, and I'm hoping to enjoy nice intonation doing nothing more than saddle adjustments (which I might be able to handle on my own, unless a saddle reaches one end and cannot go any further...) 🙂
tension...lol the string of a certain diameter, tuned to a certain pitch at a certain scale length (distance from NUT to SADDLE!) is always going to be the same. the length behind the nut or saddle, break angle, etc won't change any of that.
That notion that it is not square but some spherical thing got me on. If you think the string movement at magnet pole position which is the meaningful place the upper part of string has less effect than lower portion. String is also rolling which adds to create all kinds of interesting tones. No wonder why there is so many million different tones even from acoustically played electric.Also when string is first picked it has very complex noise like initial pulse which then evens or smooths to the frequency at hand. Bo Diddley style comping is playing with start phase of initial pulse smoothing out.
I always wondered if Fender brought these string gauges out to "fix" the intonation on an original Telecaster bridge (which they do, funnily enough), Leo was an engineer after all, not a musician.☯️👍
I like discussions of strings. I've learned that with vintage style Fender staggered pole Strat pickups, the key to a balanced G is a wound .018. Ernie Ball makes one. Completely improved intonation, tuning, and volume. The G is the highest pole piece on the pickup because the wound G actually has the thinnest steel core of any string in the set. I like the 10-38 Hendrix set, but the .038 is very floppy even in standard tuning. I think 10 13 18w 26 36 46 is probably the best set for me personally.
Fender vintage staggered pole pieces were for pure nickel flatwound strings. Ernie ball's .018w is not pure nickel. It's nickel plated. So, it won't work either. At the first time, factory setup string was thick(.013-.056 or .012-.054). So, because g string was wound, g string pole piece went up. But, players found that lower gauge string has more sustain and is easy to play. So, people's decided lower gauge and g string is not wound anymore. That is why fender made string set with smaller g string for 7.25 radius vintage staggered pole pieces. It gives better volume balance btw strings.
@@joeltunnah It's nickel plated steel. So .018w is not the thinnest steel. Actually it's thicker than B and E string. It's inevitable. I'm sorry. You need nickle pure wound string or go thinner plain string for g string like Fender and Jimi Hendrix did.
@@zitnbit you must be thinking of different Ernie Ball strings. Here's what is says on mine: "Ernie Ball Slinky Classic Rock N Roll Pure Nickel wrap electric guitar strings are made from pure nickel wire wrapped around tin plated hex shaped steel core wire, these guitar strings produce a warm rich tone with that signature Slinky feel."
...your sound is in your hands..full-stop...the universe already has a..JIMI...now the world needs YOU..your sound..your vision....be inspired to create in beauty by the life and art of ..Jimi Hendrix...then leave him alone and give YOUR unique art and life to the world...🌈
This topic is interesting it took 30 years for me to discover this. Roger mayer is right the signal is made by metal being magnetic. So the SQUARE dimension of a string it hasnt to do with it being round or square its a way to calculate mass. So thicker string more mass more output. So the sting was chosen not to be more bendable but even out the set. It took me a month to get used to this. You can actualy play more violently. And for the 4 major shaped chords its sounds more like the chord. G# is the third so its the major minor difference for this chord. So on a marschal at full blast more mass more output= more saturation. His style were fiddling around on the High string and do this bluesy roll off's those strings sound less bass heavy and cleaner. So its cuts better. To come up with this shows his ability not to embrace but genious ability to make it work. Billy Gibbons also using light gauges to have a brighter sounds that works better. You can also take the route of SRV and need more volume and headroom to accomplisch the same. But we all know how hard that is. He also genious he cuts the low end by using a Tube screamer. This seemingly stupid thing gets overlooked so much.
Kind of. Squaring a diameter would tell you the area of the cross-section (which isn't quite mass, but it gives you a feel for relative mass given that the material is the same) if a guitar string were square. But it isn't. Are of a circular cross-section like a guitar string is πr^2. The squaring the diameter thing is just nonsense. That doesn't mean the set is bad though! Lots of custom sets are fantastic even when the math doesn't work out to where they are "balanced." The real reason you see light gauge 3rd strings on electric guitars is that early electric guitars were made for a wound 3rd string as was typical, so early pickups were adjusted to get as much output from that string as possible, since a wound 3rd has the weakest output in a set. Once people started using plain 3rds, the output of a balanced 3rd string was wayyy too high on the same pickups. So you had to go lighter to make it sound more even.
Yes i understand, you are right. But mass is an important subject. Less mass and less magnetic pull from pure nickel= less output and less mass=less bass. What resulted in better sound with the bassman design the JTM 45 he used was really bass heavy. So not using a treble boost as they would do a few years later there is lots of talk about his gear and the scientific reasoning behind it. But better to experiment. I use a Kemper i still own amps but also that is a difference. I use a similar set it took me 6 years to find the perfect balance because. In those days strings were not quite as normalised as now. Also the diameter of fretboard was a huge deal. You needed the action to be higher than on a modern diameter fretboard of 16" To be able to bend the string and not choke out. So also staggered poles is different than what we have now. Also AlNiCo 5 has a different pull than more vintage PU's. So Squaring might not be the way to meisuring but all the before parameters sure affect tone a lot. So experimenting got me to a place were i feel confident to say it works for me. Hendrix used a lot of hammerons and pull off to embellish his chords. So the G string is the Third in a major and minor chord in a E shaped chord and the octave for a A and G shaped chord. So this way also the bass string needs to be smaller to accomodate for this difference on the 3 other shapes. Mostly he didn't use the A string as ground note in his voicings of the chords except for A shaped chords. Brilliant stuff that gets overlooked. If you think about the difficulty's SRV must have faced to have a similar sound. So i use 11- 13-16-24-32_42 . Modern dadario strings. It works for this style, its good to compensate. I dont think about it anymore. Less talk more play! @@Stringjoy
Hendrix tuned E b...........yes MAINLY for his voice "Electric Gypsy" is the best biography of Jimi Hendrix and he liked high action and light strings BECAUSE he wanted distortion and volume right out of his hands before the amp.
The most important impact scale length makes is on the tension of the strings. The longer the scale length, the higher the tension needs to be to bring the string up to pitch. A short scale length requires very little tension to bring the strings up to pitch when compared to a longer scale guitar. (copied and pasted) Then the cross sectional area of the strings formula is pi x rsquared, giving the squared element.
The output of a string is proportional to the volume of metal it vibrates within the magnetic field of the pick-up, which is proportional to the square of its radius (volume of a cylinder). So if strings go 10, 13, 15, 17, their output goes like 25, 42.25, 56.25, 72.25. There we see how a 15 is less over the top. Strat' pick-ups have no adjustable pole pieces and the old ones are staggered to compensate for a wound G string with thinner core and nickel around it. Fender had the "Hendrix" string set in its 1966 catalogue as "Spanish Guitar light gauge rock 'n roll No. 150" and stopped using staggered pick-ups in 1974.
THANK so much for saying this. I would add that the nickle alloy wrap has much less affect on the actual output level of the pickup compared to the steel core. Also the pickup is far more sensitive to the motion of the string towards and away from the pickup than across the pickup. This is easily proved with a steel tuning fork. I also disagree about string tension and length of string passed the nut.
For me he made whatever point he was trying to make rather pointless when he said Strat pickups have adjustable pole pieces which they definitely do not. You could put it down to a mistake but he's holding a Strat and looking at the non adjustable pole pieces as he says it.
I am no expert in maintaining balance in drop tuning, but the Jimi Hendrix string might possibly be useful for drop tuning? I don't know, and I don't know how to make the calculations...just a thought.
Nope, in fact that's the opposite of what you would want for drop-tuning. As a rule, if you're tuning lower, your gauge should go higher (or heavier). Hope that helps!
Mayer learned that from Clapton. Clapton has played that way forever. Both are great in their own right, but I'd go with Slow Hand, just my age I guess.
Wow. Way too much mathematical theory going on here. Crank up 3 Marshall stacks and string gauge becomes irrelevant- check Rick Beato's video comparing 8's to 10's or 11's. They all sound great. Pretty sure Jimi ended up using 9's (see the comment from @Mr Moji Risin').
I'm apparently in the minority, but other than the period of Are You Experienced, I've not been particularly obsessed with Hendrix. I reckon I can't think of a player I was really obsessed with. I like the sound of wound Gs, but they wear out quicker.
That and going by what was available at the time. There wasn't much choice in guitar string gauges or brands, and companies didn't really make "custom" or signature sets for individual guitarists back then, especially not for rock guitarists. You made do with what was available. Hendrix and many of his contemporaries used the Fender 150 "rock and roll" set, which was the most common light-gauge string set before Ernie Ball Slinkies become more widespread.
Correct-again there is a different phenomenon that occurs from the break angle being increased (such as is the case with top-wrapping a Les Paul), but no you can ignore the string length behind the bridge/nut with regard to string tension.
I figure cuz he played upside down and backwards, the added flexibility on bottom strings, which for him, is on the bottom of neck, maybe? He could bend them better being on bottom??
0.085 0.12 0.16 0.24 0.34 0.48 on my rg in standard, 0.09 0.12.5 0.17 0.26 0.36 0.50 on my strat half step down and 0.085 0.12 0.16 0.24 0.34 0.54 on my les paul in drop D ar my wonky gauges. lol
I know nothing about strings lol! I got some 10s from y’all. And i just Dont think im a 10s guy. Every time i play 9s i end up loving the vibrato i (a beginner) can get from them. I love the car you guys put into making strings. So im definitely going to give it another shot. But this time maybe ask for some help. I like the stability of 10s. But i have so much trouble putting any vibrato on them. Is there anything you guys would suggest? Like 10s that are easier to bend? Or even something in between 9s and 10s last i checked theres no 9 and 1/2 xD but who knows you guys are creative so i thought id ask
@@ultimaweapon991 LMAO I FEEL VERY SILLY NOW! thanks your the best! Ill be sure to check them out. I do however have a question though. In terms of bending would hexagonal cores be less flexible the round cores?
Thick strings belong on bass guitars. If you want an all around sound of Hendrix, Clapton, Trower just use Earny Ball 8 - 38s.....the best strings on the planet, period! So use your bass tone knob on your amp.
Jimi tuned down a half step but is also seen to use 5 springs in his Strat vibrato setup suggesting to me that he might have used heavy strings in reality.
On the topic of Hendrix using innovative gear, I 1000000000% believe that Hendrix would be playing EVERYTHING: meaning he would playing Axe-FX and guitars ranging from 6 string to 8 strings. Hell, he might have Ben been a fan of bands like Meshuggah, Tool, and Dream Theater if he was still alive.
I can't remember where I read this, but I heard that Jimi used only E standard at first, but then a roadie accidentally tuned his guitar to Eb standard. Jimi liked it and wrote at least some of his future songs in Eb standard.
Jimi always tuned his guitar a half step down because it was easier for him to sing to and it also made extreme bends easier (although he didn't really need the help, he had big strong fingers and could bend the low E on a bass as easily as the high E on a guitar). SRV also used the same half step down tuning to help accommodate his vocal range. All Hendrix studio albums used this tuning from Are You Experienced onward.
@@kkjhn41 how couId you possibly know that Jimi “always used” Eb tuning? You were always there with him from day 1? (There are actually several recorded Hendrix tunes that are dropped a whole step down).
you make me sick . he ajust signal of the string with gages , is that simple . his pickups are always up site down , so the pol piece for hes G was very slose to the string , that why he use lighter string
"Forums......where all of the experts hang out" 3:42 Bwahahaha, nice!!! Great video, thanks Scott.
Apparently in RUclips comments too!
Any conversion from a 1-dimensional measurement to a 2-dimensional measurement will involve some squaring operation. 100% of the time. Increased exponent = added dimension of measurement.
Example: string diameter to cross sectional area: pi x (diameter/2)^2. The squaring operation is right there in the formula.
This is a useful thing to know.
~~~
Here’s a puzzle that is easily solved with this intuition.
If a human was shrunk down to the size of a fly & placed into a blender, how could he escape?
Answer: He could just jump out.
This is because his mass (proportional to volume) decreases proportionally to the *cube* of his height (1 dimensional measurement, height -> 3 dimensional measurement, volume), while his muscular strength, given by the cross sectional area of his muscles, decreases proportionally to the *square* of his height (1 dimensional measurement, height -> 2 dimensional measurement, area).
Cubic functions grow and shrink much faster than square functions, therefore the shrinking human’s mass decreases much faster than his strength. Compared to a full-sized human, the fly-sized human has a lot more strength than he does mass. Thus, while I can only jump less than half of my height, the fly-sized human can easily jump a distance several times that of his own height.
Thanks for making this video. As you said in the beginning, Hendrix used whatever was available. Fender's "Rock & Roll" No.150 set (.010 - .038) (which he did use) was available since 1966 and was never discontinued in his time.
The big core to wrap ratio was not a cost-cutting measure as the wound strings were also rolled to reduce finger and bar (slide) noise (and they don't sound bad). GHS' Nickel Rockers are very similar in construction (and possibly derived from Fender's sets).
Also, balance is not just about tension. What Fender probably tried to do was put together a light gauge set with balanced volume through the staggered pickups.
i remember buying a set of Fender Rock&Roll strings in the 80s before i heard about Jimi using them
I think that's it, the completely unbalanced tension of that Fender set was probably a workaround to accommodate the fixed staggered pole pieces. Those were arranged to balance out a set with a wound 3rd and a proportionally lighter 5th and 6th, so they had to make some awkward changes to lighter sets.
Rory Gallagher used fender rock in rollers
Ernie Ball and GHS were the ones who made strings for Fender in those days. As many brands who made speakers with Fender logo for their combos.
@@leonardo.rafael The manufacturer was V.C.Squier which Fender bought before Ernie Ball or GHS (started by two former V. C. Squier employees) were established (around 1964).
The square of the diameter (or actually the square radius) is important because the volume of the string is π r² h. The volume of the string determines the weight of the string and the weight of the sting determines how much tension you have to put on the string to get a certain frequency.
Maybe on an acoustic guitar…
Scott from @Stringjoy - a boutique guitar string manufacturer - really put his foot in his mouth on this one 😂
It makes sense too, the thicker a rubber band is, the more tension it will need in order to hit a given note.
Well, Force equals mass times acceleration. So light strings are easier to play, but have less sustain. Tensile Strength also relies on the cross section of the material (=The thiccness of the string). Thats why you shoulden't put them chonky bois on a Gibson if you don´t know what you are doing.
So yeah, in the end it´s just good ol' physics.
Kinda funny that i started playing to have a balance to mechanical engineering but the deeper i dig the more it comes back to me...
There are other dynamics involved such as the alloy used and the Diameter of the windings on the E A D strings relative to the core string.
@@SuperFruitbat1 For sure. I'm thinking that Roger Mayer uses the square of the diameter as an estimate and not to get an exact value.
one would also point out that greats Albert Lee and Danny Gatton played Ernie ball 10s with the swapped .15 for the G as well. So i guess there's something to be said of less G in the mix on fixed pole pickups, and/or just having bends for days.
The area of circle is 'proportional' to the square of the diameter. When we talk about proportionality in mathematics, we say two variables ( in this case, the cross sectional area of a circle and the diameter of a circle) are 'proportional', if this mathematical relationship follows: V1=KxV2 or A= KxD^2. Where K is a constant (a number the does not change).
Ok, so we know that the area of a circle equals pi ( approx. 3.14) times the radius of the circle squared. Or, in terms of the diameter; pi times the square of the diameter divided by 4. So in this case K equals pi divided by 4, which is a constant. Therefore, The statement: The area of the string is proportional to the square of the radius is true. You don't need to know that value of K to look at the relationships of the area of the strings because the areas are all proportional to the square of the diameters .
If we square the diameter of the 1st string let's call it 10 (it's actually .010, but that doesn't matter as long as we multiply all the other diameters by 1000.) 10 squared equals 100. The 2nd string is a 13, 13 squared is 169. So, Roger Mayer is saying the the increase in electrical output from the 1st string to the 2nd string is 69%. It doesn't matter that we don't actually know the true value of cross sectional areas of the string. Because we treat both numbers the same. We multiplied both of them by 1000. And we divided out the constant pi/4. The proportion relationship of the area of the 2 strings remains in tact. The area of the 2nd string is 69% larger than the area of the 1st sting. We don't need to know what the actual areas are.
Not that any of this really will help your guitar playing, but music is actually very mathematical.
What?
@@Stefan-Van-der-Pulst he's saying that when you say something is the "square" for comparative purposes, it doesn't matter what constants you apply to the calculation. He's talking about how power _scales_, not getting an absolute value for power output, so constant factors are irrelevant.
For a simple example, if I say that person a is twice as tall as person b, then it doesn't matter if I say that they are 3ft and 6ft tall, or .914m and 1.83m tall, or even if I say that person A is 4.57 bananas tall, and person B is 9.14 bananas tall; whatever constant I apply, the _ratio_ (person B being twice as tall) stays the same.
So, similarly if you say that power output scales with the square of the diameter, or the square of the radius, or pi r squared, that's all the same thing; it's just applying different constants - diameter is just twice the radius, so the constant factor of 2 is irrelevant, as is multiplying by pi. Diameter squared and pi*r^2 are, when talking in ratios/comparisons rather than absolute quantities, exactly the same thing. Basically, what the dude said at 5:55 in this video is nonsense. When he said "I really don't understand" he was right though 😅
@@Muzikman127 Thanks....... I guess. 😬🤔
@@Stefan-Van-der-Pulst I have a feeling that this didn't help so much 😅
@@Stefan-Van-der-Pulst feel free to ask any questions if I can help 🙂🙃
Hendrix tuned Eb so that is less tension also
Hendrix tuned E b...........yes for his voice
I'm an old bastard so I remember the Fender strings with those gauges and if my memory is correct they were simply called Fender Rock and Roll Strings. They were very popular way back in the day. Probably the best seller. You didn't have to lower the bass side of your pickups with those strings like you do now and I believe those strings were not as loud as modern strings. I could be wrong but that's how I remember them.
Buyers of the official jimi hendrix brand product don't get limited to 1 set of strings.
Its Perfectly acceptable to choose and use super slinky sets of strings.
Also worth remember is the when Jimi bent his top E and B strings, the G would be bent with them. Therefore if the G's only a 0.15 it will make bending the E & B strings significantly easier...
The actual size on the 68' Black Strat with the same strings on it Jimi had on (now in possession of Uli Jon Roth)Fender rock n' roll strings, light gauge size .10-.38, switched the .10 for a .09, that was the actual size on his 1968 "Black Beauty" Strat that Monika Danemann had for 26+ years & now belongs to the great Uli Lon Roth who was her longtime boyfriend. The guitar still had or has the original strings that Jimi had on them & there was a very in depth article which can be found online on the guitar where the strings were measured & the contents of the case were listed in detail. Thats about as accurate as you can find on his actual string gauge.
Well the official jimi hendrix brand has made all that irrelevant in 2022.
We're not going backwards in our life.
The owners club are moving forward. You're Wasting your time struggling in the past.
You're 30 years behind us.
Uli may have an old guitar but we own everything else including the 1990's jimi hendrix official sound.
And the 2000's official jimi hendrix sounds. Etc. Etc.
This is ridiculous man. You're directly paraphrasing an article and claiming things aren't true that actually are (just misreading them?). Yes, the electrical output IS proportional to the square of the string gauge. Okay now if you reread that a few times you'll see that bringing up "square strings" completely overlooks the physics of how pickups turn string vibration into an electrical signal and makes a superficial observation that leads to a wrong answer. Remember, you're paraphrasing an engineer.
I stopped watching at that point.
yeah, dude. I don't know if I can buy strings from someone this dumb.
Been rewatching the X-files so really appreciated "the truth is out there" link which led me here!!
So, pi*d^2./4 is the area.
We know that pi/4 does not change so can be considered a constant, leaving the diameter squared as the main variable in the equation.
Simplifying the equation like this is an example of a "rule of thumb" that many older engineers use on the fly to allow them to make percentage based comparisons faster, in some cases without the use of a calculator.
If a number is squared in an equation it makes a difference on the resulting percentage when making a comparison, so we can't compared the diameter alone, it must be squared first.
I once as a kid asked my classical guitar teacher why the low 3 were metal while the top 3 were nylon. He said the metal was to add mass, or weight, to the low strings so that they vibrated slower without having to wind down the tension. Ive used this rule of thumb in selecting guages for recording songs that are bottom or top light or heavy and it hasnt failed me
I have been following jimi's music for 51 years & studing all his video footage. I may be wrong but I will never know for sure but I believe the undersize G was very helpful in his soloing & in particular his reverse bends which he used alot in his playing. He would start with the string bent up & let it down to get his reverse note efect which was realitivly new at the time .
not really, you can't adjust the poles on the strats , yeh you can move the pickup, but Jimi was playing lefty , so his pickups were studied to work the other way around, plus the magnets have different lenght too, that's one of the reason they choosed to modify a bit the gauge
In 2022 there's over 100 official jimi hendrix sounds available to buy and use.
Buy the official right-hand version to use.
There's no problem in 2022.
You're allowed to use different sets of strings.
Sign up And buy into the brand and you're good to go.
You just keep hurting yourself and we'll keep living the life.
I use 8 11 14 22 32 42 and 52 on a 7 string
My hands have thanked me ever since
Hey Billy Gibbons uses the same 6 strings. Hell some say he may even play a 7 for 1st string.
Gee, what a coincidence. Jimi played mostly a Strat at the same time that Fender came out with their very first light gauge 10-38 set. At least in my area (pre-internet) this Fender no150 set (different gauges today) was the first plain 3rd light gauge set available, period. Were Ernie Balls available at the same time? Maybe, but not in my area music stores. I used them but I thought these gauges were weird even back then. A .038 6th string?? I thought the top three sting gauges were just fine.
Before this Fender set, I was using the old banjo trick. I used a Banjo 1st sting, ball end (.009 or .010) and then dropped in the 1st to 5th strings from a regular gauge Back Diamond set (I'm talking gauges more like a light gauge acoustic set).
I'd be surprised if Jimi didn't actually use the Fenders but then again I don't really care. I did see Hendrix live and in many You Tube videos. He was out of tune about half the time and spent the other half tuning.
You're so right. In many (most?) of the live recordings we have he's wildly out of tune. To be fair he was probably dropping acid too, so...
I've played 10-38 and they don't go out of tune any more than any other set.
Fender 150 light were what was available at the time.. I used 10-38 FenderL150. I really like the 38 on top espesially on my 335, and on a Les Paul it was more slinky. In the late 60's and mid 70's they sold for about $3.50 a set !
According to Jimi you're holding that guitar upside down!!
Ha! Very true...
And according to jimi you'd just go buy the right-hand jimi hendrix brand guitar.
He was talking about 𝝅r2
the area of the diameter of the string. The numbers make a lot more sense when you look at them that way as opposed to gauge. The same goes for electrical wires.
Total speculation on my part, but I did wonder if Hendrix's left-hand technique of using his thumb to fret the 6th string was associated with playing a lighter string gauge than normal. Not saying that it's the reason, but it would seem to me to facilitate fretting with the the thumb.
The Sustain on the Stringjoy Broadways is unreal, I was like WhA! My noise gate doesn’t cut off my sustain either, which really surprised me. I also measured the voltage being fed into the speaker from the amp and there was a very slight increase when I switched from SIT strings to Broadways. I know Nickel sounds weaker but the pickups do pick up more from the nickel strings.
The Fender Rock’n’roll 150 sets was what Jimi used and I don’t think he had much to do with it.
Hendrix used to bend a lot that G string with his first finger and the lighter gauge might have helped a lot.
try it for yourself it makes a lot of sense ;) and that’s the only way to play some of Hendrix’s licks the proper way anyway.
Also because of the staggered pickup pole magnets which have D and G raised, the .015 helps having a better string to string balance.
Duane Allman as well as Rory Gallagher were also using those same exact strings.
I have just tried out my first set of Stringjoy strings and love them so much that I am going to re string my other instruments with them ;)
"The length doesn't matter nearly as much..." That what she said!
Very beautiful looking Fender, great video! 🤘🏻
You forgot that Jimmy tuned 1/2 note down!
I've been playing Hendrix gauged strings for a while and what I noticed right away was the low end wasn't as intense which tends to happen with a cranked marshall stack. Even with the bass all the way off it's very easy to collide with bass frequencies playing through a loud marshall stack and I think having a lower gauge E and A really helps keep some distance between those frequencies. For the G string well just listen to band of gypsies album. When he bends that G it just sounds so spooky. That twangy sounding bend really catches my ears! When we're talking Hendrix tone we're talking cranked marshall stacks! This may not have been a reason, this could all be bs but I can bet Hendrix experimented with different gauges through a cranked marshall stack at some point. There's a whole new world of tone when your cranked up that loud. P.S. If I had a dollar for everytime I said marshall stack I'd have 5 dollars.
I'm starting to dislike the sound of my Stratocaster through a Marshall amp. The low end is too breathy and lacks heft and meatiness. I'm thinking a plunking an EMG-85 into the neck pickup hole.
@@RStevenPage its designed to not have a low end.
It was taken away at the factory.
The eMG is just a pick up so that won't change anything.
You have to buy into a different brand philosophy.
Buyers of the official jimi hendrix brand product can use any brand string they want.
@@dreyn7780 I know. I'm heading back to Les Paul-land.
The areas of the cross sections of the string is what we should be comparing. And the area of the cross section is pi times radius squared. So for strings measured by diameter the relative signal strength compared between strings is proportional to the diameter / 2, squared.. Comparing string diameters won't cut it. . However, wound strings sometime have air tiny gaps around their core so things don't quite hold compared to plain strings but it's probably close enough for government work. Obviously pickup pole heights, position and pickup types will factor into relative volumes. Even your amp, pedals or mixer will have a significant effect. I guess the best thing to do is just try things until you get the sound or even just the feel you want. Me I just stick to 008s to 038s.
:51 Preach it! I totally agree.
I never really got into Hendrix, but it’s always interesting to see what works for other players. I personally could never go lower than a regular 10-46 set for standard, at least for the low strings. I don’t really like low tension and use Jazz III picks which are on the heavy side
You will the older you get, I went from 12's to 11's and then 10's, now I'm at 9's. Gibbons plays 8's. Just what happens, when you get older arthritis sets in joints of the hands and wrist. If I could back I'd start at 9's, plus it has been proven it doesn't improve your sound, it's a myth. Now if you're an aggressive player and play hard as hell, I can see it maybe. Rick Beteo( may have misspelled) has a video on it, check it out. 🤘
@@dalton7145 You’re probably right, and I think I would like 9.5s. I thought about trying them next time I change strings. 9s are a little too light at the moment
@@dalton7145 Rick Beato, yeah. He has a video on it and then I think Rhett Schull does as well
You're At least 30 years behind lots of guitarists. and the industry.
When You say hendrix we're not really sure what you're talking about cause you're so far behind.
The brand has been around for 30 years.
People keep disrespecting brands and its at your peril.
You're the 1 who's missing out by listening to guitarist gossip.
Its Disrespectful to even say to the buyers of JH brand product that there's a set of strings which JH used.
If you buy into the official brand YOU GET MORE OPTIONS, not less.
We got the choice to use 100 different sets of strings.
We're NOT limited to 1 set.
You have a problem and that's because you're 30 years behind everyone else.
Fender vintage staggered pole pieces were for pure nickel flatwound strings with wound g string. So, if you put plain g string, your g string should be thinner to get right volume. Or, your g string would be too loud.
They were called Fender Original-150's. Jimi already used them and Roger Mayer admitted that originally. But a few years later, I think he may have needed to elevate his importance to Jimi's sound and he added some details, none of us understand. Jimi was already using them.... that's the truth. Original-150's, I believe those were the lightest gauge sets of the mid-1960's. A lot of people were playing flat wound strings and they were pretty heavy and sounded dead, even when brand new. Fender made the 150's up until 2012. The Fender-150's also came in normal 010, 009 and 008 typically gauged sets too. Typical gauged sets were called Fender 150's, but the set gauged like Jimi's were called Fender Original 150s. I still have one set from 2012 that I haven't used yet.
Currently I'm finding, with 10 13 17 26 36 46, that the two heavy strings, A + E, just seem too fat...
My hands and mind just feel like they are cumbersome...
Just ordered 2 new sets, standard gauges, but each a bit unique, for experimentation- one is pure Nickel, the other has wound G. I'm going to use them thoroughly (waste not want not), but I'm already thinking ahead to trying a thinner A + E in the future. Maybe 34,42.
Thing is, I'm not a guitar tech, and I'm hoping to enjoy nice intonation doing nothing more than saddle adjustments (which I might be able to handle on my own, unless a saddle reaches one end and cannot go any further...) 🙂
im always excited when your vidoe comes out..
Jimi may have experimented with violin strings .
I'd bet that it came down to how he like the tone. Brightness where he wanted it, and tightness where he needed it.
tension...lol
the string of a certain diameter, tuned to a certain pitch at a certain scale length (distance from NUT to SADDLE!) is always going to be the same. the length behind the nut or saddle, break angle, etc won't change any of that.
Loads of players played that set (e.g. Clapton, Rory Gallagher, Albert Collins). Great gauge for Strats
Thanks Scott, love Springjoy!
What period though? I just watched that Chemlsford gig. He's definitely using a really heavy string gauge. Something like 13's.
That notion that it is not square but some spherical thing got me on. If you think the string movement at magnet pole position which is the meaningful place the upper part of string has less effect than lower portion. String is also rolling which adds to create all kinds of interesting tones. No wonder why there is so many million different tones even from acoustically played electric.Also when string is first picked it has very complex noise like initial pulse which then evens or smooths to the frequency at hand. Bo Diddley style comping is playing with start phase of initial pulse smoothing out.
I always wondered if Fender brought these string gauges out to "fix" the intonation on an original Telecaster bridge (which they do, funnily enough), Leo was an engineer after all, not a musician.☯️👍
Hey everybody, the guys at stringjoy know more than Hendrix’s guitar tech. To the point of laughter
I like discussions of strings. I've learned that with vintage style Fender staggered pole Strat pickups, the key to a balanced G is a wound .018. Ernie Ball makes one. Completely improved intonation, tuning, and volume. The G is the highest pole piece on the pickup because the wound G actually has the thinnest steel core of any string in the set.
I like the 10-38 Hendrix set, but the .038 is very floppy even in standard tuning.
I think 10 13 18w 26 36 46 is probably the best set for me personally.
Fender vintage staggered pole pieces were for pure nickel flatwound strings. Ernie ball's .018w is not pure nickel. It's nickel plated. So, it won't work either.
At the first time, factory setup string was thick(.013-.056 or .012-.054). So, because g string was wound, g string pole piece went up. But, players found that lower gauge string has more sustain and is easy to play. So, people's decided lower gauge and g string is not wound anymore. That is why fender made string set with smaller g string for 7.25 radius vintage staggered pole pieces. It gives better volume balance btw strings.
@zitn88 it does work. Try it. Much better than an unwound G.
@@joeltunnah It's nickel plated steel. So .018w is not the thinnest steel. Actually it's thicker than B and E string. It's inevitable. I'm sorry. You need nickle pure wound string or go thinner plain string for g string like Fender and Jimi Hendrix did.
@@zitnbit you must be thinking of different Ernie Ball strings. Here's what is says on mine:
"Ernie Ball Slinky Classic Rock N Roll Pure Nickel wrap electric guitar strings are made from pure nickel wire wrapped around tin plated hex shaped steel core wire, these guitar strings produce a warm rich tone with that signature Slinky feel."
@@joeltunnah I know. And there is no 18w for pure nickel wound string. You said your g is .018w. So it is nickel plated.
because of you i have learn so much abut guitar
i watch you for the first time and i love the way you explain..
...your sound is in your hands..full-stop...the universe already has a..JIMI...now the world needs YOU..your sound..your vision....be inspired to create in beauty by the life and art of ..Jimi Hendrix...then leave him alone and give YOUR unique art and life to the world...🌈
Love this comment.
Thank you for this.
i have just started playing guitar..
This topic is interesting it took 30 years for me to discover this. Roger mayer is right the signal is made by metal being magnetic. So the SQUARE dimension of a string it hasnt to do with it being round or square its a way to calculate mass. So thicker string more mass more output. So the sting was chosen not to be more bendable but even out the set. It took me a month to get used to this. You can actualy play more violently. And for the 4 major shaped chords its sounds more like the chord. G# is the third so its the major minor difference for this chord. So on a marschal at full blast more mass more output= more saturation. His style were fiddling around on the High string and do this bluesy roll off's those strings sound less bass heavy and cleaner. So its cuts better. To come up with this shows his ability not to embrace but genious ability to make it work. Billy Gibbons also using light gauges to have a brighter sounds that works better. You can also take the route of SRV and need more volume and headroom to accomplisch the same. But we all know how hard that is. He also genious he cuts the low end by using a Tube screamer. This seemingly stupid thing gets overlooked so much.
Kind of. Squaring a diameter would tell you the area of the cross-section (which isn't quite mass, but it gives you a feel for relative mass given that the material is the same) if a guitar string were square. But it isn't. Are of a circular cross-section like a guitar string is πr^2. The squaring the diameter thing is just nonsense.
That doesn't mean the set is bad though! Lots of custom sets are fantastic even when the math doesn't work out to where they are "balanced."
The real reason you see light gauge 3rd strings on electric guitars is that early electric guitars were made for a wound 3rd string as was typical, so early pickups were adjusted to get as much output from that string as possible, since a wound 3rd has the weakest output in a set. Once people started using plain 3rds, the output of a balanced 3rd string was wayyy too high on the same pickups. So you had to go lighter to make it sound more even.
Yes i understand, you are right. But mass is an important subject. Less mass and less magnetic pull from pure nickel= less output and less mass=less bass. What resulted in better sound with the bassman design the JTM 45 he used was really bass heavy. So not using a treble boost as they would do a few years later there is lots of talk about his gear and the scientific reasoning behind it. But better to experiment. I use a Kemper i still own amps but also that is a difference. I use a similar set it took me 6 years to find the perfect balance because. In those days strings were not quite as normalised as now. Also the diameter of fretboard was a huge deal. You needed the action to be higher than on a modern diameter fretboard of 16" To be able to bend the string and not choke out. So also staggered poles is different than what we have now. Also AlNiCo 5 has a different pull than more vintage PU's. So Squaring might not be the way to meisuring but all the before parameters sure affect tone a lot. So experimenting got me to a place were i feel confident to say it works for me. Hendrix used a lot of hammerons and pull off to embellish his chords. So the G string is the Third in a major and minor chord in a E shaped chord and the octave for a A and G shaped chord. So this way also the bass string needs to be smaller to accomodate for this difference on the 3 other shapes. Mostly he didn't use the A string as ground note in his voicings of the chords except for A shaped chords. Brilliant stuff that gets overlooked. If you think about the difficulty's SRV must have faced to have a similar sound. So i use 11- 13-16-24-32_42 . Modern dadario strings. It works for this style, its good to compensate. I dont think about it anymore. Less talk more play!
@@Stringjoy
Wonder what gauge on the shorted scaled flying v?
Hendrix tuned E b...........yes MAINLY for his voice
"Electric Gypsy" is the best biography of Jimi Hendrix
and
he liked high action and light strings BECAUSE
he wanted distortion and volume right out of his hands before the amp.
I believe he tuned e flat was his influences, and blues guitarist used e flat all the time. Still do.
I love my locking Tuners! I always leave some slack to turn. I dig your Badcat Amp. I had an original Badcat Hotcat 30. It was terrific!
The most important impact scale length makes is on the tension of the strings. The longer the scale length, the higher the tension needs to be to bring the string up to pitch. A short scale length requires very little tension to bring the strings up to pitch when compared to a longer scale guitar.
(copied and pasted) Then the cross sectional area of the strings formula is pi x rsquared, giving the squared element.
The output of a string is proportional to the volume of metal it vibrates within the magnetic field of the pick-up, which is proportional to the square of its radius (volume of a cylinder).
So if strings go 10, 13, 15, 17, their output goes like 25, 42.25, 56.25, 72.25.
There we see how a 15 is less over the top. Strat' pick-ups have no adjustable pole pieces and the old ones are staggered to compensate for a wound G string with thinner core and nickel around it.
Fender had the "Hendrix" string set in its 1966 catalogue as "Spanish Guitar light gauge rock 'n roll No. 150" and stopped using staggered pick-ups in 1974.
THANK so much for saying this. I would add that the nickle alloy wrap has much less affect on the actual output level of the pickup compared to the steel core. Also the pickup is far more sensitive to the motion of the string
towards and away from the pickup than across the pickup. This is easily proved with a steel tuning fork. I also disagree about string tension and length of string passed the nut.
For me he made whatever point he was trying to make rather pointless when he said Strat pickups have adjustable pole pieces which they definitely do not. You could put it down to a mistake but he's holding a Strat and looking at the non adjustable pole pieces as he says it.
I thought he used a bango string on the high E...
I am no expert in maintaining balance in drop tuning, but the Jimi Hendrix string might possibly be useful for drop tuning?
I don't know, and I don't know how to make the calculations...just a thought.
Nope, in fact that's the opposite of what you would want for drop-tuning. As a rule, if you're tuning lower, your gauge should go higher (or heavier). Hope that helps!
I thought I will try some of these strings, but not like Hendricks. I'm a ten man. I love 12s but my hands get tired faster.
Mayer learned that from Clapton. Clapton has played that way forever. Both are great in their own right, but I'd go with Slow Hand, just my age I guess.
He used what felt right
learned so much from you..
keep up the good work
Wow. Way too much mathematical theory going on here. Crank up 3 Marshall stacks and string gauge becomes irrelevant- check Rick Beato's video comparing 8's to 10's or 11's. They all sound great. Pretty sure Jimi ended up using 9's (see the comment from @Mr Moji Risin').
...exactly....all new Be gtr b.s
i love watching ur videos
how log your playing guitar..?
amazing content
I'm apparently in the minority, but other than the period of Are You Experienced, I've not been particularly obsessed with Hendrix. I reckon I can't think of a player I was really obsessed with. I like the sound of wound Gs, but they wear out quicker.
How do we even know his guages? Is it just Roger's memory?
Yes, but Roger was his tech so he would know
@Stringjoy when did Roger first share the string info? Years after Jimi's death? Was Roger his guitar tech? Or his electronic tech?
That and going by what was available at the time. There wasn't much choice in guitar string gauges or brands, and companies didn't really make "custom" or signature sets for individual guitarists back then, especially not for rock guitarists. You made do with what was available.
Hendrix and many of his contemporaries used the Fender 150 "rock and roll" set, which was the most common light-gauge string set before Ernie Ball Slinkies become more widespread.
@@yayayaokoksure Mayer toured with Jimi along the United States. It is impossible he hasnt know.
So the amount of string behind the nut of the guitar has no effect on tension?
Correct-again there is a different phenomenon that occurs from the break angle being increased (such as is the case with top-wrapping a Les Paul), but no you can ignore the string length behind the bridge/nut with regard to string tension.
@@Stringjoy the phenomenon that you mention, is that mostly for tuning stability or do you think that could effect the "slinkyness" of the string?
take a look at epiphon tailpiece on some hollow bodies and ask yourself why its made with two different lenght pieces
@@marcorighini6201scale length is between the nut and bridge, period.
I figure cuz he played upside down and backwards, the added flexibility on bottom strings, which for him, is on the bottom of neck, maybe? He could bend them better being on bottom??
He didn't play upside down, he restrung his guitar so that the low E was on top like normal.
0.085 0.12 0.16 0.24 0.34 0.48 on my rg in standard, 0.09 0.12.5 0.17 0.26 0.36 0.50 on my strat half step down and 0.085 0.12 0.16 0.24 0.34 0.54 on my les paul in drop D ar my wonky gauges. lol
I know nothing about strings lol! I got some 10s from y’all. And i just Dont think im a 10s guy. Every time i play 9s i end up loving the vibrato i (a beginner) can get from them. I love the car you guys put into making strings. So im definitely going to give it another shot. But this time maybe ask for some help. I like the stability of 10s. But i have so much trouble putting any vibrato on them. Is there anything you guys would suggest? Like 10s that are easier to bend? Or even something in between 9s and 10s last i checked theres no 9 and 1/2 xD but who knows you guys are creative so i thought id ask
I don't know if you're aware but there are in fact 9.5 gauge sets but they're in the custom set page, sounds like 9.5 is just what you're looking for
@@ultimaweapon991 LMAO I FEEL VERY SILLY NOW! thanks your the best! Ill be sure to check them out. I do however have a question though. In terms of bending would hexagonal cores be less flexible the round cores?
this controversy is insane
8:15 or maybe Jimi took the idea from Roger Mayer?
This video is super-quiet.
The area of a circle is pi times the radius squared. Just an FYI.
Yes
was this is very difficult to learn?
But were his strings upside down?
To a righty they would be but not for a lefty.
Controversy??? Huh?
keep it up..
Roger Mayer's understanding goes well beyond yours.. Stick to things you know.
Thick strings belong on bass guitars. If you want an all around sound of Hendrix, Clapton, Trower just use Earny Ball 8 - 38s.....the best strings on the planet, period! So use your bass tone knob on your amp.
Jimi tuned down a half step but is also seen to use 5 springs in his Strat vibrato setup suggesting to me that he might have used heavy strings in reality.
Those five Springs held the tremolo flat against his guitar. His bridge wasn't floating. He probably did it for the increase and sustain.
omg is this for real?
Interesting indeed, but good that the distortion has been developed to the better because that shitty old-timey scrappy dist is deplorable😖
Lol, that fuzz was made in 2017. Sputtery fuzz is not for everybody, but many people love it (me included!)
done subscribed to ur channel
On the topic of Hendrix using innovative gear, I 1000000000% believe that Hendrix would be playing EVERYTHING: meaning he would playing Axe-FX and guitars ranging from 6 string to 8 strings. Hell, he might have Ben been a fan of bands like Meshuggah, Tool, and Dream Theater if he was still alive.
how did ulearn this?
who is ur inspiration?
I can't remember where I read this, but I heard that Jimi used only E standard at first, but then a roadie accidentally tuned his guitar to Eb standard. Jimi liked it and wrote at least some of his future songs in Eb standard.
Jimi always tuned his guitar a half step down because it was easier for him to sing to and it also made extreme bends easier (although he didn't really need the help, he had big strong fingers and could bend the low E on a bass as easily as the high E on a guitar). SRV also used the same half step down tuning to help accommodate his vocal range. All Hendrix studio albums used this tuning from Are You Experienced onward.
@@kkjhn41 Oh, that's interesting. Maybe both stories are true.
I think he used other reference frequencies (maybe accidentally) in addition to 440 Hz.
@@kkjhn41 how couId you possibly know that Jimi “always used” Eb tuning? You were always there with him from day 1?
(There are actually several recorded Hendrix tunes that are dropped a whole step down).
i can watch him all day long..
you make me sick . he ajust signal of the string with gages , is that simple . his pickups are always up site down , so the pol piece for hes G was very slose to the string , that why he use lighter string
Now why you get down on him from jump your not cool
Without allowing for the fact Hendrix played with the guitar flipped over, this info is useless.
this was mentioned in the video.
Very much covered this in the video.
Flipping the guitar over makes zero difference to scale length and string tension.
White boy has no rhythm in the “only Hendrix” song he knows🤷🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️
Your very disrespectful to him
Guys is so cute,..
such topics are very boring
Throw that amp in the garbage can- sounds terrible.