If the strings are slack on your guitar....

...and tuned to concert pitch, what does this mean?

one of my teles has a far more slack feel to the strings than my esquire and paisley tele, even though they all have 10's on.

ive just swapped the bridge out on my strat too (piezo to vintage), and the strings feel slack on there now too.

going to attempt just now to sort them, know the action isnt right on either but the lower i go, the more string buzz im going to get.

There are a lot of theories out there about why some guitars are stiffer playing than others, but no one really seems to know. I find straightening the neck tends to make them play more loosely, but beyond that it's a mystery.

The scale length, radius, bridge type, nut height, neck adjustment, string size, and age of the strings all have something to do with how "rigid" or "loose" the feel of the strings and action are.

Do they all have the same Brand of strings on them? I'll put my GHS Nickel's up against your Black Diamonds or anything esle for ease of playing.

A question for the ages, I've had identicle teles, in every respect, same setup, bridges, nut adjustments, neck relief, radius, string heigth, string guage, brand of strings, frets types, shimming the neck angle on and on etc. etc.....
and still the string tension or slack as you call it is significantly different.
That's one of those kooky variables that I learned to let go, even with my overly obsessive nature, it's just one of those things in life that just are what they are.
Some guitars, teles or otherwise are just stiffers!
Great question though.
I'd love to hear a definetive answer that actually works in that situation, but I gave up pondering that imponderable a long time ago.

I dont believe for one minute thas this cant be explained.Apart from the obvious , different string type , scale lenghts etc , I believe one critical aspect is the break angle over the nut and saddles. All the toploader teles I have played have had a slinkier feel to them. This can only be because the strings go over the saddles at a shallower angle , than on a string through.
All the usual things like action height , neck straightness , string height at the nut etc , will play a big role in how the guitar feels to play...

What about the magnetic pull of pickups that are too close to the strings?

one thing I have found is that if the nut is too high the strings will feel stiffer.

I'm just thinking aloud here so don't take this as fact, but I'm just working through it:

String tension for a given thickness of string - provided the string is new and it's yield value is equally distributed throughout the string length and that value is known, can be calculated and must therefore be whatever it is. We don't measure the string tension with a strain gauge so we rely on our hands and fingers to tell us.
I would therefore think it more likely that the fit of your hand to the neck profile changes the leverage and efficiency of your fingers to manipulate the strings, thus appearing to give different string tensions, when in fact it's only that you have to work harder.
Could that be the case?
On your favourite guitar, try playing and then shifting your palm behind the neck up by just a few mm. You'll feel the difference that such a tiny change can make. Maybe...:rolleyes:

I'm just thinking aloud here so don't take this as fact, but I'm just working through it:

String tension for a given thickness of string - provided the string is new and it's yield value is equally distributed throughout the string length and that value is known, can be calculated and must therefore be whatever it is. We don't measure the string tension with a strain gauge so we rely on our hands and fingers to tell us.
I would therefore think it more likely that the fit of your hand to the neck profile changes the leverage and efficiency of your fingers to manipulate the strings, thus appearing to give different string tensions, when in fact it's only that you have to work harder.
Could that be the case?
On your favourite guitar, try playing and then shifting your palm behind the neck up by just a few mm. You'll feel the difference that such a tiny change can make. Maybe...:rolleyes:

That's a cool idea. I like it, I think you're on to something. :cool:

If all the other criteria are pretty closely matched, then the human element is the next item to inquire about. I address certain guitars in a different fashion and while they are tools I also associate certain traits to one guitar over another and semi-consciously look for ways to let those traits come forward and that can be just as important as the relatively small actual physical differences. It can exaggerate those differences.

I'm not saying "it is all in your mind". I think if you were very tired or spaced out and you picked up guitar "A" thinking it was guitar "B" and poured your heart into it, it would probably end up sounding like a little of "A", a little of "B" and a lot of something else altogether.

Spoken like a true philosopher !

I'm just thinking aloud here so don't take this as fact, but I'm just working through it:

String tension for a given thickness of string - provided the string is new and it's yield value is equally distributed throughout the string length and that value is known, can be calculated and must therefore be whatever it is. We don't measure the string tension with a strain gauge so we rely on our hands and fingers to tell us.
I would therefore think it more likely that the fit of your hand to the neck profile changes the leverage and efficiency of your fingers to manipulate the strings, thus appearing to give different string tensions, when in fact it's only that you have to work harder.
Could that be the case?
On your favourite guitar, try playing and then shifting your palm behind the neck up by just a few mm. You'll feel the difference that such a tiny change can make. Maybe...:rolleyes:


I think a good way to measure the difference in tension of your strings on individual guitars would be with an accurate fish scale. Pick a spot on the fretboard, directly over the twelvth fret would probably be the best spot. Hook the fish sacle around a string at that point and see how much tension it takes to pull the string away from the fretboard a given distance. Say, 3/8 of an inch to 1/2 inch. Record the reading on the scale. Do this on all the guitars you're checking. Then compare your readings. Obviously this isn't a super accurate method, a fo' real tension guage would be best probably, but you might find something out...

I was surprised at how light the strings on my tele felt. All my other guitars have the shorter gibson scale length, so for the same string guage and pitch, you need to have a higher tension. I was expecting the strings to feel tighter, but instead they felt a lot lighter, as if I had gone down a string guage. Odd huh?

Break angle over the bridge is definitely a factor. I proved that to myself on a Les Paul with a stop tailpiece -- raised the tailpiece, it got MUCH slinkier.

I've also noticed that guitars with a lot of string BEHIND the bridge (like Rics and Jazzmasters) will usually be slinkier than other guitars with the same scale length.

In the case of two pretty similar Teles, though, I really don't know. All I can say is, some necks just feel magical.

That makes sense. I've got some catenary lighting in the office and over a short length I can tension the wire to get it straight, but over a longer length the cable would snap before it ever looses the droop. So the tension has to increase over a longer length between fixed points - tailpiece and tuners (not scale length), so the string tension will reach pitch before the sag in the strings is gone, making it feel floppy. Just being supported by a nut and bridge won't change this overall tension, unless the break angle is such that it forms a buttress.

Thinking more about it, (I should have been born clever, instead of being a village idiot) the amount of string wound onto the tuner post must also influence this. In theory, the more turns of string on the post, the lighter the action.

That makes sense. I've got some catenary lighting in the office and over a short length I can tension the wire to get it straight, but over a longer length the cable would snap before it ever looses the droop. So the tension has to increase over a longer length between fixed points - tailpiece and tuners (not scale length), so the string tension will reach pitch before the sag in the strings is gone, making it feel floppy. Just being supported by a nut and bridge won't change this overall tension, unless the break angle is such that it forms a buttress.

Thinking more about it, (I should have been born clever, instead of being a village idiot) the amount of string wound onto the tuner post must also influence this. In theory, the more turns of string on the post, the lighter the action.


ok so that means the longer the strings are(include behind nut and saddles, the whole string), the lighter the feel of the strings are. so a toploader bridge should feel stiffer than a string thru?

I figure so. Probably not as much a difference as if it was a straight path. Over the bridge and then 90 degrees through the body is a big break angle that interrupts the flow of the tension - almost but not quite like a locking nut. It's a half wrap at least.
I'm only guessing here remember. It's not as if I actually know anything - just trying to make sense of it.

but it makes sense that the string has more to stretch on if its longer. the shorter the string is the more concentrated the tension is on the string to get it in pitch! just pure logic!:razz:

If you could switch off gravity, I think it would be different.
I'll have to think about that some more