Guitars, Strings, Playability, Feeling, and Sound

[-mjk-]

I've never tried a coin as a pick; but I will now. A quarter seems about the right size. I wonder if the hardness of a coin as a pick will increase the E and B- string breakage frequency.

Brian May uses a sixpence. Our Taiwan 5NT coin is the perfect size. I would use a US dime. The hardness of the coin is irrelevant.

I might as well come clean by now: I invented a pick that gets the coin sound. I had my factory make samples and I sent them to Brian May. The whole point is that it allows those who have learned how to play guitar with a traditional pick, to be able to get that sound with a pick of the same geometry. I never heard back from him on that particular project. I'm going to go ahead with the project and produce them myself.

 

[skier]

RE whether string gauge impacts tone. Not sure, but one other fairly obvious observation is that the differences in strings in general are far less when one lowers the tone and suppresses the high end. At least on bass, even the very obvious flats vs rounds distinction can start to blur unless using a pick. So does it follow that differences we speak of are are mainly in the harmonic structures above the bass fundamental frequencies (Eg above say 150 Hz)?

Yes, the bigger differences are in the higher frequencies. If you really turn up the treble on the bass and on the amp, you'll hear more than you'll like in string noise, fret banging noise by the strings, etc. When we want a little more bass twang, more middle is actually better than more treble - we have to be careful with the treble. Of course, bass amps tend to not accentuate the highs too much because they don't have tweeters and they're designed to focus on the bass frequencies. But play that bass through a guitar or vocal amp and you really can hear lots of the noises we're discussing.

I just got back into music, a band, and bass playing only 3 years ago at age 49, having not played since age 20. So I decided at that point to stay with 4 strings and focus on (re)learning the entire neck as well as I could. Made good progress and am now arguably a better a player than I ever was as a punk-*ssed kid.

Good for you! Lots of people have trouble doing anything new as they get older. But in reality, our egos and fears seem to be the main limitations, and getting down to focus on truly learning the neck was a great move![/QUOTE]

I do hope someday to play a bigger venue on a big bass rig and feel my pants flap!

Yeah! That's the ticket! I miss that amp...

 

[skier]

Brian May uses a sixpence. Our Taiwan 5NT coin is the perfect size. I would use a US dime. The hardness of the coin is irrelevant.

I might as well come clean by now: I invented a pick that gets the coin sound. I had my factory make samples and I sent them to Brian May. The whole point is that it allows those who have learned how to play guitar with a traditional pick, to be able to get that sound with a pick of the same geometry. I never heard back from him on that particular project. I'm going to go ahead with the project and produce them myself.

I think that, as your friend, that I deserve some of those experimental picks so that I can conduct scientific studies and report back to you so you can assure that you're producing a quality new accessory for the deserving masses... jus sayin...

 

[BazzBass]

I'm willing to test drive any bass picks you care to send to me. I've been trying wooden picks from TreePicks , but the wood fills in the rounds with residue lol. I'm too rough on them it seems.....

 

[-mjk-]

https://santacruzguitar.com/santa-cruz-parabolic-tension-strings/

 

[Felonious Punk]

You have my curiosity piqued, MJ. I am going to order a set of the medium gauge for the next string change on my D-28. I use Elixir Nanowebs on my gigging acoustics because they last forever. My Martin stays home since the pickup crapped out.

Funny that you should post on this thread today. I am finally going to put a set of 9's on my Ibanez SG today. I have a 3 day jam with some old bandmates this weekend. Can't wait!

FP

 

[Felonious Punk]

First impressions on the 9's. They tuned up so easily and I didn't need to do all that pesky stretching I usually do to get the strings to settle. They settled in very quickly just playing the guitar. No noticeable difference in tone and certainly easier on my 61 year old hands. I'm sold so far.

FP

 

[-mjk-]

@Felonious Punk next, you should check out .008s. I like them a lot now. I had forgotten that we all used to use them in the old days.