string tension

[Lemures]

Hey guys I need some advice on string tension or rather how to reduce it. I've noticed on a few of my guitars (two Jackson's & an ESP M-II) that the strings feel realy tight, all of my guitars are tuned standard with 9-42 DM blue steels. I have severel others wich feel slinky and loose & bending is a breeze. The necks look perfectly straight so I'm not sure what the deal is, I would realy appreciate any advice.

Thanks

[Rampage]

These are guitars with Floyd Rose tremolos, correct?

What I would do is let the claw out a little bit which would shorten the length of the springs (remember that you will have to retune/level the Floyd after doing this). This may reduce the tension enough to get the strings feeling comfortable for you. If adjusting the spring length doesn't do the trick, you may want to consider finding some lighter tension springs to lower the pull.

[DonP]

There are so many factors, you need to give a lot more details of the high tension guitars compared to the low tension guitars. Bridges (not just fixed or trem - DETAILED DESCRIPTION), headstock angles, types of nuts, etc.

Post pictures also.

[toejam]

These are guitars with Floyd Rose tremolos, correct?

What I would do is let the claw out a little bit which would shorten the length of the springs (remember that you will have to retune/level the Floyd after doing this). This may reduce the tension enough to get the strings feeling comfortable for you. If adjusting the spring length doesn't do the trick, you may want to consider finding some lighter tension springs to lower the pull.

That won't do it, but removing a spring or two will make the Floyd less stiff.

[Tommie]

There's no way to adjust string tension using trem springs that I know of, it's a factor of the guitar (particularly scale length and length of "dead" string outside the sounding length) and strings you're using. Messing with trem springs won't do anything, and in fact if you could put stiffer, not softer springs in there, then the bridge would not dip forward so much and cause you to have to bend so far to get a given amount of up-bend.

[Chad]

Tension is a combination of pitch, scale length, and string gauge/construction. No other factors affect tension. Feel can change (sometimes greatly) due to differing "compliance" between various guitars, but the actual measureable tension will not be different if they all are tuned the same, have the same scale length, and have the same strings.

Compliance is affected by such things as neck angle, headstock angle, amount of relief, action height, stiffness level of trem springs, number of trem springs, whether there is a locking nut or not, string angle between the bridge and tailpiece on guitars with those, string length outside of the scale length, etc.

For more info, check out this thread:

http://www.jcfonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=101246

Like others mentioned, let us know more of the specs of your various guitars and we can try and help make sense of it for you.

[Riffmeister]

I'm gonna have to argue the whole "spring tension doesn't affect feel "thing here I know if you loosen the springs that yes, the trem is going to dive when you bend and you do have to bend FARTHER to reach a certain point VS stiffer spring tension, but I find it is way easier to bend them with less tension.

[Chad]

Yeah, I agree that the feel while playing can be different depending on the number of trem springs, how stiff the individual springs are, etc. But that difference in feel is due to a change in compliance, not tension. It's mainly a definition thing.

[Riffmeister]

Chad,

I didn't mean to say that the springs actually changed the tension, I don't know anything about that kinda stuff other than a shorter scale like a Gibson has less tension than a Jackson, and I may be wrong about that

I just meant that loosenening the spring tension would FEEL like it wasn't as hard to bend the strings, and I thought that was what he was trying to acheive, not to technically change the tension.

[Dreamland_Rebel]

try a different brand of stings. Dean Markeleys are one of the stiffest strings out there. try some ernie balls or GHS boomers or DR tite fits.

[Chad]

I don't think he was complaining about his particular choice of strings, but rather trying to figure out why the exact same strings feel significantly different on different guitars.

[Dreamland_Rebel]

every guitar feels different.

[Chad]

every guitar feels different.

That way helpful. lol.


BTW, what happened to the thread starter?

[toejam]

BTW, what happened to the thread starter?

He seems to not reply to a lot of his threads for some reason.

[catzodellamarina]

I had a Charvel 650XL that I upgraded with chrome hw and EMG's. It was an awesome guitar to behold but the trem was always very stiff. I tried everything to loosen the tension but anything I did affected the height of the Schaller trem. It was so stiff I hated playing it so ended up getting rid of the guitar. It was a bummer that it wasn't comfortable.