Bass strings vs bass frequencies

[isaac42]

I don't know why this never occurred to me before.

I was looking at bass strings. The bass I took to band practice yesterday had pretty old strings on it, so new ones seem in order.

The Rickenbacker strings that come stock on new basses are 45, 55, 75, 105. That's not far off from the D'Addario EXL170BT balanced tension set, at 45, 60, 80, 107. D'Addario also makes a lighter gauge set, the EXL220BT, at 40, 55, 70, 95.

At some point, I wondered what the "proper" relationship between, say, the E and A strings should be. I figured that, all else being equal, the diameter of the strings should be the inverse of the frequencies. That is, if the A frequency is 1.33 times the E string frequency, then the E string should be 1.33 times the A string diameter. So, if the A string were 75, then the E string should be 100.

Now, I'm sure that things are not all equal. The ratio of the core to the windings is likely not constant, for instance, so getting balanced tension is not likely to result from such precise mathematical ratios. And, truth be told, balanced tension isn't necessarily going to result in balanced output from the pickups.

But then it hit me. The frequency of E1 is 41.2 Hz. A2 is 55 Hz. 40? 55? That sounds like the diameters of the G and D strings on some sets. What are the frequencies of the D and G strings? 73.4 Hz and 98.0 Hz. Round those off, and you get 40, 55, 75, 100, which would be a perfectly fine set of bass strings! Fairly similar to the balanced tension sets on the market, and not too far off from the Rickenbacker set.

[lug]

Cocaine is a hella a drug. 😔

[isaac42]

5 hours ago, lug said:

Cocaine is a hella a drug. 😔

I'll take your word for that.

[DeepEnd]

I learned years ago that pitch and tension are related to overall diameter. More recently I learned that intonation is related to core diameter.

[isaac42]

Cool. Makes sense. Where did you learn that?

[DeepEnd]

On 3/2/2022 at 1:57 PM, isaac42 said:

Cool. Makes sense. Where did you learn that?

Freeman Keller, an amateur builder who used to post in Acoustic Guitars, mentioned it. Like you said, it makes sense to me. I know when I replaced the Ernie Ball D string on my bass with a GHS of the same gauge I had to tweak the intonation. Presumably the structure of the two strings is different.