Santa Cruz String Tensions And Gauge Chart
 

Just passing this info along in case anyone was wondering.

Low tension:

.012, .016, .023, .032, .044, .056

GAUGE - TENSION in pounds

.012 - 20

.016 - 22.5

.023- 27.9

.032 – 30.5

.044—28

.056 – 27

Total tension – 156 lbs



Mid tension:

.013, .0165, .024, .033, .045, .056

GAUGE - TENSION in pounds

.013 - 22.5

.0165 - 24

.024 - 28.5

.033 - 28.5

.045 - 32.5

.056 – 27

163 – mid tension



Carolyn



Carolyn Sills

Santa Cruz

For a comparison, here are D'addario's EJ16 lights:

E 23.360
B 23.310
G 30.030
D 29.930
A 28.930
E 24.950

Thanks Paul! I've always preferred the coated EXP16s over the EJ16s. They feel slinkier and have more brilliance and chime. Now I may have part of the answer for why they feel better to me also... lower tension. Here's the EXP16 (Lights):

E 23.36
B 23.31
G 28.44
D 28.73
A 28.08
E 24.37

These are what I use on my Santa Cruz OM and Gibson J-45. The Santa Cruz sounds so much better with the EXPs than the SC Low Tension strings it shipped with (and feels easier to play too).

How can a 12 from daddario have 23 lbs, and a 12 from SC only have 20? Aren't they plain steel strings? Or is the SC actually an 11.5 with .5 of coating? The 16s for both are nearly identical, which makes sense, but I don't get how the 12s can be so different.

I like the SC strings. I have another set of the low tension waiting its turn to be put on. Very easy on the fingers.

And they do sound good. I like 'em a lot.

FYI - Straight up Strings (a very, very close cousin of SCGC strings):

Medium - total tension 146.5 lbs total torque 126.7 inch pounds
Gauge/tension
E .012 / 17.2
B .016 /19.3
G .0215 / 20.6
D .030 / 22.8
A .044 / 24.9
E .0535 / 21.9

Light - total tension 138.5 lbs total torque 118.9 inch pounds

E .011 / 15.0
B .015 / 17.6
G .0215 / 20.6
D .030 / 22.8
A .042 / 21.9
E .0525 / 21.0

best,

Rick

PS - I have a set of SUS medium on my Bourgeois 00 at the moment and am very happy - they are very similar to the SCGCs in feel, but the tone is slightly different. YMMV - try em.

You would think that. Roger Siminoff was on the forum a couple of years ago and inferred that the plain steel strings were pretty much the same, as were the coatings (which are very thin btw). See the next post which is excerpted from that conversation:
Rick

And I just found that conversation from 11-3-2015 search on username = Siminoff

Roger - I have a few questions that have bugged me for many moons. We usually talk about the wound strings and their variables, but always ignore the unwound strings.

- Do most manufacturers us the same alloy for their unwound strings?
- Do manufacturing processes (ie) how you draw out and/or anneal the wire affect the resultant tension?
- How about gauge? is a .012 from one company equivalent to another?
- How about tone? Are their tonal differences in unwound stings?
- Are the unwound strings coated in the same way?


I think you get my drift. Thanks - looking forward to your thoughts here.

best,

Rick
__________________
[reply from Roger]

Rick…

You're going to open up my flood gates if you get me talking about strings! (All great questions - thank you!!!)

Same alloy? As far as the steel itself is concerned, there are several manufacturers of high-carbon steel "mandolin wire" (in the US and worldwide) and the specs for their alloy is virtually the same, and the resultant wire is virtually the same. The key difference between these makers is how accurately and consistently they draw their wire in its initial bulk size (before being drawn down to musical wire sizes). (As a point of interest, the wire is called "mandolin wire" up to .050" and called "piano wire" in thicknesses above .050").

How wire is drawn? Yes, how the plain wire is drawn, how many sizing dies it goes through, the condition of the dies, and how efficiently its temperature is controlled during drawing does affect its hardness and the resultant elasticity, both of which affect tension. What sets manufacturers aside from each other is how they draw their wire. The critical factor here is how the wire is straightened and the number die stages the wire is drawn through as comes from the starting spool and is drawn down to fractional sizes for musical core wire. The greater the number of dies, the greater the quality of the wire - metallurgically, and dimensionally. (The elasticity of this wire is an interesting side note. You may have noticed that as your strings go out of tune, you are always tightening them UP to pitch. The high-carbon steel wire is considerately elastic; on a 26" scale instrument, a plain .012" E string will stretch about 1/4" from when you have the string snug to when you bring it up to pitch.)

Gauge? Yes, we're measuring our wire to 5 decimal places and it has been my experience that most wire manufacturers are reasonably consistent, gauge wise. I've not worked with many of the non-USA based wire manufacturers, so I can't really comment on the wire quality and consistency of some foreign-made string sets.

Tone? As long as the strings being compared are a high-carbon steel (HCS), and the gauge of the test string is the same as the string it is being compared to, there is virtually no difference in tone, sustain, or amplitude.

Coating? There are really two issues here: plating and coating. The high-carbon steel wire - whether used for plain strings or as core for wound strings - needs to be protected because it is very susceptible to corrosion. So, while the alloy of the wire itself (as previously mentioned) might be virtually the same, the plating process is quite different among musical string manufacturers. (How this is done and what plating techniques are used would take a whole page here, and some of the processes are confidential to musical string manufacturers.) Regarding coating, as I mentioned in a previous post, the bronze wrap must receive a protective coating to keep it bright in the package and on in-store guitars to prevent it from tarnishing.

So what I get from this is that raw materials are the same but coatings are not which = both plain and wrapped strings are different mfg to mfg.

Here's the link to the original thread: http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/f...d.php?t=406222

The core wires and the unwrapped wires are pretty much all the same. The wraps, the treatments, etc. are all different. Roger has a great white paper on this which hopefully you can find on the SUS website.

BUT - as was told to me by Dana Bourgeois (in person), when I was asking many similar questions: "Experiment - if you like it, then use it!"

best,

Rick

PS - Roger Siminoff's take: "About 50% of the difference in tone we hear from one string acoustical instrument to another is the result of the musiclan's attack."
..Roger

Question
 

I'm picking up this thread long after it's beginning. I'm trying to read through the total tension amounts on the EXP 16's vs. the SCGC low tensions... am I reading that they are nearly the same?
Second, and perhaps more importantly, are Straight up strings that much lower tension than either EXP 17s or SCGC med. tensions as some of these numbers seem to be saying? Thanks for your help!

Yes... But even though the total tension is nearly equivalent, the individual tensions are different.
They are, but SUS has more options in tension: light medium and heavy.

I've done a lot of string changes on several guitars since these posts: alternating between SC, SUS, Pearse, Martin and D'Addario and find that after several hours/days of playing, I can get used to most any of these strings. The sound is so very subjective, varying with the humidity, the venue, the age of the string, and the wax build-up in my ears��.

As for feel, I like the smoothness of the SCGC strings and the 'bendiness' (ductility, I suppose) of the SCGC and SUS strings. Longevity, too, is subjective, but the SCGC and SUS being coated, do last longer.

So, YMMV.

Best,

Rick

PS- I have asked many luthiers and checked out many sites about what strings come with their guitars. The answer is almost always D'Addario or Martin (of course SCGC uses their own strings). Without belaboring the point and splitting hairs further, this speaks volumes.

It’s interesting that the mid tension G string has a larger diameter, but a lower tension than the low tension strings. Also the low E is the same for both the Low and Mid Tension strings.

Paul - look at the Straight Up Strings website and you will see that their trick is to vary the diameter of the core wire vs. the windings. We get fooled into thinking that gauge is all that matters; the wound strings have two components that when added, create the final diameter.

So with everything that I now know about strings, if I were to start a string company, first I would get a really good marketing firm!

best,

Rick