What Does Balanced Tension Mean?

When I first heard Dan Steinhardt of That Pedal Show talk about his use of balanced tension strings, I became curious. To my science trained mind, it sounded like it meant that each string would exercise the same amount of tension on the guitar regardless of string gauge. 

When I started looking at tension charts, when the makers published them at all, it became clear to me that most string sets, including ones that I liked and even preferred, did not have this balanced tension thing happening, so I started doing some research.

I found articles that were qualitative but not quantitative and I wanted to see numbers and science to stand up the claims, and I also wanted to purchase a set of balanced tension strings to see if they felt different or sounded different to me.

I ordered a set of D'Addario NYXL Balanced Tension strings in their 11-50 set. I had to go through Amazon, because none of my local shops stocked balanced tension strings, thus my first learning was that this was not something in particularly high demand. 

I had to restring my old PRS CE22 as I decided to use it for some upcoming lessons that I signed up for. As happens, the strings on it were old but still sounded fine, a tribute to that last batch of PRS branded strings that I had used.

But, I had a scientific experiment to perform! First step was to find the documentation on how to best use the very old style PRS winged locking tuners. Lots of gripes and YouTube vids, but PRS does an excellent job of maintaining support documents and I found the official instructions on one page quickly. Suffice to say, that they were all I needed and I was reminded once again of how awesome those PRS winged locking tuners are.

Note that the package specifically states Balanced Tension. These are the 10-46 set. I could not find an image of the 11-50 set that I used in my experiment

Opening the package revealed, surprise!, guitar strings in a sealed pouch wound in pairs, just like every other D'Addario package I have opened in the last little while. The strings did not feel any different when mounting them to the guitar. They tuned up quickly and after a couple of stretches, have held their tune very well. Whether this is the nature of the NYXL build, or a combination of that and the locking tuners, I cannot tell. It's good enough to know that the string change was fast and easy and that the new strings once stretched are holding tune well.

The strings do feel different. Not in terms of slipperiness but more in terms of bending. The G, B and E strings require about the same amount of effort to bend, which is different from my experience with non-balanced tension strings. I suspect that with practice, that this might mean that bends will be more consistent. The bending of the E, A, and D strings were also very similar but heavier than the high strings as one might expect. My common high E is a .010 and for this set I went to an .011, again based on the opinion of Dan Steinhardt, who was using the 11 - 50 set on his red Telecaster some months back. It does make the E a bit tougher to bend, but as my intent for the lessons is to learn more jazz chording and chord inversions, I thought it might be worthwhile to give the nominally heavier string a try.

I found a video from a custom string maker called StringJoy out of Nashville. The video presenter offered a spreadsheet for download that allows you to enter some information such as scale length and string gauge that uses mathematics calculate the string tension, which could be handy if the maker does not provide this information. It also makes some assumptions about string weight, which is going to differ from maker to maker based on string construction, so I am going to call it close but not exact, except for StringJoy's own strings, which I admittedly have not tried. Their online web calculator is at https://tension.stringjoy.com

D'Addario offers a web based application that allows you to see how you could achieve balanced tension based on your own entries or starting with one of their existing packages at http://stringtensionpro.com It's interesting, but I missed how one could order a set resulting from the app.

As some of you know, I have been moving to Curt Mangan strings recently. That company does not have an interactive tool but does produce a string tension chart that is very usable. What I liked about these folks is the ability to build your own custom set very easily and to add your name and even a logo directly to the package.

In building packages for electrics, I used the PRS scale length and built a set of Curt Mangan strings based on the Monel construction with gauges, 10, 13.5, 17, 26, 36, 48. For my acoustics, I again used the Monel construction with gauges 11.5, 15.5, 20, 30, 42, 56 I admit to be really taken with the Monel acoustic tones and recently put a set of Curt Mangan Monel strings on my '57 Black Beauty and am really pleased with the tone. This Les Paul is very heavy and I think that the 10-46 standard Monel strings are good on it because it can be a bit boomy because of the excess weight, as it is nearly a 12 pound guitar.

The strings I install the Les Paul R7 Black Beauty

Hopefully this short explanation of what balanced tension is and why you might be inclined to give balanced tension strings a try has been interesting to you.

Play on!

Review : YOMI from Frost Giant Electronics

Treble Boosters. You hear about these critters. You hear that if you like Brian May or Tony Iommi or Rory Gallagher or Ritchie Blackmore or Eric Clapton, you MUST have one.

Sure you can go online and search for an original Dallas Rangemaster for hundreds of dollars. Or you can get a new build of one from The British Pedal Company and my buddy Charles at electricmojoguitars.com. Or you could do what I did and take the advice of my friend Chris Spano at The Arts Music Store and hunt yourself down a YOMI from Frost Giant Electronics.

Chris told me about the YOMI when he asked that I do a review of The Mountain. I had been asking about fuzz and while there are folks who say that The Mountain, which is based on the ProCo RAT is not a fuzz, Dan Steinhardt over at That Pedal Show says that it is a fuzz. Be that as it may, Chris mentioned that Frost Giant did their own treble booster and that he grabbed the only one that came through the door and it never saw space on the retail counter. I checked and not only were there none in stock, the unit did not appear on the website. I went over to Frost Giant and their site said out of stock. Ru ro Shaggy. Over to Reverb and I found that the nice people at Axe and You Shall Receive (cool name huh?) in Brantford Ontario had two in stock.

Mine arrived quickly and while the version on the Frost Giant web site is black on light blue, I was fortunate to get one of the limited edition red on gold models as seen in the top image.

Documentation is like most Frost Giant Electronics products, meaning that it is non-existent. The YOMI has a knob marked Boost, an on/off stomp switch and a three way toggle that offers three different EQ options.

I was already set up for independent pedal tests with my silver Marshall 2550 into a silver 4x12. I had configured the clean channel to be super clean, even with hot pickups, and the ultra gain channel to sound like an overdriven Marshall, with Marshall style harmonic distortion but not fuzzy. I had the simple Marshall channel switcher on the floor and the YOMI on a stool in front of me to simplify tweaking. I ran direct from the guitar into the brand new Peterson StroboStomp tuner (review is coming on it), then to the YOMI and to the Marshall. The TC Electronics G Major that lives in the effects loop was completely bypassed. I checked the tone with an without the tuner and could hear no difference. All cables were Ernie Balls. About as generic as possible.

The first guitar that I used was my old Explorer. It's not a Korina body (sob) but it is solid mahogany and has nice heft. Like my Flying V, I find the factory pickups are a bit hotter than those in my Les Pauls and thought, hey why not. The Explorer sounds lovely clean, much as you would expect. Kicking in the YOMI in the clean channel and adjusting the boost brings a really nice bright distortion. Clicking through the three EQ settings you work with a three different levels of bass cut. I liked the top setting best which had the least cut. Definitely very playable and nice rich distortion. Wrong pickups for the Queen sound. Kick in the Marshall ultra gain channel without the YOMI and ah yes, there is Mr. Marshall. But add the YOMI and WOW! There's the sustain for days that was missing and while it sounds initially like you have lost some low end, I realized that I was getting a much more open top end than without the YOMI and pleasant feedback was readily available.

I love the sound. I will try a noise gate between the YOMI and the amp when I get around to it to isolate some of the other guitar noises when I am in glorius feedback territory, but I am not suggesting that this is necessary. You do want to play loud, which sounds wonderful but probably not your best choice at 2 in the morning. I was lighting things up between 4pm and 6pm so if I was annoying the neighbours, they had the good grace not to say anything.

I next moved on to my SG. It's a cherry model in the '63 style, albeit this '63 model as advertised from Gibson came from the time when Gibson couldn't remember that real '63s had the small headstock. So it has the large headstock. It's also got relatively low output humbuckers and while I have had it a long time, it's not a guitar that I go to very often. I had tried it with the Frost Giant SOMA (different review) and hated the sound. With the YOMI set to the top EQ and boost around 1 o'clock in the ultra gain channel it was quite nice. Not as quick to go to feedback as the Explorer but I expected that. Still going to change those pickups and I suspect that at the time, Gibson was using gum wrappers for caps and toilet roll for pots. There's no such thing as a vintage Gibson from the 70's or 80's that did not come out of the Custom Shop. But I digress...

Third guitar for the test was my red Suhr Strat, or as it is correctly known, the Suhr Standard Plus. This is a SSH configuration using Suhr's proven SSCII hum cancellation circuit. Mine is a rich red, a colour no longer listed. Which is good for me because it's freaking lovely. I love Suhr guitars, they are just so perfect right out of the box. I have this one and a custom shop Modern that my friend Andrew Lai down at Cosmo Music got built for me about ten years ago. Anyhow, the Suhr sounds great on its own, and although it is a humbucker in the bridge position, does not get all thickened up. I found it a bit too bright with the YOMI into the clean channel, but into the ultra gain channel on the Marshall with the Boost backed off and the EQ switch in the middle position it was really singing with any of the pickup configurations. I have found some pedals only work well with humbuckers while others only work well with single coils. Good to know that the YOMI handles single coils very well.

Obviously there is a lot more to do with the pedal. I want to put it into the pedal rig for my AC30 and try pushing P90s or P100s through it or one of the PRS guitars with the coils tapped. I've got a couple of very old CE bolt neck models that have the old five way rotary switch that sound awesome.

I had seen Mick and Dan on That Pedal Show covering treble boosters and while they did not cover the YOMI, I thought it was interesting that Mick concluded that if you run into a Marshall stack, a treble booster should be on your board. Brian May uses the Red Special into AC30s, and Tony Iommi played SGs into Laneys. BTW did you know that Mr. Laney was in a band before building amps? It was called the Band of Joy and included two other fellows who became rather famous, a Mr. Robert Plant and a Mr. John Bonham.

Thanks for reading and until next time, play on!