The Song Fight Bulletin Board

...Acoustic and Electric strings?

(I'm not talking about the nylon ones)

Thickness and material.

I did realize those two facts. I think a better question would've been- it terms of sound, what's the difference? If someone were to take a set of acoustic strings and put them on an electric, they wouldn't work well because of the material difference. The pickups wouldn't pick them up. But what if you put electric strings on an acoustic guitar, what difference would it make?

they'd be too thin to be heard very well and break quickly. prolly sound all bright and tinny too.

try it

also the G string on electrics is bare, on acoustics it's wound.

There's probably a difference in the tension in the strings, right? If you have thicker strings that are roughly the same length and tuned to the same pitch, the must be under more tension, right? I don't have any solid understanding of this stuff, so I may be totally wrong.

Thanks Blue. I forgot about the unwound string thing.

And yes, Lunkhead. There would be a tension difference. If you played with electric strings on an acoustic long enough, you'd probably have to adjust the truss rod just to balance the guitar back out.

What about an acoustic bass? All the strings are wound. I guess it would still be tinny and you wouldn't want a tinny bass. But the strings wouldn't break...

Pretty much as said above, but here are the two issues with using electric strings on an acoustic, and vice versa. Putting electric strings on an acoustic can be a problem because an acoustic guitar is designed for a heavier bronze, or phosphor bronze wound string that carries sound real well. The truss is adjusted for the heavy strings and electric strings don't require much tension to tune, thus throwing off the counter balance (for lack of a better word) and can "possibly" warp the neck.
As far as putting acoustic strings on an electric, it has the reverse tension issues and can possibly warp the neck. But most importantly, an electric string is wound with a ferrous metal that interrupts the magnetic field of the pickups much better than bronze. I'm sure there are more reasons, but there's a start.

I put electric strings on a nylon string classical once. It actually sounded pretty good, all jangly and bright.

Sven wrote:I put electric strings on a nylon string classical once. It actually sounded pretty good, all jangly and bright.

I hope it was an old piece o crap one!

Keep this in mind:

Classical guitars are made to handle nylon strings which have a MUCH lesser tension factor. The main thing: Nylon string classicals dont' have a metal truss rod in the neck, usually.

So watch out because metal strings (electric or acoustic) have a ton of pull and will rip the neck right off of a classical guitar, in time. If the guitar doesn't have a metal truss rod, it can't handle metal strings.

Keep that in mind next time yer thinking of throwing a pack of Martin strings on yer brand new Jose Ramirez

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The difference between acoustic and electric strings? All steel? Yeah, what those guys said. Same thing, slightly different material and winding process. The plain strings (unwound) are virtually the same thing, but the metal might differ.

boltoph wrote:So watch out because metal strings (electric or acoustic) have a ton of pull and will rip the neck right off of a classical guitar, in time. If the guitar doesn't have a metal truss rod, it can't handle metal strings.

I can vouch for this. My dad bought me my first guitar when I was 10. A Yamaha classical. He used to play electric in college and helped me restring the guitar for the first time just days after bringing it home with electric strings (I have no idea what he was thinking, if the strings were old leftovers or if he'd bought them new or what). The next morning, all excited to play, I opened the case and discovered that the bridge had been ripped off the body in the night!

Luckily, our local guitar store reglued the bridge beautifully. The guitar lasted me decades, even into SongFight! ("Between the Rain" and "So Kind Stacey" most notably) until the head cracked when I accidentally bumped it against a wall while playing. Poor thing. I should have buried it, I felt so bad. RIP.