Pro Guitar Tech Tom Spaulding - Scale Length and String Tone

Tom Spaulding is a Nashville based guitarist, producer/engineer, D’Addario AR rep, pro touring guitar tech. Has worked with artists ranging from Keith Urban & Tom Hamilton of Aerosmith, to LeAnn Rimes & Lee Roy Parnell.

One of the interesting things about being a guitar tech is accommodating the different preferences of the various guitar players I work for. As a player myself, I have my own ideas about what sounds good, feels good, etc. Every guitar player I have tech'd for has different needs and methods to achieve their tone.

My string gauge choices are matched to my actual playing technique...I have a rather heavy right hand and tend to favor heavier gauges than some folks. As a kid, I grew up reading the Guitar Player magazine interviews and it seemed like everybody was playing .009 of .010 gauge electric strings. Country chicken-picker Albert Lee was playing .008's. Then along came Stevie Ray Vaughan and his legendary .013 E string...tuned down a half-step, of course. I think that revelation got players into trying heavier gauges and realizing that a properly tensioned set of .011s on a Gibson or .010's on a Fender felt just fine and the tonal increase was substantial.

The scale length of a guitar has a lot to do with the tone of your instrument. Gibson guitars typically have a 24 5/8ths" scale length, while most Fenders have a 25 1/2" scale (D’Addario calculates all string tensions at this scale) . The shorter scale of the Gibson helps define the sound of a typical Les Paul, round, warm lows and mids, a smooth top end. The Fender Strat or Tele has a twangy low end, punchier mids and a sparkly top end. While accentuated by body and neck material, the fundamentals, harmonics and partials created (and suppressed) with these scale lengths give us the foundation of the tone of the guitar. With these basic facts in mind, you can use different gauges of strings and different alloys to craft a tone from your instrument, played with your hands through your amp.

I have recently been stringing some guitars for Chris Rodriguez (Keith Urban) tour with D'Addario EPN115 Pure Nickel strings, .011 gauge. I use them on a Gibson Les Paul Junior (with stop bar tailpiece) and a Les Paul Deluxe. The softer feel and warmer tone of pure nickel offset the brightness of the P-90 in the Junior and the mini-humbuckers in the Deluxe. The solid mahogany SG gets EXL115 nickel wound stings...a bit brighter and a good match for the darker tone of mahogany. The Fender Tele (with B-Bender) gets a set of EXL115s as well, even though it is tuned up a half-step. The extra tension and heavier gauge help keep the mechanical bender in tune, in our experience. He has two Strats, one with a humbucker in the bridge that gets played with an E-bow a times, and an Eric Johnson signature model tuned to drop D. The humbucker Strat gets EXL115s, since using the E-bow entails the neck pickup with the tone rolled off. A thicker string with a brighter tone balances out the muffling effect of that, and gives the note more of a bowed sound...like a bit of rosin on a viola or cello. The EJ Strat gets EPN115 Pure Nickel strings, .011 gauge, because that's what it was built for. The maple neck and lightweight body, combined with vintage-style pickups has plenty of sparkle, the nickel keeps that from getting too harsh and biting.

Everybody's ears and hands are different and what works for me or my client's needs may not be the answer for you. Some players like to compensate different scale length guitars with different gauges of strings in order to even out the playing tension between them. For example… if you use 10s on a Fender scale guitar, you might try 10.5s or 11s on a Gibson scale. While this does not always perfectly balance the feel between the two guitars, it gets you in the ball park.

After a bit of experimentation, you can dial in a sound and feel that's right for your style, through your rig. Additionally, trying different alloys (Pure Nickel vs. Nickel Plated Steel vs. Stainless Steel, etc.) and matching bright strings to dark guitars and vice versa in combination with heavier/lighter gauges can open up your ears and get you closer to your perfect tone.

For further study, luthier Ralph Novak has an interesting article here: http://www.novaxguitars.com/Pages/Techarticle_frame.html

Click here to check out some D'Addario and Planet Waves videos with Tom Spaulding!

Here are some more D'Addario links on Scale length and String Tension:

String Tension 101

String Tension Guide

String Tension 101: Open tunings, scale length variety and more...

Hey everyone, for this week's blog I've chosen a subject that is one of the most requested and least understood... String Tension. Okay, okay... not the most exciting stuff, but is pretty cool if you're into drop/alternate tunings or want to explore trying different string gauges with different scale instruments, for example.

D'Addario has always openly shared string pitch/tension/alloy information with the public. In 1999 we published the first known String Tension Guide, which has grown to be the most popular download from the web site. We often get questions related to the tension guide and how it works. In some ways, it's very simple, but can get as complicated as you need with detailed scientific formulas to determining very specific results. To assist with sorting through the potentially intimidating information, I've written a String Tension 101 article, which helps describe the logic and explains how to effectively use the content contained in the guide. The link is attached above.

Also, while we are on the topic of strings, check out our most popular videos on proper stringing techniques hosted by master luthier and published author, John LeVan.

I hope this information is helpful and easy to understand, but if you have any questions, post away. We have acoustical engineers and string design experts on hand to answer your toughest questions. Enjoy! Brian

Jim D’Addario Anecdotes

Collaborate to Succeed Part 1 – John D’Angelico

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind too), those who learn to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”

In reading that statement, one could assume it came from a musician or athlete playing team sports. But in actuality, it was the naturalist Charles Darwin that penned the line.

For musicians, collaborating and improvising is a way of life. Many times when people look at the success of a musical group or an enterprise, they inaccurately assume that success is the result of the efforts of one or two individuals. The fact is even the most astute entrepreneur gets nowhere if he/she does not learn to collaborate and improvise. Finding the right partners to collaborate with is the key.

I learned a lot about collaboration and running a business when I joined my first band at age 13. The first thing that was abundantly clear to me was that we sounded much better as a group than we did individually - provided we all practiced our parts. Later on in my career as business challenges presented themselves, I would always look for collaboration partners, reaching out to someone with more experience to help with the specific challenges that we faced.

In 1905, my grandfather Charles D’Addario emigrated from Italy to New York. He brought with him the family trade of making strings, which dates back hundreds of years to 1680. By coincidence, the very same year a Czechoslovakian luthier named Ladislav Kaplan also moved his family from Europe to America. At the time, there was a shortage of quality musical instruments and strings. Both gentlemen bought the American dream and lived it.

Soon after arriving in America, Ladislav discovered that he was having trouble getting good strings for his violins, violas and cellos. A trained craftsman, he discovered he was also a very, very talented mechanical engineer. Soon after, he began making his own strings and before long the Kaplan brand of gut bowed strings was well established.

Charles and Ladislav were friendly competitors and exchanged raw materials and know-how on occasion. Accounting ledger books from 1922 show Charles and Ladislav frequently exchanging material for payment. In the true European family business model, the Kaplan family ran their little string business out of a garage in their backyard in Norwalk, CT from 1905 to 1981. The D’Addarios ran theirs in the basement of their Jackson Heights, NY home, a short walk from what would become LaGuardia airport.

In the 1930’s, John D’Addario, Sr. joined his dad, Charles, and his young inquisitive mind was immediately energized by the world of the guitar. The guitar was yet to be amplified and was for the most part used as an element of the rhythm section of the big bands that were popular during that era. Guitar makers like Maccaferri and D’Angelico worked hard to make their instruments project acoustically over entire bands or orchestras.

John, Sr. (my dad), befriended John D’Angelico towards the end of the 1930’s. Their collaboration would be a key to the success of D’Addario guitar strings some 35 years later. D’Angelico was looking for someone to improve on the quality of the acoustic guitar strings that were available at the time. Dad was lucky enough to enter the picture at the right time. The art of string making at that time was exactly that - an ‘art’. Most developments were by accident or by trial and error. The major string brands at the time, National Black Diamond and Gibson for instance, did not make a string with the low end output, sustain and the projection in the upper register to satisfy D’Angelico.

I had the good fortune to meet John D’Angelico on several occasions as child when my dad was delivering strings to his shop on Kenmare Street in Little Italy. I can tell you personally - D’Angelico had golden ears. My dad’s collaboration with him yielded the acoustic guitar specifications that we, by and large, still use today. In fact most successful competitive brands have emulated the very specifications that the collaboration between D’Addario and D’Angelico yielded. All the D’Angelico packaged strings made prior to John D’Angelico’s passing (1964) were made by our family. Similarity in the names and his respect for John D’Angelico were key reasons why Dad never used the D’Addario family name on his strings until we did so in 1974.

My dad often spoke fondly of how well they worked together. Dad would make a variety of samples, with different core sizes and whatever different alloys of brass, bronze and silver plated copper that he could get his hands on at the time. John would test them and together, using their ears and their minds, through trial and error, they advanced the art of guitar string-making. Their first epiphany was determining the optimum size ratios between the core wire and the wrap wire for each wound string on the guitar. Later, they realized that the 80-20 brass (referred to as bronze most of the time) needed to be softened prior to winding. Eventually, after many trials, they landed on some great-sounding string specifications.

D’Angelico made instruments for all kinds of different guitar players. Many times the guitarist would not be satisfied with the instrument he ordered when he came to pick it up. While D’Angelico could make adjustments in the set-up of the guitar to sometimes satisfy the particular want of each player, he quickly realized, with all these string samples lying around, that many times just changing the string tension would do the trick.

Prior to their collaboration, strings were sold in one gauge. They pioneered the idea of Light, Medium and Heavy string gauges. Later, as the electric guitar took hold, players would demand even lighter and lighter string gauges. Back then, most guitars were outfitted with pretty heavy gauge strings.

As the guitar string business grew and my grandfather’s retirement age was approaching, my dad began to lose interest in bowed string manufacturing and focused more and more of his attention on fretted instrument strings. In 1959, Charles retired and for a few years, my dad and his team continued to make bowed strings for various private labels and under their own names Puccini and La Rita. Around 1964, after the British invasion and the advent of the real guitar boom, D’Addario totally abandoned bowed string manufacturing and focused all their energy on fretted instrument strings.

Dad and his partners (two other gentlemen from the same town in Italy) sold their company to C. F. Martin & Company in 1969. In 1974, after a five-year employment engagement, a newly-formed company (our present entity) introduced fretted instrument strings for the first time, bearing the D’Addario family name. Joined by his two sons John D’Addario, Jr. (my brother) and me (Jim D’Addario), the D’Addario family began on the journey of establishing the D’Addario brand name utilizing many of the string innovations discovered through the collaboration of John D’Angelico.

More on collaboration to come. . . .
My next article will discuss the acquisition of Kaplan Music Strings in 1981 and the re-entry into the bowed string business through our collaboration with Dr. Norman Pickering.

Jim D’Addario

SXSW 2009 - “Thousands of Bands, Two Earholes!”

For those of you who have never been to the South by South West Music Festival in Austin, Texas. You need to know a few rules in advance:

#1- Bring earplugs
#2- Don’t plan on sleeping
#3-Wear comfortable foot wear
#4- Practice your drinking skills beforehand to build up your tolerance to various kinds of alcohol. I suggest maybe attending a couple of Frat Parties or Irish Funerals as basic training.






This was my 4th year in a row and 7th time all together attending SXSW, so I was partially prepared for the onslaught of music coming from all directions and crevices, including bathrooms, elevators, grocery stores and dirt lots. Luckily D’Addario, The Musebox, Swing House and The Roxy Theater had hijacked a venue, that became our home base for great performances all week! D’Addario Artists such as Justin Townes Earle, Del Castillo, Madi Diaz, War Tapes and Mandi Perkins all played inspired sets over the 4 days. All of this chaos took place while Hugh, Mike & Brian (The D’Addario Brass) manned a table on the patio, conveniently located between the bar and BBQ.

On Friday, the day of our official D’Addario Day Party, guitar players & drummers both amateur and pro lined up around the patio while the D’Addario crew handed out samples of our new products as well as giving advice and demonstrations about various items like our EXL electric strings, EJ & EXP acoustic strings, Dual Action Capos, Custom Pro Cables and Onyx drum heads. Drinks were served courtesy of Barefoot Wine and Dos Equis while the free hot dogs were all devoured within just a few hours. Austin’s own Collings Guitars held a raffle for a free guitar and had a few on hand to try out. Collings giveaway winner, Lori Allen (pictured below), is thrilled with her new guitar. "It's not just the strings you strap across your guitar, it's what guitar you strap across your strings...D'Addario Strings & Collings Guitars!!! A PERFECT combination at SXSW 2009!!!"

Artists from all over the world come to SXSW but one of the highlights of the week was a local band named, Del Castillo. They've got a frontman with a powerful voice and commanding presence, with enough big hooks to have a Rock Radio Smash. What makes them even more interesting is the twin guitar Flamenco stylings of brothers Rick and Mark Del Castillo. The speedy but tasteful harmony and dueling leads incited cheers from the packed house as the rhythm section kept the crowd dancing.

Other highlights of the week were new discoveries of emerging artists like solo vocalist/guitar player Lindsay Ell from Canada, Chelsea Davis (powerhouse drummer) for indie vets The Start, and vibey acoustic sets from Angie Mattson and Diane Birch. The grand finale was Saturday night. By 9:30pm, the room was well beyond capacity in anticipation of a very special performance by U.K. heroes, Echo and The Bunnymen. The Tender Box and The High Dials set the tone for the evening, opening with quality danceable indie pop as the sweltering crowd happily waited till way past midnight for the Brit pop pioneers. No one left disappointed as Echo and The B Men played a 90 plus minute set of classics like “Lips Like Sugar” and “Killing Moon” as well as a few new catchy numbers. If you wonder where Liam Gallagher of Oasis got his swagger and patter just look to Echo’s leader Ian McCulloch. I was even more impressed by the great guitar work and tone of his longtime mate Will Sergeant.

Even after catching 15 plus bands a day at our D’Addario home base I still found a few hours (note rule #2 above) to check out other shows like The New York Dolls and The Hold Steady at Rachel Rae’s shindig. I wandered into J Mascis and his blistering wah wah attack with Dinosaur Jr. while walking a couple miles (rule #3) to a abandoned super market at 2am to check out the secret show by Jane’s Addiction, featuring Planet Waves artist, Dave Navarro. I had always been impressed by drummer Stephen Perkins but now some 20 years later since I first saw Jane’s in a small San Francisco club, I was absolutely floored by what a monster he really is. Look for the reunited band to tour with Nine Inch Nails this summer.

All in all it was fun times and good music helped by our excellent sound courtesy of Dynacord, Soundcraft, Shure, Marshall, Korg,Ultimate Stands and Vox and of course cables by Planet Waves, Drum Heads by Evans and Strings by D’Addario. Now I must sleep, Coachella is 2 weeks away..
--Phil Jaurigui, D'Addario Artist Relations

*Photos courtesy of Lisa Melton

Capacitance: What is it and how does it affect my tone?

The capacitance of something is a measurement of its ability to store a charge. Did you ever drag your feet and then touch someone in order to shock them…capacitance in action!!

A capacitor is a device that stores a charge consisting of two conductors separated by an insulator. What does such a device have to do with a guitar player? If you play electric guitar, everything!!

Let’s look at the construction of an instrument cable. A standard instrument cable in its most basic form is made up of a center conductor, some type of insulation, a shield (which is also used as a conductor) and the outer jacket. Hmm….a conductor, insulation and another conductor…Sound familiar?? Now that we realize that a guitar cable is basically a long capacitor, let’s look at how your tone gets affected.

When you start playing your guitar, a small electrical current flows between the two conductors of the cable. As the frequency increases, so does the current that flows through a capacitor. This is why high frequencies are affected more by cable capacitance then low frequencies.

Along with the source impedance, cable capacitance forms a low-pass filter between the instrument and amplifier, meaning it rolls-off or cuts high frequencies, much like your guitar’s tone control. The higher the capacitance is of the cable, the more high-end roll-off you will experience.

Capacitance in instrument cables is measured in picofarads (pF) as a full farad is too large compared to typical requirements in electronic devices. The picofarad is sometimes comically called a "puff" as well. Let’s say you have a cable that measure 45pF per foot and you use a 10ft cable to an effects pedal and then a 10 ft cable to your amplifier. Taking the pedal out of the equation you are looking at 900pF before your guitar signal hits your amplifier. Now lets take two cables that have a capacitance of only 33pF/ft. Using the same set-up you would have a total of 660pF before your guitar signal hits your Amplifier. See why it’s important to use quality, low-capacitance cables?

Some manufacturers design cables with a sound in mind…say a “rock style” or “jazz style” cable. What they are doing is pre-equalizing the cable by the capacitance level to roll-off certain frequencies. While this may work for some players, the best cables should leave your signal untouched giving you the most control over your tone when it reaches your amp. Now when some people use a cable with low capacitance, they will say that the cable is very “bright” compared to their standard cable. That “brightness” is actually the high frequencies that their previous cable was rolling off or not effectively reproducing. You may also experience greater lows and added dynamics or “liveliness”. The advantage of this is that you can now lower the treble controls on your amplifier, which in turn will cut down on the “hiss” that the amp produces. You are now getting a truer reproduction of your instrument into your amplifier.

Planet Waves cables are specifically designed and manufactured to have very low capacitance (among the lowest available), so that the output of your instrument remains intact and unchanged, giving you full tonal control over your sound.

Rob Cunningham

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A Chance to See the World

As I boarded my flight from JFK to Frankfurt last night to attend my 10th Frankfurt Music Messe, I couldn't help but reflect on the international travel I've done over the past 10 years. Compared to many, 10-years of international, or Frankfurt Music Messe attendance is not so much, but for me it is a bit of a milestone.

Over the past 10 years, I've had the chance to visit the following countries (listed somewhat geographically as to not tax my memory too much):

New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Taiwan, China, South Korean, Japan, Russia, India, U.A.E., U.K., Ireland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay.

I've been slipped a "mickey" in Bangkok, Thailand; abandoned at the airport in Jakarta, Indonesia, and most recently I was in Siberia, Russia in November! I've also seen so many beautiful cities, met fantastic artists, outstanding businessmen, and great people! While the cultures of the world are fascinatingly different, the love and joy of music is universal.

As a young drummer (aspiring to be a percussionist) growing up in the corn field of Central Illinois (Sullivan, Illinois to be specific), I had aspirations of playing professionally and teaching at the university level. And, while that didn't work out as planned after graduating from Millikin University with a music business degree, and Northwestern with a masters in percussion, I couldn't have had a more wonderful and enriching professional life! After working for the Percussive Arts Society and Yamaha Corporation of America, my opportunity to do business internationally started in 1999 when I was at SABIAN. Since then with SABIAN, SKB, and now with D'Addario I continue to travel internationally.

As the wheels touched down last this morning, I couldn't help but reflect. There are more countries I'd love to travel too. What ones have I missed that you'd recommend?

Anecdotes from Jim D'Addario #1

Jim D’AddarioAnecdotes
My second father Mario Maccaferri

They say timing is everything in life and surely for me I have been blessed with being in the right place at the right time on more than one occasion. As a child I loved to tinker. I had a work bench in our basement with my own tools where I tinkered with building amplifiers, speaker cabinets, amateur radios and countless other do-it-yourself projects.

Attracted to music more and more, first the piano and then later the guitar in the early 60’s, I got more and more interested my family’s string business. My grandfather and Dad worked out of a tiny shop in the basement of my grand parents’ home in Jackson Heights, NY. I loved to go there in the evenings or on Saturdays with my Dad. There was always an extra machine or tools to tinker with. I recall dreaming of building automatic machinery so that my Dad wouldn’t have to work so hard hand winding strings.

Many times on a Saturday I would tag along when Dad made deliveries to his customers. My favorite place to go to with him was Mastro Industries, Inc. in the Bronx. Mastro seem like a gigantic enterprise to me and in actuality it was; a full city block in size it was the brain child of luthier, guitarist and engineer Mario Maccaferri, famous to guitarists for his Selmer Django Reinhardt guitars.

Most of the trips I tagged along on to Mastro were to deliver ukulele strings for his plastic TV Pal ukuleles. Ukulele strings are monofilament nylon with a knot on one end. With the help of TV celebrity Arthur Godfrey’s endorsement Mario made and shipped nearly seven million TV Pal ukuleles from 1949 (the year I was born) into the 1960’s. At four strings a uke, that is 28 million strings, if anyone is counting.

Our entire family knotted ukulele strings while watching TV or in between homework and chores. You really weren’t allowed to just ‘sit’ around. On those delivery trips, Mario used to stop whatever he was doing to sit down for a cup of coffee with my Dad. On most visits he would take out a classical guitar and play something he was transcribing or practicing.

Early in his career Mario was one of the most successful touring classical guitarists in Europe. He had a sweetness of tone, a romantic flare for phrasing and musicality that was truly unique. I was always mesmerized when he played for us. But even more exciting to me was walking around his monstrous factory; seeing the huge molding and packaging machines, an office full of engineers and draftsmen designing products and molds, and hundreds of workers in constant motion.

If you are interested in learning more about Mario read some of the articles on the web like these:
http://www.lutherie.net/mario_en.html
http://www.harpguitars.net/history/maccaferri/month-player,macc.htm

From those early visits a bond was formed between Mario and me that would grow and grow as each year passed. As his business career ebbed and mine started to get traction he took a personal interest in what we were doing at D’Addario. He would take trips to visit to see what new machines or products I was working on and he would offer some of his expert advice.

He was an old school guy and did not get along with his son Marco in business. He was not an easy person to contradict, but for some reason I was able to get away with more than he accepted from his son. After his visits I could expect daily phone calls with new ideas about everything I showed him upon his previous visit. His mind was amazing. It was my first experience getting to know a true genius. Sometimes I didn’t take his advice and pushed back. He would continue to come back at me each day until I either tried what he suggested or convinced him that his approach was not feasible. I loved the dialog even though the two Italians disagreeing can be a little volatile at times.

Many times my wife Janet and I would take our three children to his home in Rye Beach for Maria’s homemade lasagna. Both Mario and Maria were originally from Bologna; I don’t have to tell you how delicious those dinners were. Our children still talk about them today.

On one occasion we were sitting around his dinner table and of course after dinner, out comes the guitar. Mario serenaded us with some beautiful classical pieces and then thrust the guitar into my hands insisting that I play something. A folk-pop-guitarist, with no classical technique whatsoever Janet and performed a folk song of the period finger picking like Bob Dylan or Peter Yarrow. I thought it sounded pretty good. When we finished, there was silence. He looked at me and said, “You should be shot.”

This was Mario’s way of saying, ‘how could you waste your talent and not learn how to play properly. It was a classic Mario moment. We all laughed.’

In 1980 Janet and I started running a concert series at NYC Merkin Concert Hall called Debuts and Premieres. The premise of the series, sponsored by our newly formed foundation, was to debut upcoming classical guitarists and to premiere new works for the classical guitar. Mario loved to come to these concerts and because we didn’t want him driving at night, we used to pick him and Maria up at their home. We met some of the greatest guitarists and composers during this period.

One particular concert, he got the date wrong and thought it was a week earlier than it really was. Dressed in his suit and tie pacing back and forth for an hour, we never showed up. He was depressed for a week, but his Italian pride wouldn’t allow him to call me to ask what happened. On Friday the following week I called him to confirm that I would pick him up Saturday at 6 PM for dinner and the concert. Maria later told me about his sulking for a week and how his face lit up when he realized we hadn’t stood him up the week before. Of course he couldn’t confess that HE got the date wrong – again classic Mario.

On another occasion we were having a dinner party at our home with a handful of the great guitarists that either played or were going to play on our concert series. Ben Verdery was there, as was Elliot Fisk, Alice Artzt, Jorge Morel and of course I invited Mario. After dinner the guitars came out and we were treated to some great performances. Elliot, Jorge and Alice played first, and then the guitar was passed to Mario. At age 83 he just finished transcribing the second movement of Beethoven’s Sonata Pathetique for classical guitar. Written in Ab he transposed it up a half step to A for this transcription. Needless to say, there were a few clinkers in there but his tone was incomparable. Our mouths dropped. Out of respect, Ben refused to play after the master finished.

There is a wealth of information on Mario Maccaferri out there. I could write pages and pages of anecdotes and stories about him and our relationship. He was truly a master musician, a brilliant inventor, a talented luthier, a reed maker and plastic industry pioneer. To me he was a second father.

Jim D’Addario