Each type can have a big impact on your playing and your sound. The two main types are roundwound and flatwound guitar strings. Please note : This post will be focusing on electric guitar strings. Acoustic guitar strings and bass strings are the subjects for another post in and of themselves. To answer that, we have to talk a little bit about how guitar strings are made.
On any guitar, the top two or three strings are going to be plain or non-wound. Pretty simple! The bass strings or thicker strings are going to be a little different, though. These strings have a solid core of steel wire that is then wrapped with another fine wire on the outside. With a roundwound string, the outer winding wire is going to be round in cross-section. The string will have a plain steel core wrapped tightly with a fine, round wire. The winding wire of a flatwound string has a square or ribbon-shaped cross-section.
This is then wrapped around the core of the string in the same way as a roundwound string. Roundwound strings will feel rough to the touch if you run your fingers along the length of the string.
You will also be able to see the ridges of the outer winding wire. Flatwound strings, on the other hand, will look and feel very smooth to the touch. You may have a hard time seeing or feeling any of the ridges on the string! Also, flatwound strings are usually available only in med to heavy string gauges. Side note: For more guitar string-related posts, check out the links below! Electric Guitar String Gauges. Changing Electric Guitar Strings.
They are basically just roundwound strings passed through a grinder to remove some or all of the outer ridges. These are mid-way points between roundwound and flatwound strings. Roundwound strings use a round external wire to wrap around the inner wire core, while flatwound strings use a flat, tape-like wire. The difference has an effect on the sound and playing feel of the strings.
Roundwound strings tend to have a brighter, more harmonically complex tone. They are available in the widest selection of gauges and materials nickel, stainless steel, etc. Downsides to roundwound strings are that finger squeaks and other noises from repositioning your hands on the neck are more prevalent. They also tend to cause little grooves to wear into your frets faster than flatwounds, so you may need to refret your instrument more often if you use roundwounds.
Flatwound strings tend to have a darker tone that emphasizes the note fundamental, with limited harmonic content compared to roundwound strings. Because of the increased tension that comes with flatwounds, it can be harder to depress the strings. Another effect of the increased string tension is the effect on the neck.
Higher string tension will increase your neck relief, which in turn increases height of action, exacerbating the increased effort that is required of playing flatwound strings to begin with. However, the biggest problem with the change in neck relief is a change in intonation — you will need to account for this with a proper setup once the new strings are installed. You should also be conscious that flatwound strings tend to be a lot more expensive than roundwound, and in many cases cost double, or even triple the price of rounds.
On the plus side, because of their ability to resist accumulation of sweat and dead skin, they last considerably longer than roundwound strings.
So, the initial cost is greater, but they have the potential to be more economical over the long term. If you are already running a pedalboard with custom settings, you will likely have to modify the parameters after switching to flatwound strings. Your pedals apply set parameters to the dry signal coming from the guitar and modify it before sending it to the amplifier. If the input signal is changed, the way the pedal interacts with it will also change, resulting in different tones. One of the best things about playing the guitar is the ability to express creativity by experimenting with different gear to create different sounds.
Changing from a roundwound to a flatwound string is a great and relatively cheap way to do that. Growing up in rural Australia, there wasn't much to do but play guitar and stare at the red dirt.
When things broke, the only person to fix them was fifty miles away, and eventually fixing gave way to building, giving me my career as a luthier. I wouldn't have it any other way. Martin Holland has 96 posts and counting.
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