Putting an electric string on an acoustic guitar?

[avoriaz]

A few questions about strings from a beginner. Probably very daft questions but I can’t find the answer elsewhere and I am curious to know.

Is there a significant difference between the strings on an electric and on a steel strung acoustic guitar or can I interchange them in an emergency?

I know that an electric guitar requires that the strings have magnetic properties whereas this is not required on an acoustic. I also know that the string gauges vary and that the tensions are very different between the guitars. I have an Aria Strat copy electric with 9 – 42 strings and a Yamaha 310 acoustic with 12 – 53 strings.

Can I use an acoustic A string of gauge 42 to replace an electric bottom E, also of gauge 42? Could I use a top E acoustic string of gauge 12 to replace the B 2nd string of gauge 11, or even the top E of gauge 9 on the electric and get it in tune? Are they designed for such different tensions that they would sound awful or even damage the guitar?

My instincts are that it is probably a very bad idea and should never be attempted but I am curious to know whether it is possible. Maybe it is possible one way but not the other, i.e. I could put an electric string on an acoustic guitar but not an acoustic string on an electric guitar.

My second question relates to replacing just one string with a different gauge. I know that ideally I should replace all the strings at the same time but I am a beginner and absolute tone etc is not yet critical to me. If I am using 9 – 42 strings and my 9 breaks, would putting a 10 in its place be ok or would it screw up the tuning, action etc. I am aware that changing gauge sometimes requires tension rod and other adjustments but I am looking at replacing one string not all six.

Thanks.

[dunkelfalke]

1) yes, you can put electric strings on an acoustic guitar and also acoustic strings on an electric guitar.

the sound will suffer (electric strings sound bland unplugged, acoustic strings sound weak through a pickup), but other from that it is fine

2) the different gauges aren't a problem as long as you don't change all strings and don't have a vibrato system. if you do have a vibrato system - you mentioned a strat - there could be a little problem because the string would pull on it differently and because of it you would need to retune all 6 strings after changing - but you'll do it anyway i suppose.
the second problem i can imagine is that the nut slot won't be wide enough for a different gauge. shouldn't be a problem with standard nuts, is a big problem with older wilkinson roller nuts which are made for a single gauge only. there a string which is only a 0.125 mm (about 0.005 inches) thicker wouldn't fit.

[gfxbss]

i heard that putting electric strings on an acoustic would give you intonation problems. you may want to look into that.

[dunkelfalke]

kind of.
acoustics normally don't have an adjustable bridge and so they are optimised for one single gauge of strings so even changing to thinner acoustic strings could give you intonation problems.

the other thing is that an acoustic g string is often wounded and an electric is often not and the intonation differences between wounded and straight strings are quite large.

[gfxbss]

what about acoustics that dont have the bridge glued down and therefore are adjustable to a degree. these bridges were discussed in guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/index.cgi?board=repair&action=display&thread=1166042773

[dunkelfalke]

archtops?
depends. the biggest problem with the intonation would be the wounded/unwounded g string.
you might need to swap the bridge to a differently compensated one.

btw there are also compensating saddles for guitars with glued bridges
here is a picture of one.


afaik you use normal saddles for heavy strings with wounded g and compensating saddle for lighter strings with a strait g, but i am not sure about that.

some archtops have fully adjustable bridges though (like my ibanez artcore).

[gfxbss]

hmm, ive always put ernie ball electric strings on my ovation. ive never noticed any intonation problems, but i havent paid much attention. i told my girlfriends brother that if he wanted a brighter tone to his acoustic, he should try that. when he did his guitar teacher had a seizure and told him that im a moron....

[strathappy]

I put electric strings on my acoustic electric and love it, the sound is not as bright but I almost like that, besides I play licks more them strumming chords, I think acoustic strings are designed to 'bite" the air more giving a more bright and busy tone.

[dd842]

strathappy said:

I put electric strings on my acoustic electric and love it, the sound is not as bright but I almost like that, besides I play licks more them strumming chords, I think acoustic strings are designed to 'bite" the air more giving a more bright and busy tone.

Yes, acoustic strings are designed for volume and "bite".

The bite part is mainly dependent on what materials the strings are made of. The actual guage of the strings will certainly have a huge impact on volume as well.

I usually put Elixir lights (acoustic strings) on my acoustic, and I recently put Elixir extra-lights on (also acoustic strings). Big difference.

The tone was not noticeably diminished, but the actual volume that was being projected from the soundhole was quite a bit less. I believe there was simply not enough mass in the smaller strings to generate as much vibration as had been generated using the light guage strings.

The plus side of that tradeoff is that the bending and vibrato and barre chords and everything else that comes so much more effortlessly on an electric is also much easier on an acoustic with extra-light strings.

However, since I have discovered that extra-light (Elixir) strings are much harder to come by than lights are, if I wanted to continue using extra-lights I could see using extra light electric guitar strings which can be commonly found.

Doing so, however, would result not only in diminished volume, but also in diminished tone. As you say, you'd have to almost like that.

For my tastes: next string change, I am going back to Elixir lights, designed for an acoustic guitar.

Dan

[UnklMickey]

dunkelfalke said:

archtops?
depends. the biggest problem with the intonation would be the wounded/unwounded g string.
you might need to swap the bridge to a differently compensated one.

btw there are also compensating saddles for guitars with glued bridges
here is a picture of one.


afaik you use normal saddles for heavy strings with wounded g and compensating saddle for lighter strings with a strait g, but i am not sure about that.

some archtops have fully adjustable bridges though (like my ibanez artcore).

you have no idea just how important that can be!

If an acoustic is set up for Nylon, or Nylon/Brasswraps, the stiffness is much less a factor. the bridge will be fairly straight as compared with one set up for steel / nickle strings. Fortunately the errors in intonation are only minor when playing near the nut. But as you move toward the 12th fret, things can get quite ugly.

I'm rather a fan of the tone of Nylon strings ... although I don't think that would make much sense on a 12-string acoustic.

[dd842]

unklmickey said:

..... I'm rather a fan of the tone of Nylon strings ... although I don't think that would make much sense on a 12-string acoustic.

Yes, me too ... uh, twice. Me two-too.

I mean, yes I like the sound of my classical guitar (well, when someone else plays it, I like it), but it's construction is quite different from a my steel string acoustic.

The string tension on the classical is far less, and so the construction of the classical gets away with being fairly "light", which allows for better tone ... the steel string acoustic is built like a shick brithouse and can easily accomodate the lower tension of the nylon strings, but it's tank-like structure means tone would suffer relative to the classical guitar.

But that's a damned sight better than what would happen if you put steel strings on a classical guitar, isn't it?

Dan

[Ripper]

Id like to see a set of string for electric that are ALL unwound. So you dont get that screechy like chirp that we all know so well.

I suppose getting an unwound 46 guage low e string would make for some interesting sounds?....or maybe it would sound like crap!
Thoughts gentleman?

[dd842]

deepblue said:

..... I suppose getting an unwound 46 guage low e string would make for some interesting sounds?....or maybe it would sound like crap!

Thoughts gentleman?

What? ... who? ... gentlemen?

The material that came to mind when you spoke of an unwound low e string takes me back about 25 years, to when I was a boy in Nova Scotia, and my brothers and I used to have a little "business" snaring rabbits. They used to call me "McPheerskinoff" ... guess who got stuck with th job of cleaning the rabbits?

Pardon my stroll down memory lane ... [soundclip] 'memories' [/soundclip] ... [hurl] ...

Anyhoo, the material used to make the snares was solid wire that was made of some sort of brass alloy, and it would have been about the size of maybe the A or D string, if memory serves ... maybe as big as the E string, but I doubt it.

The brass was part of the alloy so that it would not rust, which would be a plus on a guitar. I don't know if it could take the strain of being brought into tune though ... and if it couldn't, and it broke, I don't know what would happen when the rabbit escapes, either. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, maybe?

As for tone ... who knows? Perhaps I will see if I can find some wire and try it next time I re-string my electric.

My brother used to joke about stringing his classical guitar with deep-sea fishing line ... and then GN2 came along ... anything now seems possible ...

Dan

P.S. Since shielding is quieting the "beast", would adding wire used to capture wild animals make the guitar a "wildabeast"? ... just asking

[UnklMickey]

dd842 said:

Anyhoo, the material used to make the snares was solid wire that was made of some sort of brass alloy, and it would have been about the size of maybe the A or D string, if memory serves ... maybe as big as the E string, but I doubt it.

The brass was part of the alloy so that it would not rust, which would be a plus on a guitar. I don't know if it could take the strain of being brought into tune though ...

the problem won't be the tension. it will be that as the diameter and mass increase, so does the stiffness. that's the beauty of a wound string. the mass is high, but the stiffness is low.

that's why, when you look at the bridge, there is an abrupt change in the placement of the D (closer to the nut) compared with the G.

if you have a bridge set up for a wound G, that change happens on the G.

a plain E would be either very thick, or very loose. the bridge saddle would have to be much farther toward the tail. and the overtones would be unpleasant. I'm not saying: "don't try it." ...just don't expect much.

[dd842]

unklmickey said:

..... a plain E would be either very thick, or very loose.

I kind of expected as much ... the thought of bending makes my fingers hurt. Still, as you say ...

..... and the overtones would be unpleasant. I'm not saying: "don't try it." ...just don't expect much.

I'm with you, I'm not expecting much. If there were common materials that worked as well as guitar strings, I figure we'd all be using them ... but there isn't, and so we're not.

But I guess I've always wanted to try stuff like this anyway ...

And I am more than just guessing that I'm about to find out why I hadn't bothered yet

Dan

[eljib]

you could always try flatwound strings. I've got a heavy guage set of gibson flatwounds on my 335 copy and they feel great. No "chirp", as you say.