So, I noticed that the B (w/tree) on my thinline had noticeably more sustain played open than my G (no string tree), then there was that long thread about string trees that ended up getting someone banned I think....
So I thought maybe I could actually measure the difference in sustain and tone with / without string trees. I used my hardtail strat, wound with .011s in Eb, and played G string and E string several times both with and without the string tree attached. Of course I tuned between tries. I tried to be really careful to pick the note with the same medium force each time. I recorded without effects using my toneport into Audacity, normalized the tracks, and measured the length of the waveform from onset to its end. Also looked at the waveforms to see if the shapes were different post-attack (during the first second or so), because the far tail of the sound as it tapers off doesn't matter that much in reality.
Average increase in sustain from a tree on the high E string: .07 seconds, with quite a bit of variation in total sustain from not to note. Hard to see any real differences in the respective waveforms. Averages: Notree: 7.1 sec W/tree: 7.17 sec.
Average increase in sustain on the G string: 2.47 seconds! Fairly consistent levels of sustain - 'no tree' was always less sustaining that 'with tree'. More importantly, the note decayed much more quickly after the initial attack with 'no tree'.
Averages: Notree: 8.37 sec. W/tree: 10.83 sec.
Maybe if people are interested I'll post photos of the waveforms later.
Initial conclusions: I never thought, while playing the guitar, that the G was lacking anything, but I'm definitely keeping the tree on now. I don't trust myself to say "I hear the difference" because I know there is a lot of psychological stuff behind that - we tend to hear what we want to hear, which is why I did this with waveforms and counting seconds.
I may add D/G trees to my baritone and thinline too. The little barrel ones certainly don't hurt anything tuning-wise.
I have no answer for why there wasn't much difference on the E string, and YMMV. If you play with lots of gain, if you have a floating trem, if you never use open strings, if you have a locking nut, I'm sure you'd get hugely different results.
Anyhow it's always nice to have a little mini science project to answer questions once in a while.
So I thought maybe I could actually measure the difference in sustain and tone with / without string trees. I used my hardtail strat, wound with .011s in Eb, and played G string and E string several times both with and without the string tree attached. Of course I tuned between tries. I tried to be really careful to pick the note with the same medium force each time. I recorded without effects using my toneport into Audacity, normalized the tracks, and measured the length of the waveform from onset to its end. Also looked at the waveforms to see if the shapes were different post-attack (during the first second or so), because the far tail of the sound as it tapers off doesn't matter that much in reality.
Average increase in sustain from a tree on the high E string: .07 seconds, with quite a bit of variation in total sustain from not to note. Hard to see any real differences in the respective waveforms. Averages: Notree: 7.1 sec W/tree: 7.17 sec.
Average increase in sustain on the G string: 2.47 seconds! Fairly consistent levels of sustain - 'no tree' was always less sustaining that 'with tree'. More importantly, the note decayed much more quickly after the initial attack with 'no tree'.
Averages: Notree: 8.37 sec. W/tree: 10.83 sec.
Maybe if people are interested I'll post photos of the waveforms later.
Initial conclusions: I never thought, while playing the guitar, that the G was lacking anything, but I'm definitely keeping the tree on now. I don't trust myself to say "I hear the difference" because I know there is a lot of psychological stuff behind that - we tend to hear what we want to hear, which is why I did this with waveforms and counting seconds.
I may add D/G trees to my baritone and thinline too. The little barrel ones certainly don't hurt anything tuning-wise.
I have no answer for why there wasn't much difference on the E string, and YMMV. If you play with lots of gain, if you have a floating trem, if you never use open strings, if you have a locking nut, I'm sure you'd get hugely different results.
Anyhow it's always nice to have a little mini science project to answer questions once in a while.
