Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hey guys,
Was just wondering... i always found the E string on the good ole jf344 string set to be a little too large relative to the other strings... it has too great a difference in tone, I feel, and I mean this even with proper setup and without any of the "Dead e" stuff around it. I have read about the JF-346, which has slightly difference gauges:

___JF344_____JF346
G .043 .044
D .056 .057
A .070 .072
E .100 .096

I was wondering if anybody has tried out a JF346 E string with the other strings, or if they have tried JF346 at all? Thoughts? Thanks.

I know I'll feel silly for not figuring it out myself as soon as its explained here, but what's the "JF" in "JF-346"?

paologregorio wrote:I know I'll feel silly for not figuring it out myself as soon as its explained here, but what's the "JF" in "JF-346"?

I believe it is Jazz Flat

jamespaul71 wrote:

paologregorio wrote:I know I'll feel silly for not figuring it out myself as soon as its explained here, but what's the "JF" in "JF-346"?

I believe it is Jazz Flat

Ah, thanks. I don't feel so silly now, because I'd never have gotten that one, being a dedicated round wound playing, pick sliding guitarist.

paologregorio wrote:

jamespaul71 wrote:

paologregorio wrote:I know I'll feel silly for not figuring it out myself as soon as its explained here, but what's the "JF" in "JF-346"?

I believe it is Jazz Flat

Ah, thanks. I don't feel so silly now, because I'd never have gotten that one, being a dedicated round wound playing, pick sliding guitarist.

What are you doing in the bass forum?

(I kid I kid )

I'd like to see tensional values as well. If the construction methods are the same, the lighter E string will be even floppier than an already floppy set of strings. I can't see myself standing it. Although I've had luck with JF344s for direct-inject recordings, I have had less luck mic'ing my amp and using them. Naturally a lot of it is my own darned fault--however, I got really tired of some of the mud that was being generated. When I switched a tighter-feeling set of flats, my tone opened up ("a blanket was lifted") and mic'ed recordings immediately sounded fantastic. In fact, that generated some of my favorite recordings of my fretless to date. Therefore I am quite wary of low-tension strings and the lack of definition they provide (for me--some of you legendary players here may not have this problem). I definitely wouldn't want a TI JF set that was any floppier than the 344 set. Ironic that the other strings may be less floppy in the 346 set, again if construction methods remain the same.

I should add that the "most floppy" string as I perceived it, more in terms of tone than in terms of feel, was the A-string of my JF344 set, before I made the switch. The others sounded marginally better-defined by comparison.


EDIT: Say, where are you getting these specs? Check out this link to the supposed JF346 set and you'll notice the EADG gauges haven't changed a bit. http://www.juststrings.com/toi-jf346.html

Also, just like I said I perceived above, the A-string has the least tension of the whole EADG set.

all from juststrings:

http://www.juststrings.com/toi-jf344.html
http://www.juststrings.com/toi-jf364.html

The tensions are listed there.

Woops. 364. Thanks for correcting me.

Please bear in mind that those tensions apply to a 36'' scale. The best approximate available for a Ric bass is a 34'' scale, although tensions will actually be slightly less than the approximate.

It's not perfect but you can always do ([Initial tension]/[Initial gauge]) X (Final gauge) in order to calculate a rough estimate of the resulting tension at the newer gauge. Doing this, the difference in the A-string (for example) going up .002'' results in a very marginal increase in tension of about .8 lbs, just according to some quick calculator work on my laptop. Similarly the decrease in gauge of .004'' for the E string results in about 1 less pound of tension, at a 34'' scale approximate.

It's weird that TI chose to ratchet up the gauges on the super-long scale string set. Both changes will result in increased tension... so it's a bit of a double whammy. I suspect those strings feel nothing like the JF344 set on a 34'' scale bass or a Ric.

hm interesting. So the JF344 standard versus the 346 used in its place would come out to:

E - 37.03v37.89
A - 37.47v38.14
D - 31.30v32.19
G - 34.39v33.01

Hmm.. What else can we learn from this? Can we determine some sort of ratio for the gauge to tension or something? There must be some way to determine the best gauge/tension for a given progression so as to find the closest matching strings.

The numbers in these sets refer to the scale length and number of strings right? 364 is a 36" scale length and the 4 is the number of strings? Just trying to under stand this stuff!

Likely lol. Decoding model numbers is sometimes silly.

fireglo wrote:The numbers in these sets refer to the scale length and number of strings right? 364 is a 36" scale length and the 4 is the number of strings? Just trying to under stand this stuff!

That is exactly right. The 324 is a 32'' 4-string and the 346 is a 34'' scale 6-string. The set in question here is the 364 (vs the popular 344).

Well, I am no expert, but I believe that there is more to the string than gauge and tension... It seems that the more important relationship is in the mass/length than in the "gauge" because what does that mean exactly? I have done some calculations:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lo ... lation.htm

With that, I calculated the mass per unit length for each string on jf344 (this is all for 34" length)

E 0.04927
A 0.02517
D 0.01691
G 0.00938
Graphed out for the MPC we get
http://www.chartgo.com/create.do?chart= ... vedataset=

now for the jf346 we get:

E 0.05053
A 0.02872
D 0.01909
G 0.01061

Graphed out for that we get
http://www.chartgo.com/create.do?chart= ... vedataset=

As you can see by the graphs, the E string for the JF344 is of a MUCH higher mass per unit length as compared to the rest of the strings than the JF346.

I'm gonna do this for a few other string types to see if there is some sort of correlation between MPC and perceived similarity in tone. If anybody has any NOS maxima strings, the real deal flats, if you could post the tensions and gauges that would be awesome. We could check out the MPC for the old maximas and know what the clearly good sounding ratio actually is.

Thanks

Warning!!! Warning!!!

I think thats fair , but there must be something to it no? This is a pretty obsessive forum, and I dont think anyone has gone here before