Hi Michael,
I can't give you a simple answer, but I'll offer a few suggestions on how you might proceed, and then a few general comments.
1) Try using the Search function, looking for 'tension'. I just did a quick check, and it turns up about 18 hits covering most of the interesting discussions I recall from the last few months. (As you'll discover, if you haven't already, we do have a tendency to wander a bit in these threads so you can't always go by the subjects). Lots of good background stuff here.
2) You might turn up more specific suggestions on brands by searching on 'strings'. However, be careful to use the plural form, and match whole words only, so you don't end up with all the 5 string Europas and such.
3) Hope that some of the 32 scale owners chip in here (I'm a 34 going to 35 myself). However, you'd get better advice if you told us a little more about what you were looking for - flats/rounds, nickel/stainless, bright/whatever - or at least something about your preferred music and style. Some of these combinations will really narrow down the choices, especially for 32.
A few quick summary comments, and some things I've been wanting to get off my chest...
- Do NOT buy longer strings and cut them (Joey explains why elsewhere).
- You're right that in principle, higher tension strings generally behave in a more theoretically ideal fashion regarding harmonics (and also permit lower action).
However, carefully designed strings (such as Thomastiks) can easily sound and play better with lower tension, than average quality strings of higher tension. I was always a high tension fan, but these guys hooked me despite my initial skepticism. Try to keep an open mind, and don't get stuck thinking you just want to look at tension numbers.
- I'm not clear on the relation between tension and sustain (I think it's a bit tricky), but with Alembic you'll have more sustain than you know what to do with, so I wouldn't worry about that.
- Most low end is also not necessarily a matter of tension. Sure, to some extent more tension means heavier gauge and that might help with low end, but the design of the instrument (in particular neck laminates) can easily be a bigger factor, as can different styles of strings.
- If you really just want tension, you get more with bigger gauges (given identical string design). But you can't make a simple gauge comparison across companies, or even different styles from the same manufacturer, so it really helps to see the tension specs.
Personally, I'm a little skeptical about brands that don't publish tensions. And further (just my opinion, there are exceptions, blahblahblah), I'm really suspicious when I see them offer a range of light/med/high sets all with perfectly spaced gauges (like 100-80-60-40, 105-85-65-45, etc.) - it's rarely that simple.
- All that aside, you're eventually going to just have to try a few - when you get your custom - and hopefully you'll find something you like. But see point (3) again, so maybe some of the others can help you put together a short (I should say, medium) list.
(Message edited by bob on January 31, 2003)
