Official Luthiers Forum!

A new release of the free Simple String Set Calculator available on my site has been installed. This release fixes some minor bugs and documentation typos, and adds one new feature that may be of interest to instrument designers. The calculator is primarily intended for the automated design of custom string sets without the need to consider technical details like tension. Input the notes the strings will be tuned to and the scale length (scale lengths for multiscale instruments), and the calculator presents a complete medium tension string set for that instrument. If strings are available to support it, it will also calculate a higher tension set and a lower tension set as well.

The new feature added is the ability of the calculator to calculate an optimal scale length for the instrument, based on the specified string pitches. Although this feature will generally not be of interest to musicians looking for string sets for existing instruments, luthiers designing new instruments for custom pitch ranges will find it useful.

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R.M. Mottola
LiutaioMottola.com

Author of the books Building the Steel String Acoustic Guitar, Practical Design of the Acoustic Guitar and Similar Instruments, and Mottola's Cyclopedic Dictionary of Lutherie Terms.

I don't check in here very often. If you need to contact me the best bet is via email through the contact page on my site.

R.M., I just wanted to say thanks again for all the technical references that you make available. Your website is at the top of my book marks and I visit it frequently. Ironically a friend and I had been discussing setting up one of his electric guitars for open G and he wanted to maintain close to the same tension that he has in standard tuning. Then this thread pops up and bingo! exactly what we need. I'm off to the music store to pick up a few strings and we'll see how it works.

Freeman, thanks for the thanks. I know that this and other web applications on my site are being executed, but that doesn't tell me if people find them to be useful!

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R.M. Mottola
LiutaioMottola.com

Author of the books Building the Steel String Acoustic Guitar, Practical Design of the Acoustic Guitar and Similar Instruments, and Mottola's Cyclopedic Dictionary of Lutherie Terms.

I don't check in here very often. If you need to contact me the best bet is via email through the contact page on my site.