Is there a type of string that current will flow through?

[O'malley's Alley]

And by string I mean any kind of instrument string...

I'm just curious... :?:

[gez]

Any metal string will conduct current.

[Jason Stout]

If you have a voltage difference between two points, you have a potential for current flow between those points. How fast the current flows is decided by how much resistance is in its path between voltage differences. But like gez said, metals are good conductor *Edit* Because they offer little resistance.

[SoundTech]

And don't forget, any current flowing through the string of an instrument, also has the possibility of flowing through the human touching it.  That can be unpleasant... or deadly.

[Brian Marshall]

a wet string

[lightningfingers]

vintage valve amps are especially prone to that.
i came very close to being dead from this once
ever since then im afraid ive rather lost my liking for vintage tube equipment

[The Tone God]

The old and discontinued synth guitar the "Synth Ax" put a signal through the guitar string on the fretting neck. When the string was pressed against a fret the computer register the connection allowing it to know which note was being played. Hate to imagine the wiring for that beast.

Andrew

[Nasse]

I think some Guitorgans use this kind of tech, nowadays it´s done with hex pickups and MIDI

[ExpAnonColin]

The old and discontinued synth guitar the "Synth Ax" put a signal through the guitar string on the fretting neck. When the string was pressed against a fret the computer register the connection allowing it to know which note was being played. Hate to imagine the wiring for that beast.

Andrew

That's a great idea...  it'd be hard to get the connections accurate because of fret buzz and whatnot.

-Colin

[R.G.]

The old and discontinued synth guitar the "Synth Ax" put a signal through the guitar string on the fretting neck. When the string was pressed against a fret the computer register the connection allowing it to know which note was being played. Hate to imagine the wiring for that beast.

It might not have  been that hard. I don't know about the synth ax, but at least one guitar synth grounded the strings and used resistors behind the fret board. Pressing the string on a fret grounded that fret and the resulting voltage/current was read as the result on that string.

The frets had to be made in six sections though 8-)

There is at least one guitar with fiber optic strings that senses the change in light transmission from light down the strings.

[O'malley's Alley]

And don't forget, any current flowing through the string of an instrument, also has the possibility of flowing through the human touching it.  That can be unpleasant... or deadly.

but that is only if there is alot of voltage going through the string, right?

[Hal]

current _will_ flow through any conductor (aka metal string) as long as there is voltage applied.  This is the same way as water will travel though a pipe, as long as there is pressure on the end to push the water.  the defenition of a conductor is that current will flow through it, as long as voltage is applied.

if there is no voltage present, it doesn't make a differance if the string is a conductor or insulator.

[The Tone God]

It might not have  been that hard. I don't know about the synth ax, but at least one guitar synth grounded the strings and used resistors behind the fret board. Pressing the string on a fret grounded that fret and the resulting voltage/current was read as the result on that string.

The frets had to be made in six sections though 8-)

There is at least one guitar with fiber optic strings that senses the change in light transmission from light down the strings.

I belive the Synth Ax didn't use split frets. Each string had a different signal going through it. The computer determined the pitch by what signals were coming through which frets. That way you could still bend strings.

I haven't heard of the fiber optic guitar but it sounds cool.

That's a great idea... it'd be hard to get the connections accurate because of fret buzz and whatnot.

The Synth Ax had two sections to it in a slightly L shape. A fretboard which you use to pitch your notes and a picking section which you could use to accent the notes similar to picking a guitar. You could actually play just with one hand all the notes and not pick. There were also piano-like keys that you could play on it with your picking hand for more effects.

Andrew

[Ansil]

The old and discontinued synth guitar the "Synth Ax" put a signal through the guitar string on the fretting neck. When the string was pressed against a fret the computer register the connection allowing it to know which note was being played. Hate to imagine the wiring for that beast.

Andrew

lol  i had thought i came up with something new in college until i had been in electronics for a while. lol i was sending a control signal down the strings tied to different points on the fretboard so depending on where your hand was on the fret board would select you pickups  used a lot of logic gates or and nor gates. and a few relays and stuff for the pickups.

[SoundTech]

but that is only if there is alot of voltage going through the string, right?

Voltage doesn't kill ya, current does.  A small 9-volt battery won't do serious damage to you because there isn't a lot of available power there.  On the other hand, a 12-volt car battery CAN do serious damage because there's a lot more stored power.  So, voltage makes electrons move.  Current is the amount of electrons moving.  More voltage makes more electrons move.  More electrons=more hurt.  Electric shocks of significant magnitude can cause health issues, even if it doesn't kill you.  Very low current exposure is pretty safe.  Very low.

[zachary vex]

if you think about it, a set of strings and a set of frets are a perfect matrix.  if you have all of the electrically isolated and have access to each of them as a contact point, you can identify any particular fretted note.   but you might not know as much as much as you need to, to make things interesting.  the idea of sending a signal down a string rather than a simple voltage is quite interesting too.

the difficulty of all of this with respect to a conventional guitar and the construction techniques typically employed makes the idea of wiring all frets individually (and worse, splitting them and wiring them) daunting.

[Ge_Whiz]

The ability to drive a current through a conducting body (yours) is proportional to the voltage, irrespective of the maximum available current. Connecting yourself across a twelve-volt car battery will not generally cause harm, but holding a screwdriver blade across the terminals will lead to serious burns (or possibly shrapnel damage). It is generally accepted that supplies of 40V and above are potentially lethal. It only takes about 20mA through the heart to run a serious risk of stopping it. Incidentally, Edison's sales pitch was right, although misguided - volt-for-volt, AC is considerably more dangerous than DC.

[SoundTech]

The ability to drive a current through a conducting body (yours) is proportional to the voltage, irrespective of the maximum available current.

Of course, since the human is the resistor value in Ohm's law.  But the point was, if the string has a voltage applied to it, depending upon how it's hooked up and what voltage is applied to it, there may be very little current flow, until a person touches it and becomes a better conductor path than the original circuit.

- volt-for-volt, AC is considerably more dangerous than DC.

Well, depends on the frequency, as Tesla adequately demonstrated.  I would't want to be in the middle of a 10,000 VDC circuit.

[niftydog]

nor would you want to be in the firing line of Teslas "earth resonance" experiments that supposedly caused the Tunguska explosion!

...in fact, you probably wouldn't have wanted to live in his home town!

On days when he was running his equipment up, people could draw long arcs from door handles and fire hydrants, the grass glowed blue all night and devices connected to Washingtons generators would explode thanks to the incredible inductive kicks coming from Tesla Colorado Springs labs!

[bwanasonic]

nor would you want to be in the firing line of Teslas "earth resonance" experiments that supposedly caused the Tunguska explosion!

I don't think this is supposed by any reputable scientists.  :lol:

Kerry M