The T-I downloadable pdf chart has been around a long time. It is useful, but limited. Tension specs are like a bird watcher's nature book. It will give you general descriptions and get you to the right area to try to see what you're looking for, but won't give you the final answer. A tension guide is not like an engineering manual where you consult the specifications desired to make a decision about structure. The tension specs will say nothing about tone, arco and pizz characteristics, that always subjective "feel," and so on. Finally, the speaking length measurements are necessary to see if a string will actually fit, especially for the E string: if the string is too long, especially for the E string (and B string if a 5), if too much speaking length is around the tuning post, it can affect the integrity of the string. (Mini rant: that's why I don't see the point of "traditional" tuning peg placement. Something like Upton does, reversing the stagger, is much more logical from a string silk leader perspective.)
One more limitation: you can't directly compare the tension specs for those strings listed as suitable for 110 cm mensure (T-I's version of "4/4") and those listed as suitable for 106 cm mensure (T-I's version of "3/4"). Tension varies as to the
square of the difference in mensure, so to find out what the "real" tension of an S42 string when strung on a 106 cm mensure bass instead of a 110 cm mensure bass, some math has to be done. I did the math. My chart to directly compare the sets is over on TalkBass. Here is the raw data; this is the best I can do to get it into a nice chart with columns on this forum for ease of reading:
Code:
G D A E Total
S42 4/4 Light 55.3 59.3 61.4 63.4 239.4
S42 4/4 Medium 61.4 65.5 69.6 69.6 266.1
S42 4/4 Heavy 73.7 73.7 75.8 77.8 301.0
4/4 Solo @ 3/4 Orch 50.3 55.3 55.3 55.3 216.2
3/4 Solo @ 3/4 Orch 56.0 57.8 57.8 57.8 229.4
3885 3/4 Light 60.6 61.7 63.9 66.1 252.3
3885 3/4 Medium 67.2 68.3 70.5 72.8 278.8
When I have time, I'll see if I can take the email chart for silk and speaking lengths and try to do the same thing for here.