Dear All,
I have just changed some strings on my 6-course in a'. For the top two
courses I used some nylgut strings from July 2014. These are the shiny,
smooth nylgut strings Aquila produced for a year or so before they went
back to the previous formula, apparently after complaints from
lute-players that the new strings didn't have enough surface texture! I
have tried an awful lot of nylgut strings over the years (there have
been umpteen formulas, although Aquila didn't always publicize the fact)
and to my mind these were by far the best for top strings: they were
clear, true (except for the first batches), spoke freely all the way up
the fingerboard, were very close to gut tensions for a given diameter,
were extremely durable and could be put up to pitch and be stable almost
immediately. A great pity they stopped producing them.
Anyway, because I don't have many left, I decided to use one 0.44
diameter string cut in two for the second course of my lute (which has a
53 cm string length). To my surprise, one of the strings was incredibly
sharp going up the fingerboard. This morning I put it on the other way
round and it was fine! I have had similar experiences with some wound
and gut strings but I am very surprised that this should happen with a
small diameter nylgut string (maybe this was an unmentioned issue which
led to ceased production).
Any thoughts, comments?
Thanks,
Matthew
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