Dear Matthew and All,
I have some "shiny" nylgut which I bought only a year or so ago (from
Bridgewood and Neitzert, and I doubt that their stock was particularly
ancient). I hadn't noticed any big difference between these and other
nylgut strings in terms of stability, stretchiness etc.
For me, the rough surface of most nylgut is too much. If you listen
carefully you can hear a high-pitched squeak, whereas a well-polished
gut string is almost silent. On the other hand the very smooth surface
of PVDF strings (the thin ones, not the big KF strings we've been
discussing recently) is too slippery for a proper contact.
The old white nylgut was too stretchy and often too rough on the
surface. I used to polish them to make them a bit smoother. When the
"new" (supposedly gut-coloured) nylgut came out it was claimed they were
less stretchy (not true, according to my experiments) and to my dismay,
were typically - but not always - even rougher on the surface! The
"new" strings have always been less consistent than the old "white"
strings, in stretchiness, in roughness, in trueness, and diameter (check
with a micrometer). It may be my imagination, but they seem less stable
in conditions of changing temperature as well, sometimes gut seems more
stable!
I have largely returned to gut and nylon (!) but it's incredibly
frustrating not to have decent synthetic strings for everyday use. The
only good news is that for basses, the Savarez KF strings have largely
(but not completely) solved the problem which loaded gut was intended to
address.
Best wishes,
Martin
On 01/05/2016 12:25, Matthew Daillie wrote:
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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