As if I weren’t already blowing enough money on arcane strings, I’ve got a new obsession: Thomastik-Infeld Plectrum series acoustic strings (which sell for $24 in the U.S.).
If you hang out here much, you’ve heard me bitch incessantly about acoustic strings. I hate the way most modern strings are all hyped treble zing and blaring volume, at the expense of deep, decisive fundamentals. With due respect to my vegetarian friends, too many strings are all sizzle and no steak.
Yeah, bright strings can seem energizing in a cocaine-binge sort of way. But all that glassy presence gets fatiguing. Meanwhile, darker bass strings leave sonic space for the treble strings to shine. Even on my teensy-tiny Martin 0-17, these low strings sing in a warm baritone voice, not like some squeaky, poorly Auto-Tuned teen idol.
This pricy Austrian set features brass-coated steel 1st and 2nd strings, while the bass strings are bronze, but with both silk inlays and flexible steel cores. The flatwound 3rd, 4th, and 5th strings nix finger noise and minimize tone contrasts between wound and unwound strings. The polished roundwound 6th string adds a touch of focus to the lowest register, yet introduces no awkward contrasts on melodies played across multiple strings.
The set is low in both tension and volume relative to most U.S.-made strings. Even though the low E is a chunky .059, it has a soft, relaxed feel that makes me want to linger over notes, shaping them. The harmonic range is fantastic, the dynamic range even more so. They’re long-lasting too — this video was recorded three weeks and many playing hours after installing the set.
I’m hooked. Damn it.
(Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man — I don’t want you getting your nasty treble overtones all over my acoustic strings, no matter how frickin’ jingle-jangle the morning happens to be. Just back off, pendejo.)
It’s the latest chapter in my ongoing search for the right acoustic strings. Most available options simply sound far too harsh and bright to my ears, especially for fingerstyle playing on the small-bodied guitars I favor. Even though the Martin silk-and-steels I used were dramatically quieter than most bronze strings, I dug their warmth and strong fundamentals — and the absence of the hyped sizzle of bronze.
Several of you responded in comments with string suggestions, including several types I barely knew existed. Despite some rather shocking expenditures for these high-end, imported strings, I found much to love. Now I’m rich in tone, if nothing else.
Since I’m hot on the trail of a cool new fuzz circuit, I haven’t yet had time to record demos (and besides, I’d rather wait till the strings wear in a bit). But I’d like to share details about several products that impressed me. (more…)
A quick update to last week’s post about bronze and nickel strings: Over in the forum, Bear suggested trying 80/20 bronze strings. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I thought some of the strings I’d stocked up on and tried were 80/20s, but just realized they were another variety of phosphor bronze. D’oh!
So I got a nice, simple set of uncoated 80/20 Martin Marquis, popped them on, and realized that I don’t hate bronze strings — just phosphor bronze (and just on my particular guitars). I’m happy now.
Anyway, if you’re curious, I’ve updated the audio examples to include this third string type along with the phosphor bronze and nickels. Have a listen if you’re curious:
Like Talos the Giant from Jason & the Argonauts, most modern acoustic strings are made from bronze. Like him, they can be cruel and inflexible.
UPDATE: I’ve updated the audio examples to include 80/20 bronze strings, as detailed in this newer post.
Can I share my steel-string psychodrama?
I’m lucky enough to own many electric guitars, but I’ve played one steel-string acoustic almost exclusively for many years — a small-bodied Lowden with a tone that a very famous manufacturer of acoustic pickups once described as “like a f%^$ing cannon!” Its sizzling-bright treble and modest low-end make it a great recording instrument. (Engineers often boost highs and roll off lows when processing acoustic guitar, but this model is practically “pre-EQ’ed.”)
But it’s not an easy guitar to play. It seems to amplify string noise, flubbed notes, and all other playing imperfections. “This is a ‘tough love’ guitar,” muttered one singer/songwriter friend.
So when I bought a second steel-string recently, I wanted something warmer, softer, and more flattering, and I found it in a pretty old small-bodied Martin. The day I bought it, I restrung it with treble strings to record my recent Nashville high-strung demo, then popped on a set of the phosphor-bronze strings I’ve been using for years on the Lowden.
The problem was, my sweet, soft antique suddenly sounded a hell of a lot like the Lowden, with blistering treble and cruel string noise. And I realized in a flash that a lot of the qualities I’d attributed to the Lowden were, in fact, a result of the modern, coated phosphor bronze string I’d been using. So I ordered some alternatives and made a few test recordings to demonstrate how dramatic the differences are.
Ordinarily, these Thomastik-Infeld Classic S strings sound more like nylon strings than steel ones.
But their cores ARE steel — which means you can play through a magnetic pickup and mutilate the tone with amps and effects. I’m playing through effects designed for Apple’s MainStage software. (Some of them are in Logic Pro’s included sound library.)
No longer ridiculously expensive. Now they’re just very expensive.
I spent last week covering the Musikmesse musical instrument trade show in Frankfurt, Germany, for Premier Guitar. I had a blast, and Chris Kies and I posted details and pics of more than 70 new products. (Here’s the short list of our personal faves.) Kies shot lots of video, and will be posting more than 50 demo segments to the PG site in the coming weeks.
But Messe is hellishly loud, far noisier than NAMM. When I finally got home and picked up a guitar, it was an acoustic. I was trying something new, based on info I obtained from Mary Faith Rhoads-Lewis, CEO of Breezy Ridge, a company that distributes several brands for acoustic musicians, including John Pearse strings.
I’d previously geeked out here about about the strangest and most expensive guitar strings I’d ever tried: this “rope core” set from Austria’s Thomastik-Infeld. Reader/cool guy Al Milburn turned me on to them, and I wrote about them here. And I recently posted this video demonstrating how the transformed my old Martin 0-17 into a compelling steel/nylon hybrid with a unique and expressive voice.
Anyway, Ms. Rhoads-Lewis told me that the late John Pearse originally created this set for Thomastik, and that the John Pearse Folk Fingerpicking set [PJ116] is identical to what the Austrian company sells. Best part: You can get them in the States for under $20, as opposed to a walloping $35 for the Thomastiks. She also told me that their magic works in reverse: You can put this relatively low-tension set on a classical guitar for a very different sort of hybrid steel-string sound. (This, she said, is exactly what the great Brazilian player Bola Sete used to do.)
I popped a set on my old Yairi classical. The feel was — totally strange, and in precisely the opposite way as on the Martin. The tone was edgy and exciting, but the tension seemed a little too extreme. If just seemed a little too … high-strung, in every sense. Then I tried lowering the entire tuning a whole step, with the sixth dropped all the way to C.
And … oh, my. Check it out:
Summary: Holy cannoli, I love how this sounds. And there’s something psychologically satisfying about the transformation too. See, this guitar has always been a bit … tragic to me. I got it when I was 16. My classical guitar prof at UCLA said I needed a better instrument, and my every-supportive folks, bless ’em, helped me buy this Alvarez Yairi for around $700 (in 1970s dollars). It was a top-tier model for Alvarez, signed by luthier Kazuo Yairi, and boasting lovely Brazilian rosewood backs and sides. It was a huge upgrade for me, but as I got deeper into classical playing, its shortcomings emerged. Had I not shifted my studies to composition, I’d have needed to upgrade again. I envied the Igancio Fleta y Hijos models my two teachers played, but at around $3,000, they were beyond my budget, even with parental help. (Pity — their current value is approaching $50,000.) So I’ve used this instrument as a limited but decent-sounding model suitable for pop work, if not serious classical concertizing. (more…)
Silk and steel — bad-ass, or strictly for wusses?.
It’s been a long, long time since I’ve tried silk and steel strings.
I’ve always thought of them as a transitional set for students migrating from nylon to steel strings. At least that’s how my mom used to explain them to me back when she was giving me my first lessons. Like many players, I viewed them more as a remedy for tender fingertips than a sound you’d actively seek out.
But over time, almost everything I thought I knew about strings turned out to be wrong. So I figured I’d give silk-and-steels a fresh listen.
This thread over at the Acoustic Guitar Forum seems like a fair summary of common attitudes about these strings. Opinions seems divided between players who simply find silk-and-steel strings too soft and quiet to be of much use, and those who enjoy them for fingerstyle playing, especially on small-bodied guitars.
I’ve been frustrated finding the right strings for the old Martin acoustic I picked up last year. I had a violent reaction against coated bronze strings, which I wrote about here. But I was kind of digging the way Martin Marquis 80/20s bronze strings sounded on the instrument, as heard in this video. Sometimes, though, the tone is just too harsh and clacky, so I wanted to try something lighter and softer.
I slapped down this quick duet performance of “Drewrie’s Accordes,” an anonymous lute duet found in The Jane Pickering Lute Book, a manuscript anthology of late 16th-century lute pieces. (This would have been played on gut strings in its day, and is usually performed on nylon-string classical guitar or lute today. My steel treble strings are definitely not historically correct, though some wire-stringed fretted instruments such as the cittern did exist in the Renaissance.)
Observations after the video.
Compared to all-metal strings, the silk-and-steels are definitely quieter, with less treble bite. I like their soft, malleable feel for intricate fingerstyle playing like this. They offer relatively smooth transitions between unwound and wound strings. They exhibit less clacky string and fingernail noise. Playing aggressively with a pick definitely “overloads” them, and would no doubt destroy the windings in short order. Even when playing exclusively fingerstyle, you get the sense that the bass strings aren’t long for this world. But I enjoy their sweet, quasi-classical tone, which to my ear does indeed split the difference between nylon and all-metal strings.
Still, I’m not sure I want to commit to having these on the guitar all the time. (I wish the guitar had a switch to toggle between a bronze and silk-and-steel sound!) Also, these are lighter than I usually play (the treble is .0115, and I pretty much never go below .012). But the relaxed tension does seem to suit this particular guitar.
How about you guys? Any experience with these soft-spoken strings? Do you think they sound cool, or are they merely a salve for sore fingers? And has anyone tried John Pearse silk-and-bronze strings? (That’s probably the next stop on this particular string quest.)
P.S.: This is also a pretty good example of how I apply lute techniques to steel-string playing, as I mentioned here. For most of the fast bits, I pick alternately using my right-hand thumb and index finger. A proper classical player would be more likely to alternate index- and middle-finger. Also, my right thumb sometimes drifts “behind” my right-hand fingers (that is, closer to the bridge). Classical players rarely position their picking thumbs closer to the bridge relative to the fingers. It’s not conscious on my part — it just what my hand does when I’m trying to brighten the bass notes and darken the trebles.
There are two ways to approach amplifying an acoustic guitar: trying to duplicate the natural sound, only louder, and NOT trying to sound naturalistic at all. This post is about the second approach.
I love playing acoustic through an electric guitar amp (as opposed to a dedicated acoustic amp). True, the tubes and speakers amputate all high frequencies. But if you think of the instrument not as an acoustic guitar, but an idiosyncratic electric variant, it opens up amazing possibilities.
More often than not, I prefer to play acoustic gigs that way. I did a fun benefit show last year playing rock and R&B covers with a band consisting of Flea, Tracy Chapman, and drummer Dawn Richardson. Tracy had a beautiful, ultra-hi-fi acoustic tone, and the ratty, rumbling sound of my acoustic through a small combo was — well, let’s just say it was a very strong contrast.
Admittedly, relatively few players exploit this technique. One notable exception is Daniel Lanois. He’s best known as a producer (U2, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, etc.), but he’s also a phenomenal player who does amazing things with an acoustic guitar, an inexpensive magnetic soundhole mic, and small vintage Fender amps. I’ve watched him play up-close a few times, and he’s incredibly adept at conjuring a variety of tones and controlled feedback from this setup.
It’s definitely a white-knuckle playing experience. You have to listen carefully and nix unwanted feedback with quick damping technique. But it can be so expressive!
I’ll talk more about the technique in a bit. But first, check out this short video demo featuring distortion and other stompbox effects, controlled (and not-so-controlled) feedback, and a lot of awkward twisting and turning as I grapple with the tone: (more…)
If you’ve screwed around much with an EBow—you know, that battery-powered plastic thingie that you slide against your guitar strings to magnetically invoke infinite sustain—you may have also noticed that it works on steel-string acoustic guitar, especially on the unwound first and second strings. It’s hardly an earth-shaking tone— just a thin whine, really— though you can sometimes use it to good effect, compressed and processed within a mix.
But when I got my first Dobro last year (okay, I was a little slow getting around to it) the technique really came alive for me, and I’ve been using it on tons of tracks ever since. (more…)
After last week’s loudness experiments, and with the sonic carnage of NAMM just days away, I figured it was a good opportunity to dial down the decibels and share an interesting guitar/string combination I’ve been enjoying for a few months.
At $34 bucks a pop in the U.S., they’re blisteringly expensive, but they have a sound I’ve never encountered elsewhere. The result is the closest thing to a nylon-string sound I’ve heard from an ordinarily steel-stringed guitar.
I’ve had the same set on this guitar since May — they’re certainly long-lasting! Now I’m going to experiment with a few other options, but I wanted to document these before swapping them out.
Have a listen:
These strings fascinate me. They convert the guitar into what sounds like a hybrid nylon/steel-string instrument. They permit classical techniques such as rest-strokes, but when you bend them, they feel more like steel strings. The gauges are bizarre: .013 through .039. I’ve never played anything like them.
With these strings, my Martin is quieter than most classical guitars — more like the volume of Renaissance lute (an instrument I played a lot in my teens, though I haven’t owned one in many years). For me, this pairing has the same sort of sweet intimacy. This happens to be the one guitar I keep in my house — everything else is down in the studio. It’s quite literally a parlor instrument, and I’ve loved having a soft, quiet guitar to noodle on. It’s sometimes frustrating, though, how quickly these strings “overload” — the notes in the demo that snap and sizzle aren’t intentional — I’m just playing a little too hard.
I still consider this is a cool alternative classical sound, but after months of playing, I tend to think this combination would best suit a fingerstyle player who uses a lot of bending, smearing, and slapping. I bet Joseph Spence and Bert Jansch would have sounded great on these, as would Ry.
I may return to these extraordinary strings. Actually, in a perfect world, I’d have two lovely old Martins, one to strung conventionally, and the other strung with rope-cores. And since we’re talking “perfect world,” what the hell? Two pre-War Martins for everybody! No, make that three!
