Fisoma strings

[Martin Jonas]

Plamen mentioned in one of his reports from Bamberg that Lenzner is now called Fisoma. #Having just had a look at the string listings at Saitenkatalog.de (http://saitenkatalog.de/catalog/default.php/cPath/21/sort/product_sort_order/filter_id/307), I can confirm that. #They list four types of Fisoma strings:

- Silver
- Silk and Steel
- 80/20 Bronze
- Flatwound

The peculiar thing about this is that the successor of the old "bronce" strings, which are the strings used for the Lenzner Consort set, are clearly the ones labelled "80/20 Bronze". #Anybody who has seen the Lenzner bronze strings will have seen that they are obviously phosphor bronze and not 80/20 bronze (aka brass). #The photo on the new packs also looks to have the colour of phosphor bronze, not brass. #This suggests that Lenzner/Fisoma have no idea what "80/20 bronze" means. #I wonder whether these are indeed the old strings in new packs, or whether they make them differently.

The other interesting info is that the new packs finally list gauges, which Lenzner never did before. #They offer two sets of "80/20 bronze":

- light: .009 .013 .022 .032
- medium: .010 .014 .025 .035

Finally, another curious aspect is that a quick search on the web suggests that Fisoma is not actually a new name at all, but rather a brand name used in the old GDR days.

Martin

[Embergher]

Plamen mentioned in one of his reports from Bamberg that Lenzner is now called Fisoma. #Having just had a look at the string listings at Saitencatalog.de (http://saitenkatalog.de/catalog/default.php/cPath/21/sort/product_sort_order/filter_id/307), I can confirm that. #...
Finally, another curious aspect is that a quick search on the web suggests that Fisoma is not actually a new name at all, but rather a brand name used in the old GDR days.
Thanks for letting us know Martin,

Fisoma is indeed an existing brand. I've used their violin strings more than 10 years ago. (for violin, not for mandolin of course)

I looks like we'll need to try their new mandolin strings to know what they are ...

(they could have used more professionally looking mandolins for their packages though #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif #)

[vkioulaphides]

Interesting... I have never tried silk-core strings on a mandolin, although, of course, they are commonly used on bowed strings. I would expect them to be veeeeeeery low-tension, to the point that I wonder whether they would get the top resonating. Perhaps they are meant for particularly delicate instruments? I'm curious...

And yes, the cheesy demo-mandolins have GOT to go! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

[Martin Jonas]

Victor: I think "silk and steel" mandolin strings actually have a steel core, wound with silk and then wound with steel. I've never tried them, but I know that GHS also make them.

Martin

[Embergher]

Victor: I think "silk and steel" mandolin strings actually have a steel core, wound with silk and then wound with steel. #I've never tried them, but I know that GHS also make them.

Martin
That is right, they do have a steel core, then silk (but not "wound"), and then the normal windings in bronze, phosphor bronze, brass, ....
Goldfuchs (the name of Lenzner in the 1980s) produced their mandola G strings and some of the mandoloncello strings standard with silk, without mentioning it.
That is also what Hannabach does with their "bronze" (which is actually brass) mandolin set: The G and D strings are with silk ... I bet many mandolin players who use them have never even noticed this. They are excellent strings though, the sound is slightly 'rounder', but still very clear and open.
(I don't know what Fisoma "silk and steel" strings are wound with ... certainly not steel. "Silk and steel" only refers to what is inside the strings)

There are probably quite a few different kinds of bronze.
I found these names on a few packages:
Brass (=Messing): This is what was used for the old Embergher strings. Also Goldfuchs used this, and today - although they name it differently - it is used by Hannabach and Optima (Maxima). The colour is darkish yellow (gold).
Bright Bronze: This is what is mentioned on GHS packages. I don't know exactly what it is, but the colour is bright yellow (gold).
Phosphor Bronze: This is used by many string factories (D'Addario, ...). I heard it is popular for guitar strings as well. The colour is like very bright copper.
Bronze: This is what Lenzner and others used (and probably Fisoma now). The colour is clearly less bright than phosphor bronze.
...

Let's have a closer look ... the pictures may not show the differences in colour very well, but in real they are very obvious.
The last package is a Goldstück mandolin set; this was the name of Goldfuchs in the 1970s. Goldstück strings were almost exactly the same as the old Embergher strings. #

http://www.mandolin.be/mp3/JPG/strings.gif

[Martin Jonas]

Thanks Ralf, that's a useful comparison. For what it's worth, at least in the way that d'Addario use the term for their J62 strings, "80/20 bronze" is another name for "bright bronze", "brass" or "messing" and is golden. The old Lenzner strings are close in colour to d'Addario's phosphor bronze (J74), maybe a bit darker, and therefore very markedly different from the 80/20 bronze of the J62. The photo on the packs of Fisoma "80/20 bronze" looks to have the reddish colour of the old Lenzner bronze and doesn't look anything like a J62 string.

Martin

[Bruce Clausen]

The Hannabach polished bronze set looks interesting, but over here (Canada) I've only seen their guitar strings. What can any of you tell me about them? Also, where do you find them (they don't show up on the Saitenkatalog site or any of the normal sources I'm aware of). Many thanks for any impressions and info. BC