Gibson F4 and Thomastik Flat Wound Mandolin Strings

[kmmando]

I've had a lovely old 1922 Gibson F4 for quite a few years now. I have used various weigths of sets of D'Addario strings on it over time, which I find superb on my 1983 Stefan Sobell mandolin (J74s). However, I've never been convinced that they were right for the F4, and I was recently introduced to Thomastik-Infeld Precision Flat Wound Medium Mandolin Strings by my good friend Donnie MacDonald, a fine mandolinist from the Isle of Lewis. And my goodness what a difference they make! Its like the instrument and the strings were made for each other. They are not cheap, but should last much longer hopefully. But they make the instrument sing!

I do nwo wonder if these older instruments would have had a very different string technology in the 1920s than the modern high tech versions, and whether or not the instruments were even constructed with the older string technologies in mind? Anyway its completely unlocked the F4 for me, and I look forward to trying it a professional studio, as I think it will sound pretty damn good. Here's a wee rough video just to demonstrate the strings on the F4. And a big tapaidh leat to Donnie!


https://vimeo.com/61629350

[stevedenver]

I too am a devote' of TI mediums.
I use them on my '02 fern. It is set up fast and low, and because of them high fret work is more easily achieved.

For whatever I lose in terms of brightness and ring, it is outweighed imho, by the ease of fingering.

I play pretty hard, about 1 hour a day and then extended mid and end week sessions of 3+ hours with my nascient BG band.

I have kept them on the instruement typically under these conditions for 7-8 months!
Yes they are pretty dead (not that it makes a big difference from when they are new-sorta-they lose that piano like ring when new fairly quickly, and i live with it).

I like the fact that they are so stable for so long.

Yet, my flat tops guitars and jazz archtop, I love new strings, somehow on my electircs and mando, this is less critical.

imho, even if they are pricey, in this context they are cheap imho, because of the value of ease of play and my mando stays in tune-pretty much always !

The lower tension is easier on instruments and hands.
As a guitar player of over forty years, and never having had any issues, last summer , after a 3 hour BG jam, in which i was playing hard chops, i developed trigger finger, which only now is about fully gone, some seven months later. I played 3 finger chords all that time in order to allow myself to heal.

This is something i think few deal with, but when it happens its a huge drag-and i believe TIs and the lighter tension may make for healthier long term playing.

i can only imagine how jazzy and full your F4 sounds with them.

You mention string tech, and while I cant tell you specifically what it was, by coincidence last night i read the simonff article "What Lloyd Loar Heard".. Siminoff confirms that '20s strings were very different-so yes there was a different sound.
cheers

[kmmando]

" .... you mention string tech, and while i cant tell you what it was, by conicidence last night i read simonff article on what loyd loar heard-he confirms that '20s strings were very different-so yes there was a different sound"
Thats interesting, many thanks!

[kmmando]

Thats the cheapo video mike by the way, nothing fancy ....

[maj34]

Thanks for the video, Kevin. I agree that your F4 really sounds great with those strings. I have experimented with strings for my '13 F4, and I haven't found something I'm happy with yet. On my F4, J74s sound a little too jangly to me, and J73s sound weak. I tried the flat-wound FW74s, and they just sounded dead. Maybe those Thomastik strings would sound somewhere in the middle of jangly and dead.

[Pete Martin]

I like that choice as well, but still prefer Monels to anything else.

[stevedenver]

well when i posted kevin, your video wasnt coming up for me for some reason
so now ive had the chance to hear you

whisky before breakfast-what else from a Scotsman?LOL

that is a fine sound indeed, sweet and round with some sparkle,
and you play the tune well

[Mike Black]

Sounds great. Do you have an older video to compare with the D'Addario strings?

[kmmando]

Its a great old tune - only just stumbled across it courtesy of my bluesy bluegrass mandolinist Jim Mackie here near Edinburgh - don't know how I'd missed it until now - its fun! And yes, aptly named for a Jock!
Don't know about Monels - need to have a look.

Actually I don't think I do have it pre Thomastiks, sorry .... but it did sound ok, and good enough to record, it just sounds so much more open and balanced now ... sweet and round with some sparkle as Steve rightly points out.

[maj34]

Pete:

Are you referring to the Gibson Sam Bush (monel wound) strings, or is there another brand?

Marc

[John Uhrig]

Well, I don't have a nice Gibson F4, but I put TI mediums on my Eastman 514 about 4 years ago.
That was the best thing that I ever did for that mandolin. They give it such a nice overall sound.
Yes, they are a little pricey, but for the length of time that they last it's well worth it.

[DPrager]

I'm with Pete on this one. After trying several types of strings on my F4 I settled on the Monel (Sam Bush) set. Very sweet.

dp

[kmmando]

This is them here - new to me and a lot cheaper .....

http://elderly.com/also/accessories/items/BUSH.htm

[Jim Garber]

I would imagine those Sam Bush strings would be quite different in tone from the T-Is.

[grassrootphilosopher]

You´ve got a very nice mandolin there. And I like it a lot that you go out there and show us your result of your string search. The instrument sounds mighty fine. And I can see you smiling (inside).

What I would like to hear from the people that aparently have tried it out (like Pete Martin) is how different do the instruments sound with the different strings. I have a (very good) F-5 style instrument that I play J-75s on. I liked the Andy Statman Homespun strings but they don´t have them anymore (and I cry). I like the sound with them a lot. But I sometimes wonder about the "old" sound ..., you know..., Bill Monroe in the 50ies and 60ies. He would have used monel strings, I guess. How different would the sound be. What would make up the sound.

Well so far, since I am satisfied with my - current - sound, I am to cheap to try out. T-I´s set you back quite some, while J-75s don´t.

I´d be most happy to hear about it - especially from you Kevin albeit from an F-4 point of view.

Congrats on the instrument again.

[kmmando]

Thanks for the great response Olaf. I'm struggling to describe how it sounds with these strings on, but having played the violin back in time, its certainly different to feel smooth and steel wound (not raised bronze) strings under my fingers. There seems to be more "give" but loads of ring and a balanced tone in these flatwound ones. I have ordered up some more, and a D'Addario flat set as a test, but at the price I hope it will be many months before I look to swapping sets! I'll let you know how it goes. And yeah, quite cheery despite the miserable facade! Cheers! Kevin

[F-2 Dave]

Great sounding F-4 Kevin. Nice picking too.

[stevedenver]

,,,,, There seems to be more "give" but loads of ring and a balanced tone in these flatwound ones. I have ordered up some more, and a D'Addario flat set as a test, but at the price I hope it will be many months before I look to swapping sets! I'll let you know how it goes. And yeah, quite cheery despite the miserable facade! Cheers! Kevin

Well Kevins has hit it, TI's are softer. Noticeably so. Ii can play way up high and its clear. And, while rare for me, I can bend!

And, I dont swap either, because at the price of TI's.

They go on and I try to get as much mileage as I can.

I'm due to put on a new set, and will buy a set of monels and some others to try , in the TI hiatus (no gigs for a month so i can try this without having an unpleasant surprise.

The only real compromise, other than the bright bite and shimmer of PB, is also volume, but I feel that is in part due to the softness/gauge. Both, I beleive, combine to make the instrument just a bit quieter by comparison to identcal gauged PB rounds.

However, my band records our practice sessions, and there's never any issue in hearing the mando loud and clear, and when I'm mic'd, either individually or using a single central for the band 'old style', there is also no issue whatsoever.

[kmmando]

Cheers Dave, the last two tunes were composed by our late fiddler the great Ian Hardie, who died all too young last Fall of brain cancer, aged 59. He went to the Appalachians after meeting up with various US based fiddlers at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2003, at which our band The Occasionals performed, and Ian studied the close links between Appalachian and Scottish music, and released a cd of his compositions that resulted from his trips and meetings with the likes of Ralph Blizzard, and the Green Grass Cloggers musicians and others in that beautiful part of America.

Here's some reviews, it might be of interest.
http://www.ian-hardie.co.uk/ian_hardie_scottish_fiddle_musician_reviews.htm

Boy do we miss him. So we play his fine tunes and remember.

[Skip Kelley]

Kevin, Very nice video! You pull a sweet tone out of your old F4! I'd say that is a good set of strings for that mandolin! Keep picking!!

[kmmando]

Thanks Skip, tha's a kind comment, much appreciated! Best from Scotland

[fatt-dad]

are the "mediums" the same as the "Starks?"

I just bought some T-I Starks for my 1920 A3. I'm going to put them on tonight. I've just recently found the T-I string and love them! I put them on my Cohen A5 and really enjoy the way they compliment the instrument. I got some of the T-I "Mittels" for my Flatiron pancake too. I'm going whole hog, eh?

f-d

[F-2 Dave]

The way it was explained to me was that the Starks are heavy and the Mittels are medium. Although, the tension that the strings put on the top when tuned up to standard is about the same when you use Starks as it is with J-74's.

[pefjr]

I've had a lovely old 1922 Gibson F4 for quite a few years now. I have used various weigths of sets of D'Addario strings on it over time, which I find superb on my 1983 Stefan Sobell mandolin (J74s). However, I've never been convinced that they were right for the F4, and I was recently introduced to Thomastik-Infeld Precision Flat Wound Medium Mandolin Strings by my good friend Donnie MacDonald, a fine mandolinist from the Isle of Lewis. And my goodness what a difference they make! Its like the instrument and the strings were made for each other. They are not cheap, but should last much longer hopefully. But they make the instrument sing!

I do nwo wonder if these older instruments would have had a very different string technology in the 1920s than the modern high tech versions, and whether or not the instruments were even constructed with the older string technologies in mind? Anyway its completely unlocked the F4 for me, and I look forward to trying it a professional studio, as I think it will sound pretty damn good. Here's a wee rough video just to demonstrate the strings on the F4. And a big tapaidh leat to Donnie!

IMO, your strings are not the problem. That mandolin would sound good with any strings. I recently found an F2, and it sounds beautiful. Then one day I looked down, and noticed the pick guard and the fret board were covering 1/3 of the oval. I had a beautiful sound,... so why did I want to mess with it? Curiosity, that why. I removed the pick guard just to see, and the volume increased was at least 30% plus a better tone also. Try it. Now that I see the problem, which actually was an unknown problem before, I want to chop off that damn fret board extension!

[kmmando]

Very interesting! I'll give that a go. Thanks!