are there any brands of strings that are low tension along the lines of silk and steel or newtone heritage guitar strings?
are there any brands of strings that are low tension along the lines of silk and steel or newtone heritage guitar strings?
GHS makes silk and steel, but their silk and bronze sound much better.
THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE JUST FOR YOUR SMILE!
You can always buy strings of your chosen gauge by purchasing separate strings. For example, Juststrings.com sells D'Addario phosphor-bronze loop end strings in gauges from .018 up to .092, mostly in increments of .002". (Don't look in "mandolin-family", where they only offer a few sizes---just look in "loop end strings".) It does cost rather more than buying pre-selected sets.
I buy D'Addario plain steel for my unwound, and their phosphor bronze (in ball-end). Simply look at the gauges listed for a familiar set like EJ74, and reduce the number by a couple thousandths on each string. Or, you can go to Graham McDonald's string tension calculator to try various gauges at your scale length. Plug in the standard ones, and try some other values to see how the tension is lowered.
I use rather lower tension than most players, preferring a .010 or .009 for the E, and .034 or so for the G.
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The viola is proof that man is not rational
There is confusion here between string gauges and string tension. String technology is changing fast, I haven't seen a set of low tension Mando strings yet but I bet I could assemble for Mando. A set of proper tensioned strings puts proper even pressure on the top, it's really an amazing thing. You can google this, much info out there...two manufactures in the guitar world are SCGC and Straight up
As long as one uses steel-wire-core strings the tension per string will follow expected values as predicted by Graham's calculator. When the core is different, or the string is lower mass for a given gauge, tension will be different, but so will tone. A fiber-core classical guitar string is very low tension at the same gauge as a bronze-wound steel-core string.
The thing about Straight-Up Strings distributing load across the top is not well-supported engineering, more like belief as far as I can see. The main thing is which particular string at which position sounds good on your particular instrument. The sets of strings are chosen to work for a broad collection of familiar instrument styles, so it's fine to start there, but it's not expensive to try the plain strings to see which gauge you prefer for your A and E courses. Bronze wound strings are usually a bit over $2 each, so you do pony up more to experiment. A small cost compared to the instrument, and well worth exploring.
Bandcamp -- https://tomwright1.bandcamp.com/
Videos--YouTube
Sound Clips--SoundCloud
The viola is proof that man is not rational
Why not drop Newtone an e-mail? They were very helpful when I contacted them.
Larry Hunsberger
2013 J Bovier A5 Special w/ToneGard
D'Addario FW-74 flatwound strings
1909 Weymann&Sons bowlback
1919 Weymann&Sons mandolute
Ibanez PF5
1993 Oriente HO-20 hybrid double bass
3/4 guitar converted to octave mandolin
A thinner string reaches pitch at a lower tension.. It's Physics ..
measure, go by the numbers rather than brand,
since music wire steel is consistent, across the many companies ,
they do the winding of the lower strings and packaging..
Core wire carries the tension, winding wire adds mass so it will vibrate at a lower pitch,
on your D & G.
IMHO ..
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