I hadn’t been playing my Northfield Octave as much as I had hoped lately. I was busy. There was some traveling it couldn’t go with me but my mando did... Maybe it was jealous. It seemed to be less responsive to me. I kept telling myself we’d reconnect later.
Then Northfield had a sale at the beginning of the month, and they are now carrying the correct gauges of OM strings as a set. So I bought some, which reminded me, I had cobbled together a set from other sets but hadn’t put it on... so what was on there?!?
D’Addario EJ80’s - not extremely different gauges, but different. And this was the second set I had on there. The strings on it when I bought it were old, and I guess I had only ever put the Ej80s on it.
How different could a new set of the correct gauge strings be? Obviously good enough for me to write this thread... but seriously, it reminded me of why I bought the instrument. Not just the sound but the feel was just right. A balance of tensions properly restored.
No financial interest, I was not compensated in any way for posting this but I will say that they initially sent me mandolin strings. When I sent them back and got the correct OM strings overnight they did send me a couple of stickers and a small cloth Northfield bag!
I wanted to post this because it reminded me of why we are so picky about all the little details of our instruments, it’s because it matters!
You could be just a gauge away from happiness!
Dan G.
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