I love playing mandolin. I will give you a bit of background before jumping into my mandolin pandemic isolation mission. Here are a few thoughts/issues I've had with the mandolin and playing in the last few years. I acquired a brand new 2008 Collings MT a while back now. It has been played a lot. From the get go, I had been using PB J74/EJ74 11-40. At one time during these marathon practice sessions, I had issues with tendonitis, now coping to live with them. At the time, I blamed my problems on the mandolin, not on guitar, bass, lap steel or piano. After a few years of not playing mandolin and mustering the courage to start playing again, all the while playing the other instruments, I decided to start slowly with EJ73 10-38. It went well with these strings. I was being careful as well. One day, I had a few old sets of J74 lying around, and decided to give them a try. Right off, I found that the sound was fuller and deeper with the bigger strings. The tension was noticeable. I always found these strings J74 felt tight on my mandolin. I played my friends mandolins sometimes, some of them showed a degree of playability that was ridiculously easy. I was always wanting that playability. I did feel that my strength was getting a bit better with these strings, J74. After a while, I decided to go back to the J73 for the "playabilities" sake. I noticed right away that they were thin, I lost a lot of volume. The chop was just not there, neither the vibratos. Now I had a mission, find a string that gives me the volume and tone that I want, along with the playability that I need. So, this is one of my objectives during this pandemic, to try different types of strings and gauges to learn first hand of all there different particularities along with there strength and weaknesses. From the beginning of this mission, I decided to stick with mediums (11-40), or relatively close to mediums, because that is were I felt I wanted to be in terms of tone/volume and try to find the playability with this gauge.
First was the D'Addario XT1140. They felt tight and extremely bright. The brightness settled down after a while. The clarity of the strings in the high register was amazing, by the way. But, they always felt tight, got better after some play. My thoughts were enough of Phosphor Bronze, let's try something different. So, I decided on monel.
Second was D'Addario Monel 11-40 EJM74. I must say that coming from PB to monel, there is an adjustment period. The loss of volume is there but not flagrant. The clarity is still there. The chop is amazing, way better. I realized that dynamics are more controllable. I can play softer way easier with these strings than with PB. I can still play way loud. I feel more wood tones. I am enjoying this. Playability is better as well. They fell a bit more slingy but not drastic. I like these quite a bit. They have been on for three weeks, playing every day, at least 2 to 3 hours. They are holding up quite well. I do feel they get out of tune just a little more than PB, but really not that much, almost not worth mentioning. This small sample size has already shown me that I will move away from PB for a while. I might try other PB, but would like to try other alloys.
Next up will be Curt Mangan Monels, D'Addario NB and the sleuth of GHS strings.
This is fun. I do understand that there will never be a perfect, but I do feel that a new love affair is starting with my mandolin. There were moments there I thought I would never play again. No longer will it be the brunt of my musical problems. There is hope....
P.S. Also, during this pandemic, I did find a great pick for the mandolin, a Bluechip TP60. And I also acquired a Tone-gard, I feel they really do work.
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