It’s probably been discussed before, but has anyone tried flatwound strings on their octave? I have an arch top GOM.
It’s probably been discussed before, but has anyone tried flatwound strings on their octave? I have an arch top GOM.
Teri LaMarco
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I haven’t yet, but I’ve been tempted: http://www.emando.com/shop/strings8va.htm#flatwound
1924 Gibson A Snakehead
2005 National RM-1
2007 Hester A5
2009 Passernig A5
2015 Black A2-z
2010 Black GBOM
2017 Poe Scout
2014 Smart F-Style Mandola
2018 Vessel TM5
2019 Hogan F5
I have a custom set of flatwounds on my octave, a Crump oval hole 22.75" scale. I really like how they are quiet when sliding on the strings, and their feel. You can make your own set with singles of the D'Addario chrome steel guitar strings. Not sure if I would put flatwounds on an archtop, when I tried them on an f style mando, i took them off the next day, they couldn't drive the mandolin (the way i played it anyways!)
Girouard Custom Studio A Oval
P.W. Crump OM-III
I have the Eastman OM, and I will be trying some. I have used FWs on my mandos, my mandola, and my mandocellos. Generally, I prefer the FW on f-hole archtops, while on oval-hole archtops it's more of a toss-up. I suspect flatwounds would reduce the "twanginess" of the OM somewhat, but, in that case, I want the twangy sound.
As far as pick noise, it seems to depend somewhat on picking style and upon how loud one plays. I would definitely give them a try. As the OP mentioned, emando.com has sets available.
I have a Pono 21 1/2" scale O.M. with flat 'medium' wound strings from emando.com
It needed more tension on the G and E strings. So it has .54 .35 .24 .14
The strings are actually D'Addario electric guitar 'chromes'.
Lighter strings made the instrument 'twangy' like a bouzouki, almost to the point where it sounded horrible. (And the current set of strings will sound like a bouzouki if played hard). So tension is very important and one needs to spend some money on various tensions in order to find what works.
BTW The instrument sounds beautiful when given a light touch, much like a Rosewood body 000 size Martin guitar. It is loud enough at that level. But it changes character to 'bouzuki like' when given some 'drive'. That's not the case with my Collings mandola - it sounds great at any level. I suppose the O.M. guitar shape is a big factor in this regard.
Decipit exemplar vitiis imitabile
1924 Gibson A Snakehead
2005 National RM-1
2007 Hester A5
2009 Passernig A5
2015 Black A2-z
2010 Black GBOM
2017 Poe Scout
2014 Smart F-Style Mandola
2018 Vessel TM5
2019 Hogan F5
I tried TI guitar flatwounds once on my archtop Weber Yellowstone OM, but I didn't like them. They came off right away. The tone of this instrument is punchy but also a bit "dark," so the high frequency bite of phosphor bronze strings keeps it from sounding too muddy.
Not an OM, but I use Thomastik flat wound strings on my mandola for Bach. Very clear and accurate.
I have an archtop Northfield OM, a wonderful instrument with a 23” scale. If you have one, you are probably aware that if you want the tone Mike Marshall gets when he plays that Bach cello piece on YouTube, you have to have the right strings. The usual Octave Mandolin strings are too light. The sets sold by Northfield for the archtop are just right: 0.040 G, 0.026 D, 0.016 (unwound) A, 0.011 E. Great tone. But they are round wound, and the wound strings are noisy. Also, for me, the essence of playing this instrument is LOTS of slides and frequent use of the fourth finger in places where I normally use the third finger on my mandolin (as well, of course, as where I normally use the fourth finger on my mandolin). I found that those round wound strings were MUCH harder on my sliding fingers than are round round Monel strings on my mandolin. Thus, I sought out Flatwound strings, which I used on mandolins for years when I played swing and use on my guitars now.
I bought a set of Thomastik-Infeld Mandola (Octave Mandolin) strings, but I failed to remember that 45 cm. is only about 18”, and the winding doesn’t continue all the way to the end, so I couldn’t use them. $80 down the drain. It seems that there aren’t any loop-end flatwound strings available unless e-Mando carries them (and it might!).
Here’s what I did. I went to JustStrings.com, Single Strings, and found that D’Addario Chrome Flatwound electric guitar strings come in a wide variety of wound sizes. I bought strings in 0.040 Flatwound, 0.026 Flatwound, 0.20 Flatwound, and kept the unwound 0.011 strings I already had on. I LOVED the result. My fingers slid over the strings like butter, and the Flatwound strings didn’t have that annoying “new” brassiness that brass alloy strings have. They sounded much more balanced. I wasn’t sure about the 0.040 G strings, however, so I’ve just replaced them with 0.042 strings. I think these are even better, and the slightly higher tension is an improvement. These strings are $5 each, so with shipping and a couple single .011 strings, that’s $40 for a set! Still, half the price of Thomastiks, and they tend to last a year easy. If you paid $5,000 for a Northfield archtop OM, you owe it to your fingers to give this a try.
Don’t try to substitute other sizes from prepared packs of guitar strings. The right size matters. I wasn’t sure, say, that a Flatwound 0.026 and a Flatwound 0.026 would be equivalent. I thought I might need, say, a 0.024 Flatwound because part was flattened off, but it seems they are equivalent. You could use an Unwound .016 A string, as Northfield does, but I like the slight extra bulk of the Flatwound A string, and 0.020 does seem to make up for that difference between wound and unwound.
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