Strings

The topic of strings is often disregarded although it´s actually the string that makes an instrument´s sound. Strings are made of many different kinds of materials with different strengths. The variety of brands is vast and quite confusing - not only for a beginner, but also for professionals. We have been engaged with this issue and have summed up the following:

Steel Strings

Lute-makers have been experimenting with stringed instruments (e.g. with citterns) since the 16th century, but the actual steel string is an invention of the 20th century. Steel-string-sets are usually a combination of unruffeled and braided strings. The non-wrapped string is an unruffeled, unalloyed high-carbon steel. The wrapped string consits of a core and a winding. The core is a round or hexogonal drawn steel wire. The round core use to be standard a few years ago. To avoid the winding from slipping, today only hexogonal drawn cores are used. Different metal types are suitable for the production of windings. For acoustic guitars bronze in different alloys are favoured.

Bronze-steel Strings

The windings of 80/20 bronze strings consists of 80 % copper and 20 % tin. The strings are golden and have a clear carrying sound. 85/115-bronze stings have a lower tin concentration. They sound a bit warmer than the 80/20ers.

Brass-steel Strings

Brass strings have a copper/tin-concentration of 80/20 or 60/40. Brass strings have a brilliant, rich overtone and last longer than bronze stings. To cause topsiturvication many manufacturers call their brass strings "bell bronze" and "bright bronze".

Phosphorbronze-steel Strings

Phosphorbronze-steel strings consist of 90 % copper and 10 % tin which is given to the phosphor in a liquid form. The phosphor makes the strings a little harder and more resistant to corrosion. These type of strings sound softer than normal bronze strings.

Nickel-steel Strings

Usually these strings are a nickel-steel alloy which are used for magnetic pick-ups. Therefore they are usually used for guitars with sound-hole pick-ups. Without a pick-up these strings sound dull. This is why they are hardly ever used acoustically.

Flatwounds

The winding of these strings does not consist of a spring, but of a quasi-band flat wire which reduces the picking sound to a minimum. It is the standard string for jazz-guitarists.

Coated Strings

In the early 80s Kaman experimented with teflon coated strings. This, however, was not very successful. Later the company W. L. Gore met the problem. The company - well-known for the invention of breathable gore-tex-material- invented a method to cover strings with polymer. After the winding the string was "dressed" with polymer in order to protect it from dirt and sweat. The picking sounds were also reduced. Strings called "Elixir" achieved acceptance farily quickly and became a bestseller. Yet, this method had to take stick, as many musicians thought the sound had become dull and not brilliant enough.Consequently, Gore developed thinner coated nanoweb-strings. A similar method was also used in the D´Addario EXP-series, although here the windings are coated before hand and therefore sound a lot better than the Exilir-strings. Well, I guess that´s a matter of taste though!