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Old 05-25-2017, 11:53 PM
sirwhale sirwhale is offline
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Join Date: May 2014
Location: Spain
Posts: 1,081
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I've been through a lot of strings recently, trying different materials.

As I've mentioned I don't classical music or flamenco, but blues, folk, John Fahey stuff. So bare this in mind as I mention my preferences.

My favourite string material of all will be carbons. It has good sustain, good brightness and I like the feel better than others.

The Alabastro set wasn't as bright and I didn't like the feel as much. They felt a bit too malleable for my liking. They don't feel as tense as they actually are and are easy to play. Great tuning stability. People say you have to leave them on for a few days to really hear the brightness.

I also tried the Zafiro set too. These also had a very different feel, different from nylgut, carbon and nylon. They are brighter than nylons, the feel is the opposite of nylgut, they feel stiffer in some ways and I don't like the percussive sound they give when digging as much as I do with the carbons.

With carbons, people say that Savarez has the brightest sound and I like them, I haven't been through enough brands yet to know. I have a set of the Daddario normal tension carbons waiting to go on next that I was given free with my guitar when I bough it. One thing I don't like about the high tension carbons is that the high E string because a lot of hard work. So I prefer the normal tensions, or high tension G and B, with normal tension E. I do notice less brightness when moving up to the high tension carbons, as the strings become thicker, they add power, but lose some brightness.

The Thomastik infeld KR116 are very different, half way between steel and nylon. I have them on my crossover. I like them, but it's hard to decide, I want both sounds, so currently have the softer sounding carbons on my new flamenco guitar.
__________________
Christian
Guitar: Camps Primera Negra A (a flamenco guitar)
Strings: Aquila SugarAquila Rubino, Knobloch CX, Aquila Alchemia
I play: Acoustic blues & folk
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/sirwhale28/videos

Last edited by sirwhale; 05-26-2017 at 07:26 AM.
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