Anyone Tried These Strings?

[Brucebubs]

John Pearse Folk Fingerpicking made by Thomastik-Infeld - Vienna
All 6 strings are round wound.



Here's the description;


'Ball end, 016w 024w 025w 030w 035w 043w. According to the maker: "A revolutionary departure from a "traditional" classical string construction, every string is wound, even the first! Made like a fine violin string, the trebles are a braided metal rope core wound on with a flat nylon monofilament, while the basses are a perlon floss core wound on with a silver plated bell bronze wire. For many years, the preferred strings of the top Brazilian guitarists, this set gives unbelievable clarity, projection and volume, almost like a steel string, with no more tension on the guitar than a traditional nylon string. Meant for fingers, not for picks.'

https://www.elderly.com/accessories/...ng-strings.htm

[Don Lampson]

Originally Posted by Brucebubs

John Pearse Folk Fingerpicking made by Thomastik-Infeld - Vienna
All 6 strings are round wound.



Here's the description;


'Ball end, 016w 024w 025w 030w 035w 043w. According to the maker: "A revolutionary departure from a "traditional" classical string construction, every string is wound, even the first! Made like a fine violin string, the trebles are a braided metal rope core wound on with a flat nylon monofilament, while the basses are a perlon floss core wound on with a silver plated bell bronze wire. For many years, the preferred strings of the top Brazilian guitarists, this set gives unbelievable clarity, projection and volume, almost like a steel string, with no more tension on the guitar than a traditional nylon string. Meant for fingers, not for picks.'

https://www.elderly.com/accessories/...ng-strings.htm

My favorite nylon strings are Savarez hard tension, with all wrapped strings but the high E. I wonder if those are hard tension?

Don

[sirwhale]

I made a comparison of steel strings (11-52) on my acoustic guitar, with this set of strings (PJ116) on my Camps crossover.

https://soundcloud.com/apaooresy/ste...core-1/s-StesI

https://soundcloud.com/apaooresy/ste...core-2/s-3LBON

https://soundcloud.com/apaooresy/ste...core-3/s-aH3xv

I have a set waiting to be used at some point, but right now I'm using Savarez Alliance (carbon) strings.

For the PJ116 set, I like them more than steel strings; the G and B strings are particularly nice, but the high E string can be a bit bright for my tastes (but pretty good my my blues pieces).

They filled a transition space for me as a moved from acoustic, to crossover and now to a flamenca guitar. But they are great strings for some purposes and I read about people who only use these strings. Like if you need bends, or a sharper blues sound, or more sustain for pull offs and hammer ons.

I'll never play an acoustic with steel strings again mainly because I don't like the brightness of the treble strings and they are very hard to play. What is great about these strings is that if you want that bright sound, then you can use this set on a crossover or a Spanish guitar and they are SO much easier to play than steel strings and they have a slightly more mellow sound due to the nylon the trebles are wrapped in. I prefer them to steel strings. But not sure which I prefer out of carbon strings and these "rope core" strings.

If you like these, you can also check out the KR116 set. The high string is slightly more mellow as it is a rope core, but I prefer the basses of the PJ116 set which are your traditional nylon. The basses of the KR116 set also have a rope core. But it will depend on the guitar, this is only from my experience on my Camps crossover and not on other guitars.

I'm not sure if these strings will work on a normal paddle head stock. I tried putting one on my Cordoba mini and because the windings are tighter the nylon started to fray (might just be my experience. They work fine on a slotted head stock, although they slip somewhat and you need to do some overlaps to prevent that happening.

[JBF_AR]

Have them on my Yamaha FS-800. They are very good for a beginner. The downfall of all regular strings is the unwound first two that cut into the fingertips and severely limit practice time.

[Brucebubs]

Just a follow up, Wade Hampton has the history behind these strings.



As a John Pearse artist endorser, I have to say that I knew that something interesting was coming out, but I didn't know exactly what it was going to be. It was Bruce who alerted me to the link for these new strings on the Elderly website:

https://www.elderly.com/accessories/...ng-strings.htm

John designed those strings for Thomastik-Infeld many years ago while he was still living in Europe. Then Martin hired John to come to America to revitalize their guitar string product line for them.

After arriving in Nazareth, John met and married Mary Faith Rhoads, a Pennsylvania folk musician with deep family roots in the area. Eventually he left Martin and the two of them started Breezy Ridge, which makes and markets John Pearse strings and accessories.

John died almost ten years ago, but Mary Faith has kept the company going. And now she's revived these strings, which I'm eager to try.

As it happens, a month or two ago I lucked out at an estate sale and bought an electric bass for $20 and - for $30 - a Swedish-made España guitar, built in 1965 by a Swedish company called Bjärten. It's a nylon string guitar, but it's more of a "folk" guitar rather than a true classical. For one thing, it's shaped like a Triple O rather than a classical guitar, and I put it in a Triple O case I had laying around.

So I just got off the phone with the folks at Breezy Ridge, and some of those strings are on their way to me. It generally takes about ten or twelve days for packages from Breezy Ridge to reach me here in Alaska, so after I put a set on my España, I'll write a post about my impressions of them.

Thanks for the heads-up, Bruce!


Wade Hampton Miller