Quote:
Originally Posted by MC5C
Bottom line is you need to evaluate your instrument and your style, your playing needs, and try a lot of different strings. I will suggest that you try Newtone archtop strings, double wound, low tension. The best archtop strings I ever tried, by far. Archtops respond to the mass of the string, not the tension, so a high mass (double windings) low tension(smaller inner core wire gauge) really helps things out, and they are really easy to play too. A little hard to get, though.
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Hah, that explains why my old, cheap and sorry German archtop sounds so nice with nylon basses (the trebles are a little bit trickier). It sounded fine too with Martin Silk & Steels btw, which incidentally have a tension that's low enough that you could (almost) put them on a classical guitar.
(According to my sound pressure app I can get close to 80dB with my phone on the music stand.)
FWIW, Martin make a flex-core, PB silk-and-steel string that has a bit more tension, and you can get "silk-and-brass" strings in various gauges from Thomastik and Ernie Ball (AC111 or Earthwood S&S soft might be good starting points). Brass (80/20) would be more appropriate soundwise. GHS make a thin-core PB string that might be interesting too if you do prefer the PB sound and want something with a more metallic sound.
I have so-so experience with the Newtone double-wounds; they made me some with brass winding. There were issues with the ball-end wrapping that are probably moot with an archtop's tailpiece but I think the double windings can move relative to each other when you dig in, causing intonation to waver (I never had A and E6 strings that fluctuated so much, making tuning very complicated). Fortunately I prefer the sound of silk-and-brass anyway (on a mini-jumbo).