martin silk and steel or martin steel lifespan

[ssstewart]

so looking for some opinions. I really like the Martin lifespan 2.0 treated acoustic steel strings on my regular acoustics ( always used elixirs or D'adds up to couple months ago o them)

however, for my '29 archtop was thinking of trying either the Martin lifespan 2.0 treated acoustic steels or the Martin acoustic silk and steel strings? any thoughts on archtop strings for vintage sound...have used pro artes/elixirs/gibsons on her before but looking for something different

thanks in advance for your input

[RLetson]

Silk and steel sets are lighter-than-light, even when the nominal gauges read "light." I can't imagine them driving an old archtop as well as any set of solid-cores, and anywhere near as well as any medium-gauge solid-core set. FWIW, the lightest strings I use on any of my archtops are Thomastik BeBops--and for acoustic-only playing, I prefer phosphor bronze mediums. (Guitars intended to be played amplified are a different matter--though old guitars certainly speak better with heavier strings.)

The abiding sin of guitar stores that offer old acoustic archtops is to string them with flats and/or lights. It makes it very hard to judge the instrument's real voice.

[ssstewart]

Originally Posted by RLetson

Silk and steel sets are lighter-than-light, even when the nominal gauges read "light." I can't imagine them driving an old archtop as well as any set of solid-cores, and anywhere near as well as any medium-gauge solid-core set. FWIW, the lightest strings I use on any of my archtops are Thomastik BeBops--and for acoustic-only playing, I prefer phosphor bronze mediums. (Guitars intended to be played amplified are a different matter--though old guitars certainly speak better with heavier strings.)

The abiding sin of guitar stores that offer old acoustic archtops is to string them with flats and/or lights. It makes it very hard to judge the instrument's real voice.

Cools thanks Letson, appreciated. Ive got a couple packs of the Elixir phos bronze nanos 11-52s and a 12-53s. ill put a set of them on her. tks again

[MC5C]

There are more than a few questions to be answered when you think about optimizing strings for old archtops. Back when they were new, strings tended to be a lot heavier than we sometimes use now, and the guitars were voiced accordingly (and were new, and weren't expected to last forever). So a set of medium acoustic strings (.013" - .056") is often recommended, for tone and volume. A 95 year old guitar is, well, OLD, so it is going to have physical issues to a greater or lesser degree. It might have body issues, braces loose, wood dried out, unknown cracks, the neck joint might be marginal, the neck might have a little bow or twist. So a lot of people, me included, go with extra lights (.011" - .049") and put up with a very slight change (not a loss, just a difference) in tone and volume. Playing action and playing style often will come into play, often lighter strings get slightly higher action, etc. Hard chord chopping usually wants higher action while dense fingering and high rates of speed well up the neck want low, light action for some players.

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.

[ssstewart]

Originally Posted by MC5C

There are more than a few questions to be answered when you think about optimizing strings for old archtops. Back when they were new, strings tended to be a lot heavier than we sometimes use now, and the guitars were voiced accordingly (and were new, and weren't expected to last forever). So a set of medium acoustic strings (.013" - .056") is often recommended, for tone and volume. A 95 year old guitar is, well, OLD, so it is going to have physical issues to a greater or lesser degree. It might have body issues, braces loose, wood dried out, unknown cracks, the neck joint might be marginal, the neck might have a little bow or twist. So a lot of people, me included, go with extra lights (.011" - .049") and put up with a very slight change (not a loss, just a difference) in tone and volume. Playing action and playing style often will come into play, often lighter strings get slightly higher action, etc. Hard chord chopping usually wants higher action while dense fingering and high rates of speed well up the neck want low, light action for some players.

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.

Thanks muchly MC ( a fellow bluenoser..well im from Sydney, living in NB now) i set up an account with Newtone and waiting on email from them for when they get stock in on 2 diff sets of them... im assuming coming from UK they will take a few months. thanks again, looking forward to trying them out

[MC5C]

Give 12th Fret in Toronto a call, they used to be a stocking dealer for Newtone, and that's where I got mine from. Nice guys, and they actually carry them because they did a review and called them the best acoustic archtop strings, that used to be on their website also. Plus it's nice to visit their website just for the fun of it.

[RJVB]

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.

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).

[RJVB]

Originally Posted by MC5C

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,

This has been going round in my poor mind, because it seems to be a paradox at least. Mass and tension work in the opposite directions:

- Increase the mass of a string (thickness or material density) while keeping the tension constant, and the string's Eigen frequency (= pitch) will drop. We all know that the B and E1 strings have comparable tension, and which of the two has the higher mass.

- Decrease the tension while keeping mass constant, pitch drops. I guess we all know that too

Combining the two can only give a more substantial drop in pitch.

Case in point: carbonfluor trebles and Aquila Rubino are made from materials with a higher density than musical nylon (in the case of Rubino it's because of added metal powder), which allows these strings to be thinner than their plain nylon counterparts at equal tension (for the E1 comparable to that of a 10 or 11 plain steel string). This is also exactly the raison d'être for winding, historically speaking: it allows strings to achieve the required tension at a thinner diameter, which makes them sound a lot better.

From what I understand, the main interest of a higher winding-to-core ratio, aside from the change in sound colour, is that strings become more flexible. If they also have a lower tension that is not because there is more of the heavier winding material, but because there's not enough of it to compensate for the loss of mass due to the thinner core wire (= the net density is lower).

[mr. beaumont]

For something else low tension, you might like the John Pearse "Silk and Bronze."

Nice slinky feel (but not anywhere as slinky as Silk and Steel) and they sound kind of "played in" right out of the box.

[RJVB]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

slinky feel

OK, somebody care to explain what that term means in relation to strings?

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by RJVB

OK, somebody care to explain what that term means in relation to strings?

Less tension.