LUTES AND CLASSICAL GUITAR

Because of the large variety of instruments within the lute family, it isn't possible to suggest any standard stringing. Please supply all of the following information and I will calculate your gauges:

• Type of instrument
• String Length
• Renaissance or Baroque
• Top string pitch
• Pitch center of instrument, i.e. a=440hz
• Current string tension if known
• Unison and octave disposition of courses
• Type of string, existing, and desired (plain or loaded gut, wound, nylon, Nylgut, etc.)

Lacking detailed information we will follow our own experience.

Upon request we supply complete string sets for Baroque, Romantic (19th- century) and Classical Guitars, Mandoline, Hurdy-Gurdy and Medieval instruments (Harp, Fiddle. Rebec etc.).

FREE STRING CALCULATOR

If you are a Wintel user and would like to be able to figure your string tensions accurately, quickly, and easily, please visit this site and download an excellent free string calculation program. I use it all the time. Thanks Oliver!: Oliver Wadsworth's StringCalc

CLASSICAL GUITAR STRINGS ARE WHOLESALE ONLY

PERLA - Traditional set available in medium or high tension presenting high overall levels of performance. The first three strings are made of perfectly rounded, smooth, gauged nylon monofilament that possesses excellent acoustic and mechanical properties. The basses, overspun with silver-plated copper, consist of a core of Nylgut multifilament that ensures not only a high resistance to tensile stress but also a low absorption of both atmospheric humidity and sweat. This makes for rapid and stable intonation, as well as greater durability. Suitable for the highest quality guitars.Medium or Heavy Gauge

ALABASTRO - The first three strings are polished Nylgut® . Its features include promptness of attack, acoustic projection, excellent timbre and a truly remarkable stability of intonation, not to mention an admirable evenness of tone with the overspun basses. The basses, wound with silver-plated copper wire, consist of a core of Nylgut® multifilament that ensures not only a high resistance to tensile stress but also a low absorption of both atmospheric humidity and sweat. This makes for stable intonation, as well as greater durability. Medium or Heavy Gauge

AMBRA - Up to the middle of the 20th century, the only available strings for guitar were plain gut for the trebles and silk core, wound basses and their acoustical performance was quite different from that of modern stringing. The characteristics were presence, response and brightness typical of the thinner gut strings (certainly superior to plain nylon and in some respects closer to PVDF or carbon) while the basses, on the other hand, possessed an exquisitely vocal quality. Not so bright as, and with less sustain than, modern wound on nylon strings, and with more fundamental. The Ambra set was developed keeping in mind this historical fact, in order to best re-create, by means of modern synthetic materials, the sound of Llobet and Tàrrega. This set consists of Nylgut® for the trebles, adopting the representative mean diameters as indicated by Pujol in his "Escuela Razonada de la Guitarra" from 1934, while for the basses (silvered copper wires wound on Nylgut® multifilament core) we tried to find the right balance between wire and core, which would recreate exactly the typical sound of the wound silk strings of the time. These strings must not be tuned above a=430hz!

GUT AND SILK - This set is designed to be typical of the period of Lliobet and Tàrrega, by using oiled gut for trebles and wound basses, and silvered copper wire on silk, as was described by Pujol in the "Escuela Razonada de la Guitarra" of 1934. These strings must not be tuned above a=430hz! NOTE: THESE ARE BY SPECIAL ORDER ONLY

ALCHEMIA - Available in medium or high tension. The first three strings are of polished Nylgut. Features include promptness of attack, excellent acoustic projection, timbre, truly remarkable stability of intonation, and an admirable evenness of tone with the overspun basses. The basses have a core in a new material, Nylgut multifilament, that is specially wound with pure silver and possesses high resistance to tensile stress and excellent stability under varying climatic conditions. Using pure silver ensures the best possible response in terms of timbre and volume, lower interference from finger noise and durability above the norm. The overspun strings have also been designed according to the principle - again absolutely new - of progressively increasing the dynamic performance of the bass register to compensate for the human ear's natural tendency to perceive lower frequencies less audibly.