Steinar Gregertsen
From:
Arendal, Norway, R.I.P.
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Posted 4 Jan 2007 4:53 pm |
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In another thread Ben Elder wrote:
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| To reso-tize a Weissenborn or Kona is to miss its fundamental glory. |
So this got me thinking, were vintage acoustic instruments and their modern copies (like weisses) made for light gauge strings, and do we "miss their fundamental glory" by stringing them too heavy?
I have a '30s May Bell parlor that I used to string with Newtone 15-56, tuned to open-D, but after discovering signs of the neck heel seperating ever so slightly (fretboard lifted and developed small cracks where the neck joins the body) I reduced the tension to 12-54 (tuned to lowbass-G).
After adjusting my playing to the lighter tension I realized the guitar actually sounds a lot better, it's like it 'breathes' better.
For a short period I also had my Lazy River teardrop weiss tuned to D6 with light custom strings from Newtone, and it had a 'shimmer' to the sound that's completely lost since I put on heavier strings (16-60) and tuned it to open-D/low-G. The reason for going that heavy was that Rance recommended it since it would help 'break in' the brand new teardrop weiss faster.
Anybody else had similar experiences? Are we choking these delicate instruments with too heavy strings? Not thinking about possible damage here, my concern is about the tone...
Steinar
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"Play to express, not to impress"
Website - YouTube |
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