D'Addario Strings

MichaelHorowitz

I finally got around to trying these....just put a set of 11s on my Dupont and they sound and feel great. We'll see how they do over time....but my first impressions are stellar.

I also just added some bulk pricing for these:

D'Addario
Gypsy Strings Bulk Discount

Heretic

Michael:

How are the strings holding up?

MichaelHorowitz

Awesome! I'm really impressed so far...they're loud, bright, very playable, and seem to with stand all sorts of abuse. Time will tell, but I think these are a winner.

Blue Drag

Are they Ball-end, Loop-end or are both available? Thanks...

MichaelHorowitz

Just ball end...which is the one thing I don't like so far. Especially because they have the D'Adarrio color coded ball ends which look sort of stupid on a Selmer. But other then that they've performed very well so far and seem to be a more then adequate replacement for Argies.

kioftes

Hi!
I just noticed that the d'addario light gypsy strings produce an uneven tension on the guitar's neck (contrary to the d'addario silk and steel ones)....Is it possible that this issue will eventually lead to a twisted neck? I didn't have the chance to check on other types of strings (couldn't find tension measurements....) to see if this is a typical case or not....I am not an expert in this things, but i think that a good compensation would be to use the d'addario 011 for the high E and B strings...

Bob Holo

What specifically are you referring to? Did you read something in D'Addario's literature, or did you put the values in a string calculator or did you hear someone say something?

Edit** OK, I see where you're getting this info - written by the strings on the webpage. This isn't a big imbalance. The wound strings are almost always heavier than the plain & the G string is characteristically high in tension. I don't see this as a problem if the neck is built well but if you're concerned - contact the maker of your guitar for a second opinion. Strings with this tension profile actually will feel pretty balanced. I tried a truly balanced set of strings once and it felt really really odd... like the high E and B strings were too tight and the G string had no oomph at all and just squished all over the place and buzzed.

kioftes

Well...if my calculations are correct (maybe they are, maybe they're not...who knows?!) then there should be something around 46 gr of torsion tension on the neck....I really don't know how does this affect the neck in the long run....on the other hand, torsion tension for the silk and steel strings is sth around 0.01 gr, which is definitely ok....I just wanted to know if there is somebody who is using this strings for a long time and ask him if he has noticed anything going wrong...

artillerie_lourde

I found the wound strings very stiff on the 11's. I tried the 10's but then the plain strings did not have enough tension for me (I have a 12 fret 'D').

kioftes

Just to clarify this...it is not an issue of playability i am concerned, but the stifness of the neck and the fact that it might twist over time. Since the necks on these guitars are quite longer, i dont know how wellthey react to these forces. I read somewhere in this forum that one should not use strings for a "normal" acoustic guitar because there is a difference in tension which may eventually make the neck warp. Now, i dont think that this is a case, since there comes the truss rod to help and support the neck to vertical forces. But if the forces are twisting the neck, there no support from the truss rod there, since it lies in the exact middle of the neck.

Bob Holo

Well, yes - you're right - torsion is a big issue, but the place is primarily comes from is the set of forces that reside in the neck wood. The real killer is the wood which can hide tens of pounds of torsional force within itself that comes out over time. That's why neck construction technique is so important. You have to choose a wood that has the potential to be stable - and then give it the time to become stable and construct the neck properly. So - to be clear on what I mean by that I'll just tell you how I do it and you'll kind of see what the issues are: I cut neck blanks from billets and let them sit several months... they may or may not twist a bit. Then I plane them flat and cut them into raw neck parts and let them sit again... each time I put a major cut in the wood - it's like there's a tug of war inside the wood and in cutting away some wood from one side - it's like removing people from one of the tug-of-war teams... the balance of the wood shifts a little. It's important to allow this to happen so you wind up with a neck that is fairly stable when carved to final dimensions. The final rough-neck steps is to split the wood in half (to make three piece necks) and let them sit again. Finally - when they've had a lot of time to relieve their tension and let me know which way they want to move - these pieces of wood have revealed whether they want to be necks or not. For the ones that do - I have a pretty clear idea how they want to move and so I invert the halves so they push against each other and spline them with a big center seam of rosewood which has also had several opportunities to rest and move. Recently I was inspired by a guy named Jeff Traugott to put dual carbon rods in the necks on either side of the rosewood spline. He is a flattop builder and so he uses truss rods whereas I use a full-depth rosewood center seam because that's traditional for the Gypsy style and important to the sound.

But the point of all of this is that it's good you're thinking of torsion - but strings are the least of your worries with respect to torsion... the way the neck was made is the big issue. If you buy a 1 piece neck that was carved green by a CNC machine and fitted with a truss rod which was cranked hard to overcome the movement in the neck wood... you have a whole bunch of pent up tension in the neck which can't relieve itself by bowing so it manifests itself in the only ways it can... waves, humps, twists etc.

However, a caution about string size and string tension. It actually is pretty darned important because truss rods aren't really the panacea they're built up to be. As you said, they don't protect against torsion. In fact, they can add to it if they're used improperly to overcome stability flaws in the neck (as described above) If the wood wants to move, and the truss rod is holding it in one plane between the 1st and 12th frets - you know that tension will come out somewhere else... usually by twisting or waving. But independent of this battle of forces occuring inside the neck - a person adds string pressure. The difference in pressure on the neck between one set of strings and another is not all that great because the neck is (hopefully) a very strong structure... What you really need to be concerned with is all the stuff that attaches to the neck on both its ends. That's where your string choice really affects a guitar's health.

Stiff strings put a lever force on the headstock proportional to the angle of the headsock. They also stress the neck joint which is a near 90 degree angle. They also stress the primary structural braces on the neck side of the soundhole and the rims near the waist of the guitar which support those braces. Those places are where you really hurt a guitar through overloading it. Although the classic neck banana seems to be the most feared outcome of heavy strings - it's much less common than cracks along side the fingerboard - and neck resets - and sunken tops - and snapped headstocks - and fingerboard replacements. A neck is a neck - it's a big friggin piece of wood that hopefully is built well and full of structural support - but the delicate structure to which it is attached .... that's where your 3.5lb gypsy guitar really differs from your 5.5lb dreadnought or your 6.5lb archtop. I can rummage around and look for some pictures to show you what I'm talking about, but that's the basic principle. If the neck is made well - the torsion difference of a couple dozen grams is not an issue. Hope that helps.