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I have a gypsy guitar (Maccaferri style). It is made to take 'silk & steel' light gauge strings--11 to 47 gauge strings. As the bracing under the top is different to an archtop can the gypsy guitar top take an all metal string? --say 13 to 53 or even 13 to 56 gauge metal string without causing damage?
Your thoughts on this?
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01-22-2024 11:29 AM
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I would stick with 10s or 11s, that's what the Gypsy players usually use.
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I would not.
But also keep in mind, the strings commonly used on these guitars are actually NOT silk and steel (though some do use them)
Check out the Savarez Argentine strings if you haven't. They have the sound, and while they're still "light," they have plenty more tension than the typical silk and steel set, which in turns drives the top harder...allowing you to hear how loud a guitar of this type can be!
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Argentines are the way to go on a GJG, as Mr. B has pointed out. I've tried different brands i.e. D'Addario, etc. and always come back to the Argentines.
Silk and Steel strings just don't work on a GJG IMHO.
My Dupont MC-30 14 has the bark with the 11's!
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Re: Silk and Steel, I've heard that Stochelo is using them now...not sure what brand. I couldn't imagine it being a set like D'Addairo makes, just way too floppy.
Re: other brands, totally agree. The D'Addairos went dead almost immediately, and I tried a highly recommended set from Galli, and they were just TERRIBLE.
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Should have given a bit more info to my question about heavier / different strings on my gypsy guitar--here goes:
The guitar is a 'one off' made by myself, my first ever and only guitar I have made. Looks great--sounds awful. (They say that to know what you are doing one needs to make several guitars--spot on there!) Rather than ditch the guitar--hang it on the wall with flowers sticking out of sound hole?--etc etc--
I thought I could change the guitar to electric--using a pickup / heavier metal strings. Would the gypsy top cope? The guitar needs a neck angle re-set anyway.
Learn by your mistakes?
Ditch the guitar?
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Since you made it, you know the dimensions of the top and the bracing. Even with the long scale, the tension from the traditional Argentine style strings is not that of a flattop. I know people have successfully used PBs on their GJ guitars (which they no longer sound like IME, but if that's not your thing, it doesn't matter), but the tension made playability unpleasant at best and completely unplayable/ruined guitar at worst. You might want to play around with some of the tension calculators floating around the web and do some measurements before you put anything on the guitar.
Originally Posted by swingtoneman
FWIW, I exclusively play this style of music and have become pretty good friends with many of the players both here in the States and in Europe, and you'll see the 10s as a set, 11s as a set, or a hybrid, most often with the high E and B from the 11s set and the rest the wound strings from the 10s set. Argies are what I'd consider "standard", but a lot of the Dutch guys seem to favor Galli's, and a few others using D'Addario.
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Oh, that does make things different... Originally Posted by swingtoneman
Did you follow plans for this type of guitar or were you just experimenting?
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I have been in the Gypsy Jazz guitar end of things for longer than most and know some of the best and earliest players in this genre. I can add some info on this.
FYI: John Jorgensen and Raul Reynoso (two of the earliest North American Gypsy jazz players) used 12 gauge Bronze strings on their vintage Selmer oval holes back in the 1970's without damaging the guitars (both use Argie 10's and 11's today) and Tony Green (another early adopter of the Django style here in North America) still uses 12 gauge Bronze strings on his Dupont MD-50. Gitane used to ship all of their Gypsy guitars with 12 gauge Bronze strings.
Is it advisable to run 12's on a Gypsy guitar? Probably not the best idea, but certainly doable in most cases. I stick with 10's mostly, but at present, I am using a set of D'Addario 11 gauge silk and steel on my Dupont oval hole and they are NOT too slinky (in fact Argie 10's are way slinkier). I would not use 13's in any case.
Stochelo uses Galli Silk and Steel strings.
IME, Argies sound and play the best but they do wear out very fast. The D'Addarion silk and steel I am using on one of my GJ guitars (the other is strung with Argie 10's) are not great, but they last and are useful for a guitar to use in a loud jam session where a set of Argies would need to be replaced before the session is over.
HTH
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A note on "silk-and-steel" strings: not all are floppy, low tension like the ones Martin make (which are almost safe to put on a classical, IIRC). The term just stands for the fact that there's a tiny bit of silk (real or nylon) between the core and the wrap wire. TI Plectrum and Spectrum are of this design, so are the Earthwood S&S, GHS silk-and-bronze and Pyramid also make strings like this. All those come in tensions that are usually hardly lower than their silk-less siblings.
The silk mostly adds some warmth by taking the steely edge off the sound. Whether or not that's something you want for gypsy swing is a completely different question (but nylon strings work great for that repertoire too).
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Savarez Argentine strings sounds like a good choice in this case.
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Plans were followed when making my guitar. But I wanted a slightly larger guitar . So I made the bottom bout half an inch larger than the norm--so the bottom bout is 16 1/2" and not the normal 16". Probably a bad idea. Not having a very good sound with the normal gypsy strings l thought I would change the guitar to an electric guitar using heaver metal strings and forget the gypsy sound.
Would the guitar top, gypsy style bracing, take the heaver metal strings strings? Your views on this?Last edited by swingtoneman; 01-25-2024 at 05:02 PM. Reason: Added wording
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