Thomastik Prices

[Woodstove]

I just want the blue jeans that used to be the only choice.

I feel like Ted Talks have fallen out of favor, but this one really changed how I think about thingst.

Barry's an old friend who I haven't seen in years. Met him as his student at Swarthmore College in 1970. Great teacher, brilliant man, lousy golfer. Thanks for reminding me about him!

[AllanAllen]

After he's playing 56 years like me,he might feel differently.Arthritis and aging tendons need to be pampered or the joy of playing guitar goes away.

I bought 2 pairs to see how it goes.

[nyc chaz]

I bought 2 pairs to see how it goes.

I probably could play those strings if i swapped out 3 strings but then why would i buy them.I remember GHS from years ago being one the stiffest strings i played,even stiffer than other hex core strings like Chromes.Maybe they have changed but i doubt it.If i did play those strings,any sort of bends would be a no go.Hope they work out for you.

[jzucker]

Restpectfully, I'm missing something here, old guys like Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Jim Hall etc, used GHS flatwounds or whatever flatwounds were available 30-40 yrs ago. They sounded great all the time, and they used their guitar tone knob and the amp's tone controls if they had any issues. Nowadays we need $30 to $50 set of strings to sound good? Wes Montgomery used the old Gibson flatwounds that most guitarist today wouldn't even touch today.
Arnie...

Who knows what Joe was using back when he recorded Joy Spring (his best tone, IMO). His later tone when he was on concord was not my fave by any means. And on virtuoso and on some other records he used rounds. Kessel used rounds too. I took a few lessons from him and he was using wounds with a plain 3rd. Same with Hall.

But you can tell on the joy spring recording that Joe's strings were SUPER OLD.

[Sleeko]

I see JS JustStrings no longer carries Thomastik brand.

[Freddels]

I see JS JustStrings no longer carries Thomastik brand.

From their website, it looks like they're closing down.

[Peter C]

Well since Sweetwater and StringbyMail are in the U.S.

Never dealt with them

[Peter C]

Why? They’re just chrome mediums with a little heavier b and e string.

The 3rd string in that set is a .026 IIRC and very high tension, even more so if your guitar has a longer scale neck. I remember thinking that the ideal set would be the 1,2 and 6 (13, 17 and 56) from the medium set, and the others from the "light" set (24, 32, 42). YMMV

[garybaldy]

I bought 2 pairs to see how it goes.

What? 2 pairs of jeans?

[AllanAllen]

What? 2 pairs of jeans?

2 sets of Martino strings. Words are hard

[Cunamara]

Too many times on these forums guys post like their opinion is the only valid one.

That seems to be the way of the world, perhaps throughout human history.

[Cunamara]

Pyramid Golds are my favorites over TI Swings, but both are great IMHO. As much as I have wanted to like Chromes I just can't. I don't know about the metals, but I prefer round core over hex core. Chromes are hex from what I know.

If I understand the history correctly the first hex core guitar strings were made by John D'Addario in consultation with John D'Angelico for the latter's guitars.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Has anyone made high fidelity recordings with spectral analysis[?]

Between 2 & 3 years ago, I had a year of gigging on a set of TI JS flats on my Ibanez AF207 and thought they were fine. But I began to wonder if I might have been accommodating to a slow decline in string performance without noticing it. So I put on a new set after recording a clip on the old ones. I recorded the same clip again with the new ones, trying hard for consistency, and posted the comparison without identifying which clip was which. I matched them for volume, and the playing is very close between them.

As I recall, over 20 took the challenge and only about half guessed correctly which clip was the year old strings and which was the new ones. Some of the incorrect guessers were the most adamant, while most poll participants said it was very close. I tried to tell them apart several times and could not do so any more accurately than random chance allowed. I ran but did not include spectral analyses because they were so similar.

Right now, my wife and I are bumming around northern Michigan and won't be home until midweek. I'm pretty sure I still have the files and will pull and post them when I get home if I do. I don't remember the thread title & can't find it through the search function.

[Litterick]

Who knows what Joe was using back when he recorded Joy Spring (his best tone, IMO). His later tone when he was on concord was not my fave by any means. And on virtuoso and on some other records he used rounds. Kessel used rounds too. I took a few lessons from him and he was using wounds with a plain 3rd. Same with Hall.

But you can tell on the joy spring recording that Joe's strings were SUPER OLD.

His D'Aquisto guitar had medium-gauge D'Aquisto flatwounds, strung for him by Jimmy D'Aquisto, according to someone on rec.music.makers.guitar.jazz

[AllanAllen]

Between 2 & 3 years ago, I had a year of gigging on a set of TI JS flats on my Ibanez AF207 and thought they were fine. But I began to wonder if I might have been accommodating to a slow decline in string performance without noticing it. So I put on a new set after recording a clip on the old ones. I recorded the same clip again with the new ones, trying hard for consistency, and posted the comparison without identifying which clip was which. I matched them for volume, and the playing is very close between them.

As I recall, over 20 took the challenge and only about half guessed correctly which clip was the year old strings and which was the new ones. Some of the incorrect guessers were the most adamant, while most poll participants said it was very close. I tried to tell them apart several times and could not do so any more accurately than random chance allowed. I ran but did not include spectral analyses because they were so similar.

Right now, my wife and I are bumming around northern Michigan and won't be home until midweek. I'm pretty sure I still have the files and will pull and post them when I get home if I do. I don't remember the thread title & can't find it through the search function.

I wonder if you normalized the tone by adjusting the volume.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I wonder if you normalized the tone by adjusting the volume.

Normalization does not affect the frequency spectrum of the signal. It just amplifies or attenuates the intact signal to put the peak at the level you set. I normalize to -1 dB, which is pretty standard.

IIRC, the overall difference in both peak and average between pairs of recordings (same tune, same guitar, same settings, same mics, same recording setup, same player - me) was never more than 3 dB and mostly under 2. The mean levels were so close that normalization did not visibly change the waveform in Audacity. At some points in the same tune, one or the other might have been a dB or two higher. But any loudness difference was almost certainly sufficiently random to eliminate a judgment of the strings that might have been falsely influenced by any volume difference.

[AllanAllen]

I don’t really know about DAWs and all that.

I’m just a simple guy who thinks records sound better even though science tells me CDs are better.

[ombudsman]

Restpectfully, I'm missing something here, old guys like Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Jim Hall etc, used GHS flatwounds or whatever flatwounds were available 30-40 yrs ago. They sounded great all the time, and they used their guitar tone knob and the amp's tone controls if they had any issues. Nowadays we need $30 to $50 set of strings to sound good?

No reason to assume they used GHS when these German brands have been around longer and either Gibson or Guild (can't recall) used to repackage and distribute them in US music stores.

[ombudsman]

Normalization does not affect the frequency spectrum of the signal. It just amplifies or attenuates the intact signal to put the peak at the level you set. I normalize to -1 dB, which is pretty standard.

IIRC, the overall difference in both peak and average between pairs of recordings (same tune, same guitar, same settings, same mics, same recording setup, same player - me) was never more than 3 dB and mostly under 2. The mean levels were so close that normalization did not visibly change the waveform in Audacity. At some points in the same tune, one or the other might have been a dB or two higher. But any loudness difference was almost certainly sufficiently random to eliminate a judgment of the strings that might have been falsely influenced by any volume difference.

A db or two will easily sway results; even a fraction of one db can do that. The problem is that peak level is not overall volume, and the latter is subjective.

[Cunamara]

His D'Aquisto guitar had medium-gauge D'Aquisto flatwounds, strung for him by Jimmy D'Aquisto, according to someone on rec.music.makers.guitar.jazz

Perhaps, but "Joy Spring" was recorded in 1964 (per Wikipedia, released in 1981] and thus Joe would've been playing his ES-175. The album cover shows him playing John Pisano's father's Epiphone Deluxe acoustic. He played that on Apassionato, according to Pisano.

[Cunamara]

I don’t really know about DAWs and all that.

I’m just a simple guy who thinks records sound better even though science tells me CDs are better.

Arguably CDs and lossless digital are more accurate than analog and vinyl. But that’s not necessarily the same as sounding better…

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

A db or two will easily sway results; even a fraction of one db can do that. The problem is that peak level is not overall volume, and the latter is subjective.

An extra dB can make listeners believe that truly identical program material sounds "better" from one guitar, component etc than from another. But the goals were to identify any differences at all between year old and brand new but otherwise identical strings on the same guitar. A dB is simply not enough to confound this comparison. The ratio of guesses that the old ones were the new ones to those correctly identifying each set was 50:50, which is the same as random chance. Ideally, no one should have failed to identify the new ones if the difference was anywhere close to enough to justify changing strings. Even 80% would have been fairly convincing. But 50:50 is no more accurate than flipping a coin to decide.

I described matching mean levels as well as peak. The dynamic range of my playing on the two matched clips was as close as the peak levels (less than 2 dB). And as I recall, the spectrum plots for both showed almost no differences. I'm still up in northern Michigan and will dig out the files when I get home next week.

[Doctor Jeff]

I see JS JustStrings no longer carries Thomastik brand.

I have bought from them, and they are great for single strings or somewhat hard to find strings, like Uke strings with a low G string.

I do not see on their website where they are shutting down. They have TI listed, but only single strings, not sets.

Actually, it looks that way for several brands. I wonder if they are not getting the foreign-made strings, or not selling them because they would be priced too high to make a profit. Or maybe they're just waiting (like the rest of the entire world) for some clarity on US tariff rates.

[wintermoon]

I have bought from them, and they are great for single strings or somewhat hard to find strings, like Uke strings with a low G string.

I do not see on their website where they are shutting down. They have TI listed, but only single strings, not sets.

Actually, it looks that way for several brands. I wonder if they are not getting the foreign-made strings, or not selling them because they would be priced too high to make a profit. Or maybe they're just waiting (like the rest of the entire world) for some clarity on US tariff rates.

From the talk bass forum.

"Sorry to be the bearer of sad news, but we’re out of stock on some strings. The owners of JustStrings are retiring soon, so we'll be closing up shop in a few months and won't be restocking most items."

[jzucker]

Respectfully, no assumption here my friend, I spoke with some of these players myself during the late 70's and the 80's, back in 79' Joe Pass was doing a clinic at Montclaire University in NJ, and I remember him telling me that he used either D'Aquisto, or GHS strings. Jim Hall mostly used D'Aquisto strings, but did used GHS for awhile, and Barney was using GHS when I met him back in 1982.
I still believe what my old teacher often said; "it's not the arrow, is the indian" I'm not in a bubble, and fully aware that times have changed, and the choices of strings, and equipment etc, are infinitely greater than the old days, but those guys used what they had, and made it sound great. I think in those days, players seemed to be more preoccupied about the music than their gear, IMO...


Arnie...

when i took a few lessons with barney, he was using rounds with a plain 3rd