Rotosound strings?

[neatomic]

interesting but always a bit wary when i see "chrome" as the material of flatwound strings…that's strictly d'addario nomenclature..and even their chrome strings are ss…the gauges of this uk company match d'addario exact, so i'd imagine they are merely using d'addario as oem..like fender does!!!

nothing wrong..just be hipped to it..if you can get one cheaper than the other, by all means

cheers

[pubylakeg]

These are definitely not repackaged D'Addarios.

[Hammertone]

I have a couple of boxes of Rotosound Top Tapes - IMO they are as close to a vintage-sounding flatwounds as one will ever get, given the Monel wrap. Very different from other flats. Unfortunately, they only come in .12 - .52 sets.

I've also had good luck using Martin's Monel roundwounds - the Tony Rice and "Retro" sets. I recommend them for use on proper acoustic archtops with floating pickups.

[Marty Grass]

I'm curious about this. La Bella claims to have made the original FW guitar strings. But their current strings do not resemble Rotosounds in feel, material, or sound. What's up with that? Did La Bella change it's design?

Also, I'm interested in the Clifford Essex comments. Does' D'Addario make a "chrome" set in 14s?

[neatomic]

labella flats are made of stainless steel (as are all usa made major brand flats)…rotosounds are monel…pyramid and thomastiks are pure nickel

cheers

[Marty Grass]

I have used GHS Brite Flats. They are pretty good. They are 52% nickel and are made of alloy 52.

[Hammertone]

Hmmmm, I've been meaning to try the GHS Brite Flats.
Alloy 52 is
Nickel - 51%,
Iron - 49%,
Silicon - 0.3%
….interesting….

------
More on Monel from Wiki:
Monel is a group of nickel alloys, primarily composed of nickel (up to 67%) and copper, with small amounts of iron, manganese, carbon, and silicon. Stronger than pure nickel, Monel alloys are resistant to corrosion by many agents, including rapidly flowing seawater. They can be fabricated readily by hot- and cold-working, machining, and welding. Monel was created by David H. Browne, chief metallurgist for International Nickel Co. Monel alloy 400 is binary alloy of the same proportions of nickel and copper as is found naturally in the nickel ore from the Sudbury (Ontario) mines and is therefore considered apuritan alloy. Monel was named after company president Ambrose Monell, and patented in 1906. ...The name is now a trademark of Special Metals Corporation. … It is a very expensive alloy, with cost ranging from 5 to 10 times the cost of copper and nickel, hence its use is limited to those applications where it cannot be replaced with cheaper alternatives. Compared to carbon steel, piping in monel is more than 3 times as expensive.
Monel is used as the material for valve pistons in some higher quality musical instruments such as trumpets, tubas and French horn rotors. RotoSound introduced the use of Monel for electric bass strings in 1962, … Monel was in use in the early 1930s by other musical string manufacturers, such as Gibson Guitar Corporation, who continue to offer them for mandolin as the Sam Bush signature set.

[vinlander]

Kind of ironic these Monel Rotosound strings are on the cheap side considering Monel alloy is expensive, compare to TI nickel only for instance.

[citizenk74]

+1 on the GHS Brite flats - Great sounding, good finger feel, long lasting, tuning-stable, and the first strings I've used that don't leave a dark trail on the soft cotton cloths I habitually use to wipe strings before I put them on the guitar. Not sure about the "thunk", with my playing, "clunk" may be more like it, some days...

P.S. Thanks for the info on Monel, Hammertone!

[neatomic]

just be aware that brite flats are not really flats.. they are what used to be called half rounds..they are roundwound strings that are ground smoother…true flatwounds are wound with a flat/ribbon wrap

my usa flat of choice was always the d'aquistos..but they are no longer in business…rudy pensa told me that jimmy d'aquisto hated them!! hah. but i don't know if it was the business deal gone bad (he licensed his name) or the quality of the string itself…but i liked them, and they were vintage toned and smooth..jim hall used them

nowadays, its thomastik pure nickels…its a thin round core with two wraps of pure nickel, making for a very low tension and smooth feeling set..along with pure nickels mellow tone…great


cheers

[feral guitar]

sounds authunktic

[wildschwein]

I use the Roto Top Tapes pretty much exclusively on all my Jazz guitars and I really love them. I have one set that is coming up on 12 months old and they still sound near as good as the day I put them on. I always wipe down with string cleaner after every session. To me they thunk beautifully on a full hollowbody and provide a very piano-like tone, while playing fingerstyle, through a high headroom clean amp sound. On a semi-hollow they provide a warmer and slightly darker tone with less sustain. They don't get much love on this forum, with most preferring the TIs or Chromes, but these strings have really worked for me and I like them a lot.

[pubylakeg]

Funny, I've been playing a set of Top Tapes (they came in the new sealed packaging) really heavily for about a fortnight now, and they are completely different to the last set I used.

They now have red, white and blue ball ends, a'la D'Addario, and the short sustain is no longer as noticeable. In fact, this set has kept the metallic, new string "clang" longer than any flatwound I've used.

Very difficult to get harmonics out of them. Pretty dubious intonation on the low 'E string as well.

I wonder if they've made some other changes in the manufacturing process, apart from the packaging?

[neatomic]

not specifically...but yes roto has been doing some revamping...string materials changing

some of their recent site info is confusing...


cheers

[richpiv]

I've been using Pyramid flats lately, they seem a bit brighter than TI to me. Have the Tony Rice monels on the acoustic arch top and now see that Strings and Beyond have Pyramid monels but only up to 11 gauge. Might try a set on a Telecaster to see if they are a bit less bright than pure nickel.