TI 12's Rounds w/Wound Third

[2-5Guy]

Holy crap. I didn't realize I started such a feeding frenzy.

I've never had an archtop with P90's so strings for this is all new territory for me. And having more air between the strings and pole pieces than your average Humbucker guitar will no doubt come into play regarding selection. So, I guess I still don't know what to try.

[sgosnell]

Bronze strings will work with magnetic pickups, because the core is the same steel as the plain strings. The polepieces may need to be raised to get a perfect balance, but they do work.

[ccroft]

What's your preferred string?
I'm open for suggestions.

What's your opinion on these?


Attachment 96334

You should just go with these and see if they work for you. Reasonable price, available everywhere. Fine strings.
At worst you'll have a starting point to explore other gauges from.

Not sure how I ended up here, but my current preferred set is Ernie Ball! Looks like this when I'm done: 13,17,24w,32,44,54. I use this on both hum bucker and P-90 type archtops.

And I'll second Sgosnell: I use bronze on another one. They sound great plugged and unplugged. Kent Armstrong 12 pole balances them beautifully.

[m_d]

I can't understand why TI doesn't supply a wound G with their BB12 set. The unwound G doesn't sound bad per se but is boomy and clearly out of balance with the rest. I wrote to them about replacing that G with the one from the .13 set and they said it will work. It's hard to find though and would bring the cost to $25 a set. All considered I decided to go for the comparable Pyramid set (orange label) which has a wound G by default. I think they're excellent. The wound G string especially didn't disappoint. The Thomann site now has them at about the cost of D'Addarios. The D'Addario pure nickels are an alternative but I can't find them in my country. Maybe next time I'll "import" a set from Thomann as well to compare. I've considered Martin Monels but whether they work well with pickups is unclear (with some saying they do, some they don't, and I'm too lazy to figure it out myself).

[sgosnell]

Martin Retro monel strings work well with magnetic pickups. A number of people here on the forum use them.

[m_d]

Martin Retro monel strings work well with magnetic pickups. A number of people here on the forum use them.

Good to know. Opinions seemed to vary a lot. I bought a couple of sets for my acoustic. Once assessed I can always test them on an archtop.

[Hammertone]

Strings sold as "pure nickel" are not actually pure nickel, they're an alloy, containing copper and perhaps other metals. Nickel is ferromagnetic and would be about as loud as steel wound strings if not used as an alloy. D'Addario pure nickel strings are pretty much comparable with monel, although probably not precisely the identical alloy.

Monel has a few formulas, @1/3 copper, @2/3 nickel, with a bit of iron, manganese, sometimes a soupçon of silicon, and even a hint of aluminium.

What's "pure nickel" in guitar strings? I vaguely remember seeing "95.5%" on a string pack somewhere, but have not confirmed that. Seems like a reasonable thing to investigate. Anyone know?

[Gabor]

They don't make them.

FYI Thomastik Swing and Bebop gauges can be misleading. I.e. Their "12s" are what would typically be in a set of "11s" but the e and B strings are 12 and 16. Similarly, their "13s" use 4/6 strings from what you would associate with "12s" but the treble gauges are replaced with 13 and 17.

Therefore, if you want a set of TI Bebop 12s with wound 3rd, do the following:

By a set of Newtone Archtop 11s. Specifically: .011 .015 .022w .030 .040 .050

Then buy plain .012 and .016 steel strings to replace the trebles from the Newtone Archtops.

...or.... buy a 13s TI and replace the E and B with a TI .012 and .016

[RJVB]

No need to pay premium for TI wire strings, IMHO. In the EU you could order them bulk from Pyramid or Fisoma (via Lord of the Strings); in the US SBM will have you covered.

[Woody Sound]

You should just go with these and see if they work for you. Reasonable price, available everywhere. Fine strings.
At worst you'll have a starting point to explore other gauges from.

Just be warned that the D'As will feel a wee bit tighter than the TIs.