Martin Silk & Steel strings - which guitars suit?

[Nate]

Has anyone here found Martin (or other brand, if there's better, e.g.
Earthwood) Silk & Steel strings to be especially good on any type of
guitar. i imagine they'd be crap on any dreadnought. I've just sent
for a set which I'm going to try on my Morman B20 folk-size. I put a
set once on two bad electros, a Gremlin and a Stagg, and could see
their potential. I imagine that for budget small guitars with high
action they'd be good, but I may have to use a shim with the Norman.
Do shims - plastic or wood - spoil the sound? Where do people usually
locate the material for one?
At a guess these strings if not tuned all the way up, say a semitone
down, wouldn't snap a classical guitar?
Many thanks for any replies.

[Crestwood]

"Nate" wrote...

Post by Nate
Has anyone here found Martin (or other brand, if there's better, e.g.
Earthwood) Silk & Steel strings to be especially good on any type of
guitar.

I love silk & steel strings, but they are definately best on a guitar braced
for very light strings.


They won't work well on your dread, most likely.

Tried them on a Yammie classical in the '70s, and they did ruin the neck and
the top of the guitar.

Currently have them on a pretty nice model Kay. I see these on eBay every
now and then, usually listed as a classical guitar, but it's not a
classical. It's an OM style body, mahog ply back and sides, solid spruce
top, 1 7/8" wide nut, slothead, tortoise binding, etc. Model L523? (might
be the serial #). Mine's beat to heck and still plays and sounds good.

Definately want to try them on a guitar lightly braced for light strings.

BTW, they are best for fingerstyle or a very light pick - a heavy pick will
really chew them up.


Timothy Juvenal
_______________

Since the beginning of time, mankind has YEARNED to destroy the sun!
-Montgomery Burns

[LDuffie]

I use Martin Silk & Steel strings for my `900's Wasburn parlor guitar because
they reguire less tension on the guitar than even XL strings to tune up.I also
have been using them on a Martin J12-40 & D12-28 for the same reason.

They strings sound nice,but tend to go dead quicker than regular strings.That
is the only complaint I have with them.

Larry
newsgroups

[Sheldon]

Most people use these strings on guitars that can't handle the tension of
steel strings (really old vintage guitars, damaged guitars, lightly braced
guitars, etc.), or they don't play much and use them to save their fingers.

Any shim under the nut will raise the action, but shouldn't affect the sound
as much as putting a shim under the saddle, as that's where the strings
attach to the top of the guitar -- where most of the sound comes from.
Shimming either end is often frowned upon by purists, but you may or may not
notice a difference in tone. Technically, you don't want anything between
the guitar and these two components, but...

It's all so subjective, and what sounds good one guitar, or sounds good to
one person, may not sound good to another.

--

Sheldon

Post by Nate
Has anyone here found Martin (or other brand, if there's better, e.g.
Earthwood) Silk & Steel strings to be especially good on any type of
guitar. i imagine they'd be crap on any dreadnought. I've just sent
for a set which I'm going to try on my Morman B20 folk-size. I put a
set once on two bad electros, a Gremlin and a Stagg, and could see
their potential. I imagine that for budget small guitars with high
action they'd be good, but I may have to use a shim with the Norman.
Do shims - plastic or wood - spoil the sound? Where do people usually
locate the material for one?
At a guess these strings if not tuned all the way up, say a semitone
down, wouldn't snap a classical guitar?
Many thanks for any replies.

[Jonathan]

Post by Nate
Do shims - plastic or wood - spoil the sound? Where do people usually
locate the material for one?

I don't think just having a new nut or saddle made by a luthier would be a
huge cost... That said, if you want to make your own, stewmac.com or
lmii.com would have blanks. I don't know about the shimming effect.

Jonathan

[Brian Wrenn]

Post by Nate
Has anyone here found Martin (or other brand, if there's better, e.g.
Earthwood) Silk & Steel strings to be especially good on any type of
guitar. i imagine they'd be crap on any dreadnought. I've just sent
for a set which I'm going to try on my Morman B20 folk-size. I put a
set once on two bad electros, a Gremlin and a Stagg, and could see
their potential. I imagine that for budget small guitars with high
action they'd be good, but I may have to use a shim with the Norman.
Do shims - plastic or wood - spoil the sound? Where do people usually
locate the material for one?
At a guess these strings if not tuned all the way up, say a semitone
down, wouldn't snap a classical guitar?
Many thanks for any replies.

I use these strings on my "beater" guitar. I had the entire bridge
pull off at one time so the light tension silk & steel are a perfect
match for my super-glue bridge repair:) They kind of produce a
Selmer-like sound which is neat for gypsy-jazz stuff.

I've tried them on my classical as well(lousy guitar). I wouldn't try
it with a nice guitar!

[Nate]

Thanks. The set arrived this morning and I put them on my Norman
B20-folk. They're lovely on it - if only I could afford two of these
guitars to put my mediums on the other. The sustain is a lot better,
and I get a nearly classical sound by picking nearer the neck. I'll
probably alternate, as I do miss the Nick Drake-like boom of a bronze
56 gauge low C. I'm using open C tuning, and I made a new, higher
saddle from corian last night, my best ever one - it's sculpture! -
and it still sounds good, very little buzzing. I only hope that when I
play a show the guitarists in front of me don't think, because of the
colour, that I'm a dozy bugger using electric guitar strings.
I don't understand about 'light bracing', though - I didn't know the
bracing was related to strings. Do you mean that more bracing allows
for the resonance of heavier strings (apparently the bracing of the
back is related to bass?)
By the way, I've found that for making a compensated saddle, though
the advice is to have the G, D and high E strings as far forward as
possible, between 1 mm for the E and 1 and a half and 2 and a half
millimetres for the G and D certainly seems to work better, with any
gauge. Perhaps this is partly because I tune lower and compensate with
a higher action, I suppose.

[Asbjørn Bonvik]

Mechanics, not just sound. Braces add strength to the top, preventing it
from pulling upward under string tension. Light braces (say, 1/4") combined
with heavy strings (say, .014) and (for good measure) a longish OM-scale
neck and some alternate tuning with higher tension than standard probably
means trouble. There's a reason why light strings are specified for some
guitars, or that the Taylor Kottke signature 12-string shouldn't be tuned to
standard pitch.

Brace patterns, thickness, scalloping etc do shape the sound, but first of
all, the top has to stay on the guitar :-)

Cheers,
Asbjørn

"> I don't understand about 'light bracing', though - I didn't know the

Post by Nate
bracing was related to strings. Do you mean that more bracing allows
for the resonance of heavier strings (apparently the bracing of the
back is related to bass?)

[Mark Horning]

Post by Nate
Has anyone here found Martin (or other brand, if there's better, e.g.
Earthwood) Silk & Steel strings to be especially good on any type of
guitar. i imagine they'd be crap on any dreadnought. I've just sent
for a set which I'm going to try on my Morman B20 folk-size. I put a
set once on two bad electros, a Gremlin and a Stagg, and could see
their potential. I imagine that for budget small guitars with high
action they'd be good, but I may have to use a shim with the Norman.
Do shims - plastic or wood - spoil the sound? Where do people usually
locate the material for one?
At a guess these strings if not tuned all the way up, say a semitone
down, wouldn't snap a classical guitar?
Many thanks for any replies.

I usually use martin silk & Steels on my Guild D-4-12. Really helps take
some of the jangley sound out of the instrument.


Mark E. Horning, Physicist
Phoenix, Arizona

***@eskimo.com