Aquila strings

The development of a new synthetic material that can imitate the acoustical characteristics of gut but without the typical defects such as high cost, short string life, and severe instability to changes of climate, has always been a fundamental goal of our research. Nylgut represents the fruit of this research and is a perfect synthesis of the acoustical properties of nylon and of PVF (carbon) strings.

The development of a new synthetic material that can imitate the acoustical characteristics of gut but without the typical defects such as high cost, short string life, and severe instability to changes of climate, has always been a fundamental goal of our research. Nylgut represents the fruit of this research and is a perfect synthesis of the acoustical properties of nylon and of PVF (carbon) strings.

First quality wound strings with copper and silvered copper wire, manufactured according to our best experience. The innovative idea was to employ a Nylgut multifilament cores –very stable to the moisture changing- and to partly limit the production of the very high overtones giving the metallic edge that is generally present in the strings of this type and never welcome by early music lovers. The copper wire employed on the thinner strings, the ones more subject to wear-and-tear, is protected by a light superficial coating which also grants a longer playing life. Special lengths (160/180 cm): on request only.

TECHNICAL FEATURES These strings consist of a NylgutŽ multifilament core (characterized by a remarkable stability in climatic changes) with copper wires over-varnished. Diameters: from 1.00 to 2.50 mm, expressed in equivalent solid gut. FIELD OF APPLICATION These strings were specifically designed for the deep basses of archlutes, d minor-lutes, theorbos with shortened extention, but also for the basses of regular Renaissance and Baroque lutes, if you prefer a more fundamental oriented sound. The innovative characteristic of our DE strings lies in the fact that they were specifically conceived to best reproduce the timbric and acoustical qualities of our C type loaded gut strings, which are strongly fundamental oriented.

(calculated for a'-415 Hz.)

INTRODUCTION

Since the begginning og the XIX century harps employed silk wound bass strings.
This is why the old fashion harp bass strings produce a so different sound than the modern ones, made with nylon multifilaments. The development of a new synthetic material that can imitate the acoustical characteristics of silk but without some typical defects such as, for example, the instability to changes of climate, has always been a fundamental goal of our research. The NylgutŽ multifilament represents the fruit of this research: NylgutŽ's multifilaments has the same silk's density. Other strong points of NylgutŽ are its' elevated resistance under tension -greater than silk- but even more important is its extraordinary immunity to changes of climate, considerable superior to that of nylon and gut, thereby guarantying an insuperable stability of tuning under normal conditions.

String lenght: 160 cms

Until the mid-20th century Ukuleles were mounted exclusively in gut, a material that had been used for thousand of years and that combines excellent promptness of attack with brilliance of timbre - very different, in other words, from modern nylon strings. And until recently the typical sound quality of gut has been a constant point of reference for luthiers, composers and performers alike.
A fundamental aim of our research has therefore been to make a new synthetic product having the same acoustic properties as gut - but without its typical defects - (high cost, limited duration and high instability under varying climatic). NylgutŽ has precisely these qualities: allowing one, on the one hand, to rediscover the sonorities familiar to the great 19th and 20th century Uke masters; and guaranteeing, on the other, a stability of tuning higher even than that of the best gut and nylon strings.

Notice!

Just like gut, NylgutŽ is liable to suffer from cutting edges. Before stringing the instrument do make sure the nut and bridge are free from sharp edges and the nut grooves not too deep and perfectly smooth. You can get rid of sharp edges with very fine grit sandpaper (600, for example) or the finest steelwool (000).
-The best sound quality develops when the strings have completely set, which may ordinarily take sometime. To achieve a stable intonation in just a few minutes you can repeatedly pinch each string at midlength with your fingers, pull it decidedly sideways and tune it up again. Stop when the string does not pull out of tune anymore.

INTRODUCTION

The origin of the employment of gut to make musical strings is lost in the mists of time. Along the centuries manufacturing techniques were gradually refined until they reached the perfection unanimously recognized as the trademark of Italian and French stringmakers in the 17th to 19th century.
The scope of our work, supported by constant research and painstaking experimentation, is to offer natural gut strings produced by modern craftsmen working in the ancient Italian/French string-makers manufacturing criteria that for centuries has been passed on from one generation to the next, sure to offer you the very best of our tradition and aiming to reach the magic of sound that only gut, of all materials, can achieve.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS AND FIELD OF APPLICATION

First choice plain gut strings for general use in high and mid registers. All strings more than 0.50 mm. in diameter are exclusively high twist and undergo a specific processing aiming to ensure maximum elasticity and grant the best acoustical performance, ease of attack and long playing life, as proven by many acoustics and wear-and-tear tests. Please notice
Gut is liable to suffer from cutting edges. Before stringing the instrument do make sure the nut and bridge are free from sharp edges and the nut grooves not too deep and perfectly smooth.
You can get rid of sharp edges with very fine grit sandpaper (600, for example) or the finest steelwool (000).
The best sound quality develops when the strings have completely set, which may ordinarily take sometime. To achieve a stable intonation in just a few minutes you can repeatedly pinch each string at midlength with your fingers, pull it decidedly sideways and tune it up again. Stop when the string does not pull out of tune anymore.
Note: gauges are expressed in hundred of millimeters (i.e. 120 = 1,20 mm) gut gauges on the tables are considered at the making standard condition of 20 ° C and 60 % degree of humidity.

The new product we offer instead of the varnished gut strings are the semi-rectified strings (HR types).

String -varnishing is a modern treatment which was never used historically (gut strings were kept in olive or almond oil) and its sole purpose is granting a longer string playing life.
But this happens at the cost of other aspects, the most important being a loss of sound quality, brightness for example, but also the bowing attack is not as efficient as with unvarnished gut.
The surface of the demi- rectified strings is only partly rectified, imitating the manual polishing techique of the time just to obtain a true string.
With this method the amount of fibers damaged by the abrasive action is noticeably reduced as compared with strings rectified with modern procedures. The advantages are: better stability against climatic changes, longer playing life and better acoustic performance.
We tested these strings for a long time: they best imitate historic hand- polishing in that they damage only a small amount of gut fibers as compared with current rectifying methods.

The advantages are:
an improved stability by climatic changes, longer playing life (similar to those of the vernished ones) and superior acoustical performance.
Owing to the special manufacturing technique employed in the production of the demi-rectified string type, the diameters in this table indicate a mean value.
E.g. a 66 string indicates, in fact, a possible diameter-window between 65 and 67.

Please notice
Gut is liable to suffer from cutting edges. Before stringing the instrument do make sure the nut and bridge are free from sharp edges and the nut grooves not too deep and perfectly smooth.
You can get rid of sharp edges with very fine grit sandpaper (600, for example) or the finest steelwool (000).
The best sound quality develops when the strings have completely set, which may ordinarily take sometime. To achieve a stable intonation in just a few minutes you can repeatedly pinch each string at midlength with your fingers, pull it decidedly sideways and tune it up again. Stop when the string does not pull out of tune anymore.
Note: gauges are expressed in hundred of millimeters (i.e. 120 = 1,20 mm) gut gauges on the tables are considered at the making standard condition of 20 ° C and 60 % degree of humidity.

INTRODUCTION In the 16th and 17th century is iconographical sources the strings on musical instruments are depicted as smooth, rather curly and, in the tract coming out of the peg box, they are often bundled up like they were made of soft cord. This suggests that at time the strings were extremely pliable, which would obviously affect their acoustical performance. On the contrary, modern gut strings, because of their stiffness, can only be made up in circular coils, lest they get damaged. Starting from this important observation and supported by other historical information’s we created our "VENICE" strings.

INTRODUCTION

The appearing of wound strings caused, starting from the end of the 17th century, the definitive abandoning of the ancient manufacturing techniques of the traditional all-gut strings. This explains why modern plain gut strings fail to produce an acceptable acoustical performance in the low registers, thus making it unavoidable to use wound strings for musical repertoires that actually pre-date their historical appearing; this, in turn, causes an obvious philological paradox as well as serious tone and balance problems between high and low registers. A large number of bass string hole diameters recorded from original bridges and tail pieces of plucked instruments dating from the late 16th and 17th century shows that those holes are too small to allow plain gut strings a sufficient working tension at the proper pitch. Musical iconography from the 17th century also shows often bass gut strings of quite different colours from that typical of plain gut, varying from dark red to brown only. Treatises of the time confirm, too, that strings possessed a remarkable duration of sound and acoustical exuberance. All this suggests a revolutionary hypothesis: the loading of gut, a technological strategy that we believe employed by the ancient string-makers in order to render the strings to be used in the low registers more sonorous.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Varnished natural gut strings characterised by a high, standardised specific weight, achieved by a loading process with a special mineral compound. Diameters smaller than 185 C are manufactured with a gradual loading decrease, in order to keep the otherwise excessive brightness of sound of the thinner strings under control and at the same time to obtain a higher tensile resistance and a longer playing life. Reddish brown colour, smooth and varnished surface.

ACOUSTICAL PROPERTIES AND FIELD OF APPLICATION

Strong and warm tone, without the excessive brightness typical of wound strings, perfectly coherent with the tone and dynamics character of plain, or even nylon, high strings. Excellent in staying in tune, better than any plain Gut, Nylon and wound strings available today. Indispensable for Renaissance and Baroque stringing, in the strictest respect to authenticity. Care should be taken not to twist them in the sense of rotation opposite to the one they already have.

- GUT LOADING IS THE ORIGINAL AND EXCLUSIVE RESULT OF AQUILA”S OWN RESEARCH -

- THE PRODUCT IS COMPLETELY NON-TOXIC -

INTRODUCTION

The use of polyamides for the production of music strings dates back to the 1950’s and replaced gradually that of gut especially in the field of plucked instruments, such as the Guitar and the Lute.
Compared with gut, nylon offers undoubtedly some practical advantages, such as longer playing life, higher stability in case of climatic changes and relatively cheaper prices.

INTRODUCTION

Until the mid-20th century the top three strings of Ouds were mounted exclusively in gut, a material that had been used for thousand of years and that combines excellent promptness of attack with brilliance of timbre - very different, in other words, from modern nylon strings. And until recently the typical sound quality of gut has been a constant point of reference for Oud-makers, composers and performers alike.
A fundamental aim of our research has therefore been to make a new synthetic product having the same acoustic properties as gut - but without its typical defects - (high cost, limited duration and high instability under varying climatic). NylgutŽ has precisely these qualities: allowing one, on the one hand, to rediscover the sonorities familiar to the great 19th and 20th century Oud masters; and guaranteeing, on the other, a stability of tuning higher even than that of the best gut and nylon strings.

Please notice
Just like gut, NylgutŽ is liable to suffer from cutting edges. Before stringing the instrument do make sure the nut and bridge are free from sharp edges and the nut grooves not too deep and perfectly smooth. You can get rid of sharp edges with very fine grit sandpaper (600, for example) or the finest steelwool (000).

-The best sound quality develops when the strings have completely set, which may ordinarily take sometime. To achieve a stable intonation in just a few minutes you can repeatedly pinch each string at midlength with your fingers, pull it decidedly sideways and tune it up again. Stop when the string does not pull out of tune anymore.

...to learn more: check at the FAQ on the Aquila Internet page
- WOUND GUT STRINGS - " F " AND " A " TYPES.
- OPEN-WOUND STRINGS (demi filé) - " FD ", " AD " TYPES.
- SILK CORE WOUND STRINGS (19th C. Harps and Guitars).

INTRODUCTION

The earliest mentions known to us of wound strings dates back to 1659 (Hartlib Papers Project; Ephemerides: "Goretsky hath an invention of lute strings covered with silver wyer, or strings which make a most admirable musick. Mr Boyle. [...] String of guts done about with silver wyer makes a very sweet musick, being of Goretskys invention”) and 1664 (John Playford: "An Introduction to the Skill of Musik...").
However, their use did not spread out very quickly for some decades: in fact the earliest iconographical evidence showing musical instruments strung with wound strings (Violin and Cello) date back to 1680. In Italy, a country renowned for its string production, the earliest evidence is from the year 1677.
According to Rousseau (Traité de la Viole, 1685) it was the Viola da Gamba player Sainte Colombe who first introduced them into France around 1675, but the most important English Lute and Viola da Gamba tutor, Thomas Mace's "Musick's Monument", in 1676 does not mention them at all. According to James Talbot's MS. (ca.1700) Lute, Violin and Bass-Violin bass strings are still the usual gut ones, namely Lyons, Catlines or the "deep dark red" Pistoys. Only in the early decades of the 18th century wound strings -both close or open wound (called, in 18th c. France, demi-filée)- got the upper hand of traditional gut strings, revolutionizing music making to our day.

- SILK WOUND STRINGS .

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS AND FIELD OF APPLICATION We conceived our "F" (close wound), "FD" (open wound) in pure silver; "A" (close wound), "AD" (open wound) in silvered copper wire type-strings with the aim of recovering the typical materials and proportions of the wound strings in use in the 18th and 19th century (round wires, no silk between the metal wire and the gut-core): rather different from modern strings, as supported by historical sources and by measurements taken from original string fragments in museums.
This is our best answer to the needs of people who are seriously interested in the faithful reproduction of the musical repertories of the past.

Hereby we would also like to remind you to use our "C" type loaded gut strings when performing late 16th and hearly 17th century music; our "FD" and "AD" types on French 18th Century-repertoires (3rd D Violine; 4th Bass Viola da Gamba C); in the strictest respect to historical authenticity.

INTRODUCTION

Until the mid-20th century the top three strings of the guitar were mounted exclusively in gut, a material that had been used for thousand of years and that combines excellent promptness of attack with brilliance of timbre - very different, in other words, from modern nylon strings. And until recently the typical sound quality of gut has been a constant point of reference for lute-makers, composers and performers alike. A fundamental aim of our research has therefore been to make a new synthetic product having the same acoustic properties as gut - but without its typical defects - (high cost, limited duration and high instability under varying climatic). NylgutŽ has precisely these qualities: allowing one, on the one hand, to rediscover the sonorities familiar to the great 19th and 20th century masters; and guaranteeing, on the other, a stability of tuning higher even than that of the best gut and nylon strings.

Please notice

Just like gut, NylgutŽ is liable to suffer from cutting edges. Before stringing the instrument do make sure the nut and bridge are free from sharp edges and the nut grooves not too deep and perfectly smooth. You can get rid of sharp edges with very fine grit sandpaper (600, for example) or the finest steelwool (000).

-The best sound quality develops when the strings have completely set, which may ordinarily take sometime. To achieve a stable intonation in just a few minutes you can repeatedly pinch each string at midlength with your fingers, pull it decidedly sideways and tune it up again. Stop when the string does not pull out of tune anymore.

CLASSICAL GUITAR SETS

ALCHEMIA

Set with two degrees of tension. The first three strings use monofilaments of rounded, polished NylgutŽ "synthetic gut". Its features include promptness of attack, acoustic projection, excellent timbre and a truly remarkable stability of intonation, not to mention an admirable evenness of tone with the overspun basses. The basses have a multifilament core in a material of new conception (NylgutŽ multifilament), specially wound with pure silver, that boasts high resistance to tensile stress and stability under varying climatic conditions. Using pure silver ensures the highest possible response in terms of timbre and volume, lower interference from finger noise and durability above the norm. The overspun strings have also been designed according to the principle - again absolutely new - of progressively increasing the dynamic performance of the bass register to compensate for the human ear's natural tendency to perceive lower frequencies less audibly.

Romantic guitars

GUT & SILK 900 (1880-1946 performances)

Up to the middle of the 20th century, the only available strings for guitar were plain gut for the trebles and wound on silk core for the basses.
Their acoustical performance was quite different from that of modern stringings. The salient characteristics were a marked timbric presence, response and brightness typical of the thinner gut strings (certainly superior to plain nylon and in some respects closer to PVDF or carbon) while the basses, on the other hand, possessed an exquisitely vocal quality, i.e. not so bright as, and with less sustain than, modern wound on nylon strings and more fundamental heavy.
The Treble tension- profile is not true scaling (like in use in all of the modern guitar's sets): it is just ligthly scaling, like the standard of that time.
This set which is made with only one degree, of tension, riproposes excatly a historical assembling, tipycal of the period of Llobet and Tŕrrega by using oily gut for trebles and wound basses, silver-copper covered on silk, as it was said by Pujol in the "Escuela Razonada de la Guitarra" of 1934.

Notice!
Gut is liable to suffer from cutting edges. Before stringing the instrument do make sure the nut and bridge are free from sharp edges and the nut grooves not too deep and perfectly smooth.
You can get rid of sharp edges with very fine grit sandpaper (600, for example) or the finest steelwool (000). The best sound quality develops when the strings have completely set, which may ordinarily take sometime. To achieve a stable intonation in just a few minutes you can repeatedly pinch each string at midlength with your fingers, pull it decidedly sideways and tune it up again. Stop when the string does not pull out of tune anymore.

AMBRA 900 (this is the syntetic version of the 'Gut & Silk 900 set)

Up to the middle of the 20th century, the only available strings for guitar were plain gut for the trebles and wound on silk core for the basses: their acoustical performance was quite different from that of modern stringings.
The salient characteristics were: a marked timbric presence, response and brightness typical of the gut strings (certainly superior to plain nylon and in some respects closer to PVDF or carbon) while the basses, on the other hand, possessed an exquisitely vocal quality, i.e. not so bright as, and with less sustain than, modern wound on nylon strings and more fundamental heavy.

Our Ambra set was developed keeping in mind this historical fact, in order to best re-create, by means of modern synthetic materials, the sound of Llobet and Tŕrrega. This set was conceived for one grade of tension and cosists of NylgutŽ - true synthetic gut, we are tempted to say - for the trebles, adopting the representative mean diameters as indicated by Pujol in his "Escuela Razonada de la Guitarra" from 1934 (less scaling tension than the modern gyuitar trebles), while for the basses (silvered copper wires wound on NylgutŽ multifilament core) we tried to find the right balance between wire and core, which would recreate exactly the typical sound of the wound silk strings of the time.