Strings: Just When You Think You Have It All Figured Out...

... you have to develop an entirely new worldview.

Installing the Carlos CP-1 High End transducer into my trusty old Murray has required... a whole new learning curve with respect to string choice. Over the years I had gone for bigger and bigger bass output, and the best strings in that department - for this particular guitar - ended up being D'Addario Pro Arte' EJ46C Composites. Using the composite G gave great balance, and the regular nylon B and E gave a smooth upper register with no carbon fiber harshness. Well, guess what? Those strings suck for the Carlos transducer: The A and D strings, especially, simply overwhelm the others. back to square one.

Square one, in this case, is the old standby red card Savarez set. Why? Middle of the road everything: Bass output, response, upper register; just an all-around good point of reference. Talk about hitting it in the sweet spot! I'm wondering, in fact, if Carlos developed his transducer with these strings. One minor major bugaboo: The G@& D@%*#> F#&%^#& G-string! Talk about wimpy-@$$ pound-testage! Methinks that G weighs in at less than 12 pounds in an A=440Hz tuning (And, I tune to A=432/"Philosophical Pitch"). I love happy accidents.

I just happened to have ten nine Savarez red card metal wound G strings laying around from an earlier experiment, and voila'! So, low E through G are now dialled in. High B and E, however, suck unholy @$$! The balsy output of the wound lower strings now makes the old fashioned nylon strings sound, well, old fashioned.

Savarez Alliance Carbon Fiber trebles to the rescue! I had a gazillion of these laying around for the Glissentar, so no problemo.

Oh yeah: I have to re-do all the EQ settings in my Lexicon's too.



And, I have a management contract offer, which I'm going to accept, so Hucbald may be coming to a town near you in 2007!



Just for you, Peg! ;^)