While changing my whole set of mandolin strings, i was just wondering how often you fellows mandolin, mandola bouzouk.. players break strings.. For me the worst are the E mandolin strings which, i break almost one or two of them each week. Our bouzouki player is worse than me, he breaks one or two strings each time we play..
I find the E string on the mandolin and G string on a guitar the most likely to break but I'm not as unlucky as yourself i.e once a week. Of course, you play in a band regularly at live gigs and possibly more aggressively than me so that's bound to make a difference---I heard once that Eileen Ivers used to have her fiddle bow restrung after each performance. Another possibility is that you should be using a lighter guage. Also, constant retuning-say down to D and back up again will weaken the string. However, I'm sure you've considered these possibilities already.
Our former guitarist Brendan Glynn used to break his G string EVERY session. It became a standing, if expensive, joke.
I get my mandolin and octave mandolin strings made by a guy in Derbyshire and he uses a round core....the hexagonal core strings, which most people use, have six pressure points which will cause the outer binding to go more quickly than the round core...and these strings last ages and, if you clean them each time, will retain their brightness too. If you contact me I can give you his details.
My mum plays the mandolin in a band and I can't remember the last time she broke a string - although to be fair, she doesn't belt 7 bells out of the thing.....
Maybe it was Eileen that was highly strung...... sorry ......I'll get me coat!!!
I am a newcomer to the mandolin - got one at the start of this year and haven't put it down since. Being a beginner I obviously don't 'thrash' it the way that a skilled player would but I do play it constantly. Probably at least 3 hours each day - more if my wife lets me get away with it! I found that the last set of strings that I put on have lasted @ three months and they still seemed fairly bright when I changed them. They were 'Newtone Strings'. A little tricky to get hold of but a web search should find you a source. I got mine from:
NEWTONE STRINGS
11b STAINSBY AVENUE
HEANOR
DERBYSHIRE
DE75 7EL
Phone/Fax 0044 (0)1773 714409
E-mail newtone.strings@talk21.com
I actually changed them last night and put on a set by another (reputable) manufacturer - it was only when I put the new ones on that I realised how good the Newtone strings are!
As for how long they last this surely depends on acidity in the players skin, quality of the base string, quality of the neck/frets and the players 'attack'.
I am off to a mandolin workshop this weekend in the Cotswolds and something tells me that I have tempted fate by responding to this thread - saying how long the last set lasted! I don't have a spare set and will not be able to get to a store until next week - so you know what is bound to happen! How does a 7 string mando sound?
Thanks. Anyway i must have an attack which is too aggressive ...
Anyway, a 7 string mandolin sounds better than a 5 string guitar.
I have always about one or two sets of spare strings with me and about 6 extra E and A...
The posting above from Bob gives the address of the person I was talking about in my posting further up. Good to know another sessioneer uses Newtone strings.
I can't remember exactly, but it was only about £6 a set I think, the last time I bought some. They are so good he's doing himself out of business (like Elixir guitar strings).
Just to be clear on the Eileen Ivers thing; she had to have her bow reHAIRed after each show. It's just horse hair on a bow and it breakes easily. Most aggressive fiddlers have to have their bows rehaired fairly often. ...but this has nothing to do with strings.
Thanks. I did HONESTLY mean to say reHAIRED. Sorry. This wasn't a direct reference to strings but just the fact that some players are more aggressive than others be it plucking or bowing.
I use them exclusively on my banjo and octave mando. I've never broken a string on either. I play the o-m for at least an hour a day and change strings about every 4-6 weeks. Lovely strings. They're available in a myriad of guages at the 12th Fret in Toronto, which is the high-end acoustic shop in town. A lot of people have to mail order them, but they're worth it.
If you're breaking strings at the nut, as happens 90% of the time, it's most likely not because of the way you play. I've never broken a mandolin or bouzouki string despite beating the bejzuz out of them to overcome the din of the 5-string banjo in bluegrass concerts. I think the reason is, when I make a new nut, I file a slight relief on each face where the string exits the nut to ensure there are no sharp edges, and apply a little graphite to the groove when putting on new strings (run a very sharp no. 2 pencil back and forth in the slot a few times.) Many otherwise well made instruments have nuts that are not properly relieved.
Our guitar player used to break strings at every show until he started filing his nuts and smearing them with graphite.
I'm a little surprised that strings with hexagonal cores are in common use. As Geoff pointed out, this design will certainly cause stress regions in the winding and its consequent breakdown. Is there any technical reason for hexagonal cores? I'm intrigued to know the answer.
Trevor
I've always taken great care of my nuts, too, though instead of jabbing them with a sharp pencil, I dust them with a dash of powdered graphite in a tube (available at hardware stores).
You can also smooth the edges in the grooves of your nuts by running a bit of very fine emery cloth in them--it's a bit like flossing teeth in that you want to lightly sand each side of each groove so there are no sharp edges where the string enters or exits the groove.
Eileen Ivers needed her bow rehaired? Doug Kershaw has this issue too, has a whole bow quiver full of bows hanging from his mike stand at the ready as he "shreds" each bow from vigorous playing. Excuse my cynicism, but bow hairs can be set in the bow to "shred" for dramatic effect...
Breaking strings every week? I agree with the folks that put graphite (from a pencil) in the grooves when you change the strings. Maybe take it to your local, friendly bouzouki, banjo, mandolin shop to have them check out the instrument...
I was going through an ocean of E strings on my mandolin, before i found a rough edge on the nut that was causing the problem. I also had a chamfer machined into the machine head for the same reason.
Since i started on the banjo, i have'nt had to change the strings(about 3 months) and i find that it does'nt go out of tune every couple of minutes like the mandolin, which is great. My mandolin was a pain in that you had to keep tuning the E string. Does anybody else have the same trouble with their mandolin? Is it my choice of strings? I use martin and addario sometimes.I had the mandolin checked out by a local "expert" who says there is nothing major wrong with the instrument.(he machined the rough machine head for me-which was snapping the E strings).
i don't think i have a problem with my nuts..
As most of the time the strings break near the bridge, i guess it might be the attack...
i'll try to use a thinner pick. Until now i used a Dunlop 0,71..
I can't say i have tuning problem with the present mandolin. A luthier once told me , about the old mandolin, that as the E strings were so thin, they glide, so it was better to roll more of the string around the tuning machine.. it worked.
Ya Paul,
I was told my lack of sufficient turns on the machine head helped snap the strings also. I now have as much string as possible around the head.
From my experience the more turns of string round the head you have, the more trouble you get with strings going flat. This is simply because there is more room for movement in all those turns.
I like a tidy head, and when I string I allow only about 4 or 5 turns (about 2 inches) round the head. Apart from the A string, my little stripy back romanian mandolin stays in tune for several days at a time. I play quite hard (for reasons of volume) and have never broken a string in 6 years.
Around here its always the A string that goes out of tune on mandolins - four of us who regularly meet at the same sesh have all found that the A goes out of tune - and bizarrely it almost always goes very slightly sharp (both strings in the pair by about the same amount).
I think enough people have posted answers by now to make it plain that mandolin players should check their nuts carefully, and have their heads examined.
Repeated breaking of my E string was caused by a rough hole (now now) on the tuning peg. A gentle rub with a needle file sorted the problem.
BTW also use Newtone strings and are very happy with them.
I have broken exactly one string since I bought my mandolin a year and a half ago, and I play, generally, a session or two a week and hours of practice. I have three possible explanations for the longevity.
1) I use coated strings. Specifically, I use Elixirs, but there are other brands on the market. The strings don't decay quickly at all; the worst wear is under the fingers, from the sweat and oil and acids that we're all producing more or less all the time. The rest of the string isn't as subject to oxidation as regular steel strings, either. A professional guitarist of my acquaintance says that he used to replace strings before every gig; now he does it once a month. If you live near the sea or in a humid climate, coated strings could make a huge difference. The price is approximately double that of uncoated strings, but if they last ten times longer...
2) You may well, as others have suggested, have a burr on your bridge or your nut. Look in a magnifying glass for anything other than a perfectly smooth notch. File it and use graphite.
3) If you're like most mandolin players I've seen (except myself), you're probably holding your pick much more tightly than you need to. The bluegrass players generally hold their picks so loosely that they're in perpetual danger of falling out of the fingers. Many also hold the pick as closely as possible to the top, far away from the tip, so that there is a higher fulcrum point. I've started to do this, and it improves the tone significantly. I respectfully disagree with the notion of using a lighter pick; according to Chris Thile (see below) you should use a heavy pick, but a light touch.
Why do mandolin players hold their picks (hands, wrists, arms) so tightly? Probably in a vain attempt to make the instrument sound louder in competition with all those other instruments (the banjo being a particularly overwhelming example). Alas it doesn't really work; the mandolin is just altogether a quieter instrument. There are a couple of ways around that too.
I just replaced the bridge that came with the mandolin ("The Epiphone", made in Korea--one of the least expensive instruments available); with a Fishman M-100 pickup bridge. It's been a few weeks, and I still have not yet plugged the instrument into an amplifier, but the change in sound is incredible. The volume is now much, much greater and the tone is better. It's not because of new strings either; I didn't change the old ones. I simply loosened the old ones off, slipped out the old bridge, and slipped the new bridge underneath.
After doing that, you could mic the mandolin or plug it in, if the circumstances permit it.
Most importantly: GET THE CHRIS THILE VIDEO, ESSENTIAL TECHNIQUES FOR MANDOLIN. Watch it. Soak it up. If you're like most mandolin players, there's a lot of information about the mechanics of playing that will probably improve your speed, your rhythm and your tone right away, and your volume will improve as a side effect.
one drunken session during the summer some1 had the bright idea of playing in E flat,so ther was a mandolin player and two fiddlers!so then the inevitable twangs occured and ther was much ducking and diving by the gathering to avoid flying strings and other eye removing projectiles!
moral of the story,safety goggles wernt invented for nothing u know!!!
too weary string or not
too weary string or not
hi,
While changing my whole set of mandolin strings, i was just wondering how often you fellows mandolin, mandola bouzouk.. players break strings.. For me the worst are the E mandolin strings which, i break almost one or two of them each week. Our bouzouki player is worse than me, he breaks one or two strings each time we play..
Paul
# Posted on October 9th 2003 by paul95
Re: too weary string or not
I find the E string on the mandolin and G string on a guitar the most likely to break but I'm not as unlucky as yourself i.e once a week. Of course, you play in a band regularly at live gigs and possibly more aggressively than me so that's bound to make a difference---I heard once that Eileen Ivers used to have her fiddle bow restrung after each performance. Another possibility is that you should be using a lighter guage. Also, constant retuning-say down to D and back up again will weaken the string. However, I'm sure you've considered these possibilities already.
John
# Posted on October 9th 2003 by John J.
Re: too weary string or not
Our former guitarist Brendan Glynn used to break his G string EVERY session. It became a standing, if expensive, joke.
I get my mandolin and octave mandolin strings made by a guy in Derbyshire and he uses a round core....the hexagonal core strings, which most people use, have six pressure points which will cause the outer binding to go more quickly than the round core...and these strings last ages and, if you clean them each time, will retain their brightness too. If you contact me I can give you his details.
# Posted on October 9th 2003 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: too weary string or not
Eileen Ivers had her bow restrung after every performance? or did you mean to say her violin? if her violin, why wouldn't she string her own?
# Posted on October 9th 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: too weary string or not
My mum plays the mandolin in a band and I can't remember the last time she broke a string - although to be fair, she doesn't belt 7 bells out of the thing.....
Maybe it was Eileen that was highly strung...... sorry ......I'll get me coat!!!
# Posted on October 9th 2003 by mikemcdaid
Re: too weary string or not
Hi Paul
I am a newcomer to the mandolin - got one at the start of this year and haven't put it down since. Being a beginner I obviously don't 'thrash' it the way that a skilled player would but I do play it constantly. Probably at least 3 hours each day - more if my wife lets me get away with it! I found that the last set of strings that I put on have lasted @ three months and they still seemed fairly bright when I changed them. They were 'Newtone Strings'. A little tricky to get hold of but a web search should find you a source. I got mine from:
NEWTONE STRINGS
11b STAINSBY AVENUE
HEANOR
DERBYSHIRE
DE75 7EL
Phone/Fax 0044 (0)1773 714409
E-mail newtone.strings@talk21.com
I actually changed them last night and put on a set by another (reputable) manufacturer - it was only when I put the new ones on that I realised how good the Newtone strings are!
As for how long they last this surely depends on acidity in the players skin, quality of the base string, quality of the neck/frets and the players 'attack'.
I am off to a mandolin workshop this weekend in the Cotswolds and something tells me that I have tempted fate by responding to this thread - saying how long the last set lasted! I don't have a spare set and will not be able to get to a store until next week - so you know what is bound to happen! How does a 7 string mando sound?
Keep the music strong ....... Bob
# Posted on October 9th 2003 by drbodhran
Re: too weary string or not
Thanks. Anyway i must have an attack which is too aggressive ...
Anyway, a 7 string mandolin sounds better than a 5 string guitar.
I have always about one or two sets of spare strings with me and about 6 extra E and A...
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by paul95
Re: too weary string or not
Good Grief!
The posting above from Bob gives the address of the person I was talking about in my posting further up. Good to know another sessioneer uses Newtone strings.
Good luck with them
Geoff
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: too weary string or not
So i must have a try..what about the price???
At the moment i use GHS (from 10- to 36). The only problem is withe E ...
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by paul95
Re: too weary string or not
I can't remember exactly, but it was only about £6 a set I think, the last time I bought some. They are so good he's doing himself out of business (like Elixir guitar strings).
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: too weary string or not
Just to be clear on the Eileen Ivers thing; she had to have her bow reHAIRed after each show. It's just horse hair on a bow and it breakes easily. Most aggressive fiddlers have to have their bows rehaired fairly often. ...but this has nothing to do with strings.
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by fiddleK
Re: too weary string or not
Thanks. I did HONESTLY mean to say reHAIRED. Sorry. This wasn't a direct reference to strings but just the fact that some players are more aggressive than others be it plucking or bowing.
John
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by John J.
Newtone strings
I use them exclusively on my banjo and octave mando. I've never broken a string on either. I play the o-m for at least an hour a day and change strings about every 4-6 weeks. Lovely strings. They're available in a myriad of guages at the 12th Fret in Toronto, which is the high-end acoustic shop in town. A lot of people have to mail order them, but they're worth it.
Greg
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by octogreg
Re: too weary skin or not
My bodhran player only breaks one or two skins a year. How often do you slash your bodhranistras' (or bodhranatrixs')?
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by geoffwright
Re: too weary string or not
...and Eileen Ivers *advertises* the broken bow hairs on the front picture of her wacky 'Wild Blue' CD.
Jim
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by Worldfiddler
Re: too weary string or not
If you're breaking strings at the nut, as happens 90% of the time, it's most likely not because of the way you play. I've never broken a mandolin or bouzouki string despite beating the bejzuz out of them to overcome the din of the 5-string banjo in bluegrass concerts. I think the reason is, when I make a new nut, I file a slight relief on each face where the string exits the nut to ensure there are no sharp edges, and apply a little graphite to the groove when putting on new strings (run a very sharp no. 2 pencil back and forth in the slot a few times.) Many otherwise well made instruments have nuts that are not properly relieved.
Our guitar player used to break strings at every show until he started filing his nuts and smearing them with graphite.
It intrigues his girlfriend too.
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by ScottC
Re: too weary string or not
I'm a little surprised that strings with hexagonal cores are in common use. As Geoff pointed out, this design will certainly cause stress regions in the winding and its consequent breakdown. Is there any technical reason for hexagonal cores? I'm intrigued to know the answer.
Trevor
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by Trevor Jennings
Re: too weary string or not
"It intrigues his girlfirend too." LOL
I've always taken great care of my nuts, too, though instead of jabbing them with a sharp pencil, I dust them with a dash of powdered graphite in a tube (available at hardware stores).
You can also smooth the edges in the grooves of your nuts by running a bit of very fine emery cloth in them--it's a bit like flossing teeth in that you want to lightly sand each side of each groove so there are no sharp edges where the string enters or exits the groove.
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: too weary string or not
Eileen Ivers needed her bow rehaired? Doug Kershaw has this issue too, has a whole bow quiver full of bows hanging from his mike stand at the ready as he "shreds" each bow from vigorous playing. Excuse my cynicism, but bow hairs can be set in the bow to "shred" for dramatic effect...
Breaking strings every week? I agree with the folks that put graphite (from a pencil) in the grooves when you change the strings. Maybe take it to your local, friendly bouzouki, banjo, mandolin shop to have them check out the instrument...
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by Aine Ni Scully
Re: too weary string or not
I was going through an ocean of E strings on my mandolin, before i found a rough edge on the nut that was causing the problem. I also had a chamfer machined into the machine head for the same reason.
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by Celtic1234
Re: too weary string or not
Since i started on the banjo, i have'nt had to change the strings(about 3 months) and i find that it does'nt go out of tune every couple of minutes like the mandolin, which is great. My mandolin was a pain in that you had to keep tuning the E string. Does anybody else have the same trouble with their mandolin? Is it my choice of strings? I use martin and addario sometimes.I had the mandolin checked out by a local "expert" who says there is nothing major wrong with the instrument.(he machined the rough machine head for me-which was snapping the E strings).
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by Celtic1234
Re: too weary string or not
i don't think i have a problem with my nuts..
As most of the time the strings break near the bridge, i guess it might be the attack...
i'll try to use a thinner pick. Until now i used a Dunlop 0,71..
I can't say i have tuning problem with the present mandolin. A luthier once told me , about the old mandolin, that as the E strings were so thin, they glide, so it was better to roll more of the string around the tuning machine.. it worked.
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by paul95
Re: too weary string or not
Ya Paul,
I was told my lack of sufficient turns on the machine head helped snap the strings also. I now have as much string as possible around the head.
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by Celtic1234
Re: too weary string or not
Celtic
From my experience the more turns of string round the head you have, the more trouble you get with strings going flat. This is simply because there is more room for movement in all those turns.
I like a tidy head, and when I string I allow only about 4 or 5 turns (about 2 inches) round the head. Apart from the A string, my little stripy back romanian mandolin stays in tune for several days at a time. I play quite hard (for reasons of volume) and have never broken a string in 6 years.
Around here its always the A string that goes out of tune on mandolins - four of us who regularly meet at the same sesh have all found that the A goes out of tune - and bizarrely it almost always goes very slightly sharp (both strings in the pair by about the same amount).
I think enough people have posted answers by now to make it plain that mandolin players should check their nuts carefully, and have their heads examined.
Dave
# Posted on October 10th 2003 by showaddydadito
Re: too weary string or not
Repeated breaking of my E string was caused by a rough hole (now now) on the tuning peg. A gentle rub with a needle file sorted the problem.
BTW also use Newtone strings and are very happy with them.
# Posted on October 11th 2003 by len
String problems
I have broken exactly one string since I bought my mandolin a year and a half ago, and I play, generally, a session or two a week and hours of practice. I have three possible explanations for the longevity.
1) I use coated strings. Specifically, I use Elixirs, but there are other brands on the market. The strings don't decay quickly at all; the worst wear is under the fingers, from the sweat and oil and acids that we're all producing more or less all the time. The rest of the string isn't as subject to oxidation as regular steel strings, either. A professional guitarist of my acquaintance says that he used to replace strings before every gig; now he does it once a month. If you live near the sea or in a humid climate, coated strings could make a huge difference. The price is approximately double that of uncoated strings, but if they last ten times longer...
2) You may well, as others have suggested, have a burr on your bridge or your nut. Look in a magnifying glass for anything other than a perfectly smooth notch. File it and use graphite.
3) If you're like most mandolin players I've seen (except myself), you're probably holding your pick much more tightly than you need to. The bluegrass players generally hold their picks so loosely that they're in perpetual danger of falling out of the fingers. Many also hold the pick as closely as possible to the top, far away from the tip, so that there is a higher fulcrum point. I've started to do this, and it improves the tone significantly. I respectfully disagree with the notion of using a lighter pick; according to Chris Thile (see below) you should use a heavy pick, but a light touch.
Why do mandolin players hold their picks (hands, wrists, arms) so tightly? Probably in a vain attempt to make the instrument sound louder in competition with all those other instruments (the banjo being a particularly overwhelming example). Alas it doesn't really work; the mandolin is just altogether a quieter instrument. There are a couple of ways around that too.
I just replaced the bridge that came with the mandolin ("The Epiphone", made in Korea--one of the least expensive instruments available); with a Fishman M-100 pickup bridge. It's been a few weeks, and I still have not yet plugged the instrument into an amplifier, but the change in sound is incredible. The volume is now much, much greater and the tone is better. It's not because of new strings either; I didn't change the old ones. I simply loosened the old ones off, slipped out the old bridge, and slipped the new bridge underneath.
After doing that, you could mic the mandolin or plug it in, if the circumstances permit it.
Most importantly: GET THE CHRIS THILE VIDEO, ESSENTIAL TECHNIQUES FOR MANDOLIN. Watch it. Soak it up. If you're like most mandolin players, there's a lot of information about the mechanics of playing that will probably improve your speed, your rhythm and your tone right away, and your volume will improve as a side effect.
Hope this helps...
---Michael B.
# Posted on October 12th 2003 by MichaelBolton
Re: too weary string or not
one drunken session during the summer some1 had the bright idea of playing in E flat,so ther was a mandolin player and two fiddlers!so then the inevitable twangs occured and ther was much ducking and diving by the gathering to avoid flying strings and other eye removing projectiles!
moral of the story,safety goggles wernt invented for nothing u know!!!
# Posted on October 13th 2003 by needaliver