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Thread: Nylon low strings on Cittern

  1. #1
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    Default Nylon low strings on Cittern

    After reading about some of the Scandinavian makers and listening to a couple of the players I've been experimenting with nylon core strings (for extended range classical guitar) as the low C course on my 650mm scale cittern. I find that while the attack is a little softer than steel and they need some finessing of my picking technique, they give a nice sustained depth under chords and they're also sweeter and clearer pitched when capoing up the neck.
    I could find relatively little information about scale lengths, pitches and tension for nylon core strings, compared to what's available for steel core strings, so I thought a thread might be useful. As a starting point I picked up a couple of D'addario NYL058W strings purely because someone was clearing stock of those cheaply on eBay. From what I can find online, a low C on a similar scale classical guitar would typically be around 0.052" or 0.053“, but I took a guess that erring towards higher tension might help when blending them with steel strings. I've tried both octave and unison stringing on this instrument, and currently I'm enjoying unison CGDAD.
    I'd be curious to hear about anyone else's experiences with nylon strings for a low C or D course, and if there are any good sources of tension information that I've missed.

  2. #2
    Registered User zoukboy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Nylon low strings on Cittern

    I have done this on a 12 string and a custom made extended range tenor guitar.

    For the 12 string, I use Hannabach nylon classical bass strings .062 and .045 for low A1 and D2 pitches and they work very well.

    You didn't mention if you were using these in octave pairs, but that is what the Scandinavian builders and players are doing, and I feel it is absolutely essential as the nylon string provides the massive bass but the phosphor bronze wound steel string for the octave provides the upper harmonics.

    I pair the .062" A1 with a PB .032" at A2 and the .045" D2 is paired with a PB .022" at D3. This is on a 25.5" scale Alvarez 5037 12 string.

    On the extended range tenor, I used the same .062" Hannabach for a low A1 on a 27" scale and paired it with a .034" PB at A2 and it sounded HUGE.

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  4. #3
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    Default Re: Nylon low strings on Cittern

    I've been trying it both with octaves and unison pairs (I have two nuts for this cittern). Right now it's in unison pairs which works better than I had expected. This might be because a 0.058“ seems quite high tension for nylon at this pitch and scale. I definitely prefer unison on the middle D course of my CGDAD tuning, but for the bottom C and G I feel I could go either way.
    I'll try playing it as it is for a while and see if I feel the need to change anything.

  5. #4
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    Default Re: Nylon low strings on Cittern

    Here are a couple of quick examples of how it sounds in unison with the nylon Low C.


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