Hi Marc, I have a nice orpharion made by Peter Biffen and the NRI strings work great on it. I buy the ones with the loops on them and the ones on my orpharion are now almost 2 years old and still sound great, and play in tune. Certainly combinations of various guitar and mandolin strings would be cheaper, and some of them would be more flexible strings and so could be slightly easier to play in tune. However, I don't think the strings are the biggest elements in intonation.
The real problems of playing the orpharion in tune are the instrument - it needs really low action. I have an cittern that will never play in tune because it just does not have the action that my orpharion has. The cittern has scalloped frets that are too deep, pulling the strings enough so that they are stretch when you fret them. The next real problem is the player - does your finger come directly down on both strings of the pair behing the fret, or are you pulling the string sideways when you do a hard chord? Are you pressing hard enough? Bar chords can be a bit challenging, especially in textures where you hold the bar and do runs with the other 3 fingers. To find other brass strings try harpsichord string - these might be the same things NRI is selling. Do you have a micromiter so you can measure what you have and get the same diameter strings? If anyone wants to look at pictures of my orpharion, I now have a few on my web site. http://www.nancycarlinassociates.com/orpharion/ Nancy Carlin >Lynn Elder recently suggested that I might want to experiment with loop end >strings other than NRI's low twist bases. This could be a cheaper >alternative and might even address some of the intonation problems I have >been having >with my G and C courses. Two questions come to mind. Would (say) Irish >cittern strings or perhaps bouzouki strings be appropriate for the lower >courses, >and if the gauge would be matched, would the string tension be a problem? >Also, where (other than in the UK) can I obtain brass f and a strings, >and low >tensile steel loop strings for the upper two courses? --- Marc Alexander > >-- > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Nancy Carlin Associates P.O. Box 6499 Concord, CA 94524 USA phone 925/686-5800 fax 925/680-2582 web site - www.nancycarlinassociates.com Administrator THE LUTE SOCIETY OF AMERICA web site - http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org --
