Hello Jurgen, I agree that in with 8-course lutes, they do tend to not sound as brilliant as with octaves. Of course, it is a compromise, but on my 8-course lute, I have octaves on 5,6,7, & 8 and like it very much. Whatever brand of strings you try, I think you will like the 5th course in octaves, as it brightens up the sound. I do not see it as confusing the voices as you say, but adding to the richness and complexity of the sound. Another thing that could very much improve the sound is to use gut. If you do not want gut, at least consider using gut for octaves.
On Sat, Nov 23, 2019 at 6:19 AM Jurgen Frenz <[1][email protected]> wrote: Hello there, I have an 8c lute now since 10 months and from the beginning I'm "unhappy" with the sound of the unison C strings on it. I changed the plain Aquila strings to round-wound Aquilas but to me it sounds quite the same. What I'm missing is the high frequencies that we have on 6c instruments with the octave string. In my mind I call the current sound "plastic-y". The maker of the instrument suggested to try out the Savarez early music strings but I do not think I would recover high frequencies with them. Any remedies that you have tried out with success other than "just get used to it"? An octave string shouldn't be a good idea because it would confuse voices. Hoping for some suggestions, Jurgen ---------------------------------- "Close your eyes. Fall in love. Stay there." JalÃl ad-Dà «n Muhammad Rumi To get on or off this list see list information at [2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:[email protected] 2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
