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Seth
Posted on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 11:08 am:   

http://www.guitar.com/features/viewfeature.asp?featureID=171&page=2
JohnS
Posted on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 11:08 am:   

Seth:

Thanks for posting that. Nice little tid-bits from George. Interesting that they didn't mention his defection to Gibson. ????

Anybody ever tried his strings out? What do they cost?

P.S. Somebody broke a cardinal rule in graphics: "Never flop a photo with a guitar in it." You end up with a left-handed guitar that has a headstock logo which reads backwards.
Seth
Posted on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 11:08 am:   

Hi John,

I was wondering when GB made the switch to playing left-handed with a mirror image guitar. . .

I have a set of Thomastik-Infeld George Benson flatwound 12s on my GB20 right now. They're fine strings, though I might try the heavier sets when they wear out. Big City String Company (http://www.bigcitystring.com) has the best prices on TIs that I've come across. At $11.75 a set they're not cheap, but flatwounds seem to last longer than roundwounds.

-Seth
Mark Munchenberg
Posted on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 11:08 am:   

John,

I've tried Thomastiks here in Australia but have been really dissappointed. Very few shops stock them so no-one knows about them. Therefore they are a slow moving item. This means the distributor's stock is old. And when I say old I mean old.

Each time I've had a shop order them in for me the strings have been dead as do-do's. The unwound strings won't even straighten out when uncoiled.

As good as Thomastiks are reputed to be, their Australian distributor has let them down by sitting on old stock and doing nothing to promote the product.

Because of the problem with freshness, I always buy D'addario. A popular brand that sells in high volume fast. You are always guaranteed of a fresh set.

The thing that sets Thomastik apart is the silk wrap around the thinner core. This allows for lower tension, so you can put a larger string on the guitar without a corresponding increase in tension.

Cheers,

Mark
Seth
Posted on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 11:08 am:   

Mark,

I wondered what accounted for the difference in tension between TIs and other flatwound strings. It's quite noticeable.

What kind of D'Addarios are you currently using, Mark? What guages? How 'bout others on the forum.

Seth
Mark Munchenberg
Posted on Friday, October 08, 2004 - 11:08 am:   

Seth,

On guitars with a 25.5" scale I use a .10-.46 round wound set.

Guitars with a 24.75" scale get .11-.49's, also round wound.

My dad's Emberg guitar and the Joe Pass both are set up for purely jazz playing. These have D'addario Chrome flat wounds .12-.56.

Primarily I am a blues/rockabilly player so I like to bend those strings.

Also I bought a really cool amp last week. It's a 15 watt valve combo from the early sixties. It has a 12" speaker, tremelo, and three inputs. The valve complement is one 12AX7 in the preamp and two 6GW8's for the power stage. The valves are original AWA Radiotrons and they tested up to original spec on the valve tester. It was built in Melbourne and is called a Diason.

The tone on this little baby really knocks me out. It is much more the real deal than either my Fender Blues Deluxe or Deville. Whilst those amps are lush and much louder, there is something missing in their tone when compared to this little baby. It would make a great recording amp.

I bought this amp as a Xmas present for my dad. He really needs a lightweight portable amp that sounds good for the demonstration of his Emberg guitars. I budgeted $300, and was quickly demoralised by the absolute junk to be found in the shops at this price. So I decided to look around the classifieds, and lo and behold this little gem is what I found.

It is so cool I don't really want to give it away. But its Xmas and the joy is in the giving - or so they say.

Take it easy,

Mark
Dc9 (Dc9)
Posted on Sunday, August 01, 2004 - 7:59 am:   

I've been stringing my GB-10 and GB-12 with the D'addario chromes for years. .13 to .56. I've thought about the TI strings but just havn't got around to using them yet. Might be because of the 7 or 8 sets of Chromes I've got left. Played through my 1978 Polytone 104 or the reissue of the original Polytone Mini-Brute that I have. Sounds great. Seth, interested in selling your GB-20?
David

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