Sign Up To Receive 5% Off!
Different Types of Violin Strings
Gut Core Violin Strings
In the beginning, musical instrument strings were made out of sheep or lamb intestines and until the end of the late 19th century, the aptly titled gut strings were the only type available. The E, A and D strings were generally simply plain, unwrapped gut! The G string has always taken different forms, some to reduce mass, have optimal twisting, braiding and wrapping etc. Interestingly enough, today there are several musicians who use these types of strings when performing early-music, however most that use these gut strings, have them wrapped with silver or aluminum.
Gut-core strings are known for having a completely unique sound - full, complex with tons of overtones. It should be noted that for response sensitive buyers, gut core strings are generally accepted to have the slowest response time out of the 3 varieties available. Due to lower tension, these strings tend to feel softer and play with a slight resistance or "catch" on note and bowing changes.
The biggest disadvantage to these type of strings is the drastic response to humidity and temperature changes, forcing the strings to go out of tune often. When first installed, gut core strings need a minimum of one week to stretch out before any tuning stability is maintained. A great example of a gut core string is the popular Pirastro Eudoxa set of strings.
Synthetic Core Violin Strings
In the early 1970s, Thomastik-Infeld revolutionized violin-string making by creating what are now known as Dominant perlon-core strings. Now you could have a string that sounded like a gut-core string but didn’t have the disadvantages of pitch instability and slow response. These strings use a core of perlon (a type of nylon) wrapped with silver or aluminum. They stretch and stabilize very quickly, due to the fact that the core isn't affected by changes in humidity or temperature like gut-core strings are.
Steel Core Violin Strings
With the introduction of the steel E string in the late 19th century, Steel strings came about. A core of fine strands of steel are used for the A, D and G strings. The outside part of the string is covered with a wide variety of metals including chrome steel, tungsten, silver and titanium, along with a few others.
For the most part, steel-core strings have a tendency to be brighter sounding than their counterparts. This produces a clean, simple sound with few overtones. Many people like steel-core strings due to them having the fastest response time of any string because they are known to be high tension and generally thinner than other types of strings.
Steel-core violin strings stay in tune very well as they have very little expansion or contraction during humidity and temperature changes. This coupled with the benefits listed previously enable the steel-core string varieties to be optimal for beginner students. A few examples of steel strings are: Super Sensitive Red Label and D'Addario Helicore.
