Octave4Plus Strings vs Sheep Gut Strings?

[Oscar Stern]

I read online that the Octave4plus Strings designed to tune up to super high pitches on super long scale lengths have to be treated as if they were made out of Sheep Gut (what would now be Nylon) from the Baroque Era.

 

[Christopher Har V]

What exactly is the question here?

I've been looking into his stuff. I'm considering setting up my 10 string to be like a 9 string guitar but adding a high A string. He makes one that is appropriate for my scale length, 27/30 multi, but the one string costs like $25 after shipping lol so maybe it is made out of sheep guts

 

[Oscar Stern]

What exactly is the question here?

I've been looking into his stuff. I'm considering setting up my 10 string to be like a 9 string guitar but adding a high A string. He makes one that is appropriate for my scale length, 27/30 multi, but the one string costs like $25 after shipping lol so maybe it is made out of sheep guts

Actually you have to Treat that Octave4Plus High A String as if it was a sheep gut string because you have to let it stretch.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

k

 

[StevenC]

What exactly is the question here?

I've been looking into his stuff. I'm considering setting up my 10 string to be like a 9 string guitar but adding a high A string. He makes one that is appropriate for my scale length, 27/30 multi, but the one string costs like $25 after shipping lol so maybe it is made out of sheep guts

First time coming across an Oscar post?

 

[j3ps3]

Well okay then

 

[Oscar Stern]

The string is a special alloy that's kind a Metal equivalent of Nylgut

 

[jaxadam]

 

[Hollowway]

I had zero luck with O4P strings. I had a 10 string built by Tom Drinkwater, and it was 27-30, with a high A. He put an O4P string on there. Tom sent 4 replacement strings along with the guitar. When the original broke, I tried putting the replacement ones on.Each one of them broke at the ball (not wrapped around the ball - inserted into the middle, and presumably clamped) way before getting to A. Like it broke or slid out before getting to E. I went through all4 strings, no luck. I ordered 5 more and tried again, with the same issue. At that point I gave up. So, long story short, treating them like gut strings is an academic argument, because I couldn't get anywhere near any kind of tension on them to even begin to let them sit and adjust.

 

[Sermo Lupi]

I had zero luck with O4P strings. I had a 10 string built by Tom Drinkwater, and it was 27-30, with a high A. He put an O4P string on there. Tom sent 4 replacement strings along with the guitar. When the original broke, I tried putting the replacement ones on.Each one of them broke at the ball (not wrapped around the ball - inserted into the middle, and presumably clamped) way before getting to A. Like it broke or slid out before getting to E. I went through all4 strings, no luck. I ordered 5 more and tried again, with the same issue. At that point I gave up. So, long story short, treating them like gut strings is an academic argument, because I couldn't get anywhere near any kind of tension on them to even begin to let them sit and adjust.

I've never tried O4P myself, I just remember reading posts on the extended range subforum over the years where people could never get those 0.005/0.006 gauge strings to work.

I'd imagine that most major manufacturers only go down to 0.007 for various reasons. Playing strings thinner than that can't be very practical from a player's point of view, anyway.

If OP's question is why O4P is comparing a steel string to gut, I'd imagine it's because the thin-gauged steel string is so delicate that a laborious stretching process is needed to tune and play it without breaking. Maybe it bears repeating that scale length is an essential feature of stringed instruments...trying to work around it is fighting with physics. Comparing steel strings to gut strings is probably a good sign you've reached the point of fighting with physics.

 

[Rubbishplayer]

So to sumnarise...

Wire maker tries to rationalise why his "revolutionary new product" doesn't work by blaming how real people use the product.

Reminds me a little of the "first British electric car"...

 

[wheresthefbomb]

instead of having my cat taxidermied when he dies I'm going to have his asshole made into guitar strings so he can shriek and squawk at me forever