As the title says, I am testing Martin’s new titanium core, nickel wound strings. They arrived a week ago this past Monday. I agreed to test them with no hesitation. But having used bronze wound, or phosphor bronze on my acoustics for the last forty years, I was wondering what these new strings would do to/for my sound.
When I had them changed and tuned, I played through a couple of songs. The sound was really bright. I was sitting down and I couldn’t tell if my perception was altered simply because they were silver strings and I was used to bronze.
So I went to play the Monday night open mic at Poor David’s Pub – hosted by Mr. Troll – to try them out live through a sound system. I don’t look at the strings much while I’m on stage, so I could concentrate on the sound. I could get the opinion of the musicians in the audience too.
The first thing they said was the first thing that had struck me – they’re really bright. What I began to notice then and throughout the next few days was that what was different from the bronze wound was what I liked about the strings. Another thing – I’m used to my Martin being consistently in tune, except due to atmospheric changes. But these strings have hardly gone out of tune at all.
I’m playing out tonight, tomorrow night, and twice on Sunday in different environments. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll let you know.
Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.
Peace be with you.
