Playing from the 'Gut'

[Adrian Levi]

I am not a gut player and have had no real experience with them, but have a question regarding gut strings .A friend of mine replaced his steel strings with gut strings and said that he immediately noticed a drastic drop in volume on his D and G strings.
Would this have to do with the diminished downward string pressure on the top from the guts thus perhaps affecting sound post position, and is it the norm to have to reposition a soundpost to regain string volume evenness ...... or perhaps even rethinking tailpiece mass etc ?

[Calvin Marks]

Originally Posted by Adrian Levi

I am not a gut player and have had no real experience with them, but have a question regarding gut strings .A friend of mine replaced his steel strings with gut strings and said that he immediately noticed a drastic drop in volume on his D and G strings.
Would this have to do with the diminished downward string pressure on the top from the guts thus perhaps affecting sound post position, and is it the norm to have to reposition a soundpost to regain string volume evenness ...... or perhaps even rethinking tailpiece mass etc ?

Just like steel strings, gut comes in a variety of different qualities. What was he using? By gut I assume you mean plain gut, right? Some instruments just don't like gut strings. My bass is built quite lightly and I do historically informed music so gut is absolutely essential, if you want detailed information on string types and gauges feel free to e-mail me. For my bass I get x2 more sound from gut than steel, but that's mainly because they're softer on my hands and I can put in my energy and soul into my playing.