After seeing Julie Ellison's YouTube video (just look for 'Julie Ellison 
Rotosound' and you will find it) with the surprising details of using 
10-48 gauge I have been thinking about the potential for lighter strings.

Martin Carthy uses similarly light strings despite tuning down to C a 
lof of the time, and I think I asked Clive Gregson what string he had on 
a Gibson jumbo and got the same unexpected reply - ultra light.

I've ordered some of the piano wound Rotosounds in 10-48 and 11-50 to 
try out (found them, after much searching, from a Dutch company trading 
as 'lordofthestrings.com'). In the meantime, my local shop had been 
getting in some Dean Markely Vintage Bronze Signature Series 11-46 sets 
- certainly the skinniest acoustic bass I've ever heard of.

Mainly because it had the oldest strings on, but also because I felt the 
light strings would work on a very lightly built guitar, I fitted these 
to my 'Londoner', the slightly crude by sonically excellent parlour 
guitar I had made by Russell Rose three or four years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlmaNHj8PuU

Drop D too, despite the 46 bass on a 24.9 inch scale. Intonation is 
tricky on the bass string and I think 11-48 or 50 would work better, but 
the skinny middle strings respond really well and have a fast response.

David

"David Kilpatrick"  wrote in message 
news:fe2dnY3fxcZ9CQLXnZ2dnUVZ8lD_fwAA@bt.com...

> I've ordered some of the piano wound Rotosounds in 10-48 and 11-50 to try 
> out (found them, after much searching, from a Dutch company trading as 
> 'lordofthestrings.com').

If "piano wound" means the windings stop short of the bridge so that just 
the core makes contact,
what you want are Rotosound Country Gold.
I've found them easily enough 11-52 (it's pretty much all I use on 
acoustics)
I've never seen them in any lighter gauges though.

Dave Benj wrote:
> 
> "David Kilpatrick"  wrote in message 
> news:fe2dnY3fxcZ9CQLXnZ2dnUVZ8lD_fwAA@bt.com...
> 
>> I've ordered some of the piano wound Rotosounds in 10-48 and 11-50 to 
>> try out (found them, after much searching, from a Dutch company 
>> trading as 'lordofthestrings.com').
> 
> If "piano wound" means the windings stop short of the bridge so that 
> just the core makes contact,
> what you want are Rotosound Country Gold.
> I've found them easily enough 11-52 (it's pretty much all I use on 
> acoustics)
> I've never seen them in any lighter gauges though.


That's the point - Rotosound also make other piano wound strings. Julie 
is using SuperBronze, which I could not find under that name. Country 
Gold is a bright bronze alloy. I used to get Country Golds in the 12-54 
(I think) set. I was not aware Rotosound made any piano wound sets other 
than Country Gold, but it seems they do.

Problem I found was that having even a few mm of unwound string upsets 
the intonation, and it depends on the guitar as to whether this is an 
improvement or the reverse. Think about it - if you stripped away half 
the winding above the 12th fret,  you would get totally wrong intonation 
up the fingerboard, just the same way a nylon string of uneven 
rectification (constant thickness) will produce bad intonation on a 
classical.

The Country Golds worked well on my OOOO (compensated angled saddle) but 
didn't agree with my Lowden O-10 as well at the time (split saddle, 
stronger compensation angles) because the Lowden bridge allowed more of 
the unwound string to be over the saddle. The OOOO with a pin bridge 
placed the unwound section neatly, with just 2-3mm of plain string 
before the winding began.

I am hoping that the non-Country Gold Rotosound piano wound extra light 
sets I've ordered will agree with my Lowden S35C.

David