Martin "Retro" Strings

I bought a set and was not impressed. Nowhere near as bright as Phospher/bronze and did not project well. They were very quickly replaced on the Epiphone. Even Carol heard the difference.
 
Yeah, I usually used D'Addario phospher/bronze. The Retro strings sounded pretty dead in comparison.

I have recently switched to Gibson Masterbuilt string on the Gibson and Epiphone; they seem to do well with those guitars and it brings me back full circle as I used to but Gibson strings when I started playing 50 years ago. :grin:
 
I have a set but I havnt used em yet. Was gonna try em on my big archtop Epi next time. Cause monel supposedly works well with mag pickups.
 
Maybe I should use them on the "Lennon" Epiphone. I have never really liked to sound of it.

The Epi Broadway sounds awful with regular roundwound strings. Weird upper harmonics. Right now I'm using Tomastic flatwounds on it. The monels should give you less overtones and more fundamentals, if that's what you need.
 
By weird upper harmonics I mean unharmonic harmonics, stuff that clashes to my ears.
Are you using phos bronze wound acoustic strings on the Lennon? If so I'd say def try the monels, a "white bronze" string, or some flatwound electric.
 
The Epi Broadway sounds awful with regular roundwound strings. Weird upper harmonics. Right now I'm using Tomastic flatwounds on it. The monels should give you less overtones and more fundamentals, if that's what you need.
Oh, I don't have regular roundwound; I have some kind of string that was recommended for it. My problem is that, unplugged, it just sounds so thin. I'm not too wild about it plugged, to be honest.
 
Oh, I don't have regular roundwound; I have some kind of string that was recommended for it. My problem is that, unplugged, it just sounds so thin. I'm not too wild about it plugged, to be honest.
Well, that just sounds like it's just a crappy PAC Rim approximation of a properly constructed flattop guitar. Ain't much can be done about that except find a way to embrace it for what it is or dump it.
FWIW, the monels should give you more bass and fundamental than the white bronze acoustic strings you probably have on there. Of course then you may not be happy about the loss of high end.
 
Yeah, I'll try the monel on the Epi. I think I'm just not into the sound of it, especially compared ti the Gibson and Epiphone Masterbuilt.
 
I’m currently A/B ing several varieties of string and so far I’m finding that the DR Veritas and D’Addario Nickel Bronze strings (on an Emerald X7 and Journey Overhead 420, respectively) seem to be at the top of the heap for me. Both seem to sound as good as EJ-16s (my standard for comparison), but seem to be holding up quite a bit better. I just bought another set of the D’Addario’s for my Martin 000-15 I will be replacing the current set of D’Addario 80/20s with. I hadn’t used those before, but am not in love with them.
 
I like 'em, but I like them better on certain guitars. I really wanted them on my Martin Custom 0-15 MS, but they became too dark. It's pretty well known around here that I actually like the sound of older, deader strings, and to me the Retro strike that perfect balance. Otherwise, I use D'Addario EXP Phosphor Bronze.
 
I have a set of Retro's on my Takamine. They sound great on that guitar, I was using D’Addario phosphor bronze, and wasn't impressed with them after my luthier repaired the headstock. I think I posted about that sometime back. Anyway, the lighter gauge Retro's sound good on the guitar, and that's what counts.
 
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