Viola G-3 Gut/Silver/Copper-Wound

Gamut Academie Gut Viola Strings are designed for Baroque instruments by those musicians playing historical performance practice at a=415, and are perfectly suitable for modern a=440 practice, but the result will be a little bit more tension at a=440.

This is a single-length gut core string sterling silver and copper wire wound onto the gut in tandem with a thin silk layer wound onto the core between the gut and wire. This type of string is represented by several extant samples of strings from the early 1800s that were made for the violin and cello. The copper and silver wires are laid onto the gut core in tandem creating a striped barber-pole affect if the string is looked at closely. Like the silver-wound strings, the round wire is wound onto the core and then polished smooth. Since the speed of sound is faster in copper than it is in silver, the copper wire lends a little brightness to the tone of these strings making the silver/copper-wound string a good choice for an instrument that has a dark lower register, or if you just want to try a new tone on your instrument. Silver/copper-wound strings are also available unpolished (round wire).

Due to the hand-made nature of Academie gut/metal-wound strings, the lengths provided are an approximate average.

Viola G-3 Gut/Silver/Copper-wound wire and stocking lengths:

• Knot to stocking - 19.5" (49.5cm)
• Stocking length - 6" (15cm)
• Total string length - 25.5" (65cm)

If your instrument requires additional wire or stocking length, please contact us.

The end of the string that goes into the tailpiece comes with a 3-D printed ball end.

A new option now available for the Academie line of wound strings involving the silk underlayer. This is a thin wrapping of silk that is wound around the core of the string before the wire is wound on. For many years we have been putting this underlayer on Academie strings in response to customer requests, but awareness and knowledge of historical performance practice has progressed enough now that we can offer this feature as an option. According to our research, it is unlikely that such an underlayer would have been used on wound music strings before about 1900 — and for those players who want to explore the true nature of historical strings, we are now offering to make strings without this buffer layer. The effect of the underlayer is to increase the internal damping in the string which gives the string a warmer tone. Without the underlayer, the tone of the string is brighter and has more of the lush, ravishing tone attributed to historical times.