Tricolore Viola C-4 Gut/Silver-Wound

Tricolore strings are designed for modern performance practice at a=440.

This is a single-length (32", 80cm) viola string with a beef gut core and sterling silver wire winding. The gut core has been carefully seasoned and then wound with silver wire in the tradition of the Perfection Musical String Co.

One update we have made to the original string design is the addition of a 3-D printed ball end on each string. Modern tailpieces are made with wider string slots than those of the early 20th century and a gut knot is no longer big enough to hold the string in place. The ball end will keep the string from pulling through the tailpiece.

Violas come in different sizes, sometimes requiring different lengths of strings. Length is not an issue for the plain gut strings, but can be an issue for wound strings. It is important that the string has a wire on the gut from bridge to nut, and if the wire winding on the string is too short, the thread stocking will be over the nut and fingerboard. This will result in bad tone and intonation and should be avoided. The Tricolore viola wound strings have a length of 48cm from the end knot to the end of the wire / beginning of the stocking. If you measure your instrument from tailpiece to nut and find more than 48cm, please let us know and we can make longer strings for you.

The Tricolore brand, used by many famous violin soloists, was one of the most well known violin strings made in the 20th century. Now, after many decades of being unavailable, we are pleased to offer these strings again. This string was developed by Ray Neiner at the Perfection Musical String Co. Brunswick, IN, just south of Chicago. The machines we use at Gamut Music to make the strings were purchased from the Perfection company, and in addition to the machines, we also received the formulations that Perfection used to make their strings, including the Tricolore brand. We have in our archives a copy of the Perfection workshop book that specifies the gauge of gut used for the cores, the size of the wires, length of the strings, and colors of the thread used for the stockings at the top and bottom of the strings. In addition to this practical information, we also received instruction for the special curing treatment that the gut cores went through before being wound and the specific techniques used in winding the wire onto the gut core. These strings are accurate replications of the ones that filled American concert halls with sound in the 20th century.

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Hand-made in the USA by Gamut Music, Inc., a leader in the revival of early music strings and instruments. Gut strings are not intended to be used with fine tuners or string adjusters, and those devices should be removed before installing the gut string on the instrument.

All Gamut Academie strings (pure gut and gut/metal-wound) are made with beef serosa unless they specifically say "Sheep Gut." All pure gut Tricolore violin and viola strings are made with sheep gut; gut/metal-wound Tricolore and all Red Diamond strings are made with beef serosa.

Gamut gut string gauges are approximate (≈) diameter. Meaning, that while a ≈0.60mm string is polished in the workshop to a diameter of 0.60mm, changes in ambient humidity, temperature, shipping, and storage conditions can cause to string to expand or contract slightly.

Gimped gut strings and custom gauged equal tension strings are gauged with the equivalent-gauge (=) system. This means that the gauge listed, such as =1.50mm, indicates that the string is approximately equal in weight to a plain gut string of that diameter. Of course, because the wire is much heavier than gut, the string will be much thinner than a plain gut string.

More information about Gamut gut strings, string types, gauges, and string tensions can be found on our FAQ/Articles page. Not finding an answer to your question? Please contact us directly: support@gamutmusic.com.