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on today's ask Zack we're going to
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compare flat wound strings half round or
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ground wound strings and pure nickel
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strings we're going to explore the
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Mellow side of guitar
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[Music]
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strings well hello friends and welcome
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to ask Zack hope you're doing well today
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yes we are going to compare round you
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know pure nickel round wound strings uh
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half round or ground wound strings and
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flat wound strings so the reason this
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came up was I started looking on the
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back of a set of didario strings and you
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know it it has this kind of line you
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know kind of a tone line showing you
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know mellow to super bright with you
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know flat wound or their chromes on one
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end and their Pro Steels on the far
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other side as far as super bright and so
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I thought it'd be fun to of course use
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the same guitar and uh kind of cover the
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Mellow side of things which are going
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from mellowest to less mellow the most
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mellow would be the flat wounds or
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chromes then next up would be the pure
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nickel and then the half round so we're
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going to cover those and talk about them
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and uh you know see if it's you know
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something that that you want to check
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out or mess with so yeah before we dive
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in I want to thank all my patreon
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members and everyone that watches the
1:38
show everyone that's bought a t-shirt
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everyone that's uh put some money in the
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tip jar I really appreciate it and uh if
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you want to find out more about patreon
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or or want to do tip jar or merch it's
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uh all in the all in the description all
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right let's dive in all right so of
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course I've got the uh Dario chromes on
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here are flat wounds right now and uh
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this is the lightest set they make
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because I do not like heavy gauge
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strings at all and so the lightest flat
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wounds that Dario makes are uh are 10
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through 48 and it starts with a 10 then
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a 14 then the G string is a 20 wound
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then it goes 28 38 48 and uh again these
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are flat wound or you know tape wound or
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whatever you want to call it
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one of the really funny things
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about flat wound strings is that
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everyone has this misconception that you
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know everything you know from the ' 50s
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came with flat wounds on it and that's
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really not true um it's not completely
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conclusive but it's pretty conclusive
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that Fender you know used uh round wound
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strings from VC Squire I mean I we
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haven't been able to find any uh
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evidence otherwise but it looks like
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they used 12 through 53 with a wound
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third and they were round wound of
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course they were pure nickel with a
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round core but they were not flat wound
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and so but it's just funny how that you
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know that kind of that myth keeps
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getting perpetuated where you know old
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guitars had flat wounds on them well no
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they had pure nickel strings on them
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that you know according to you know
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Dario's uh you know tone chart are
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actually pretty close to each other
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they're right next to each other so it
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would make sense that uh you know there
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would be that comparison but it's it's
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really not the case so I put these flat
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LS on here and the first thing off the
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off the bat is I pretty much hate them
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uh reason being is that one it has a
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wound
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third uh which I think is just terrible
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you know so if you're like me and you
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like to do chicken picking country bends
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well a wound third is your enemy and
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this one it's like the most you're going
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to get is about a half you know u a half
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tone
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[Music]
4:13
Bend oh and today just as a a side note
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I'm using my little uh my Little King by
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headstrong amp and I have the Reverb
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turn all the way off and I have no
4:24
effects at all no no compression no
4:27
anything and the reason I'm doing that
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is just so you can he as much as
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possible the guitar and the strings and
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what they're doing and not any other
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kind of overtones because you know if
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you have Reverb on or Reverb if you
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prefer uh you're really going to hear
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other artifacts going on and I don't
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want you to hear that so you know this
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again is the you know Telly uh straight
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into a headstrong little King amp and uh
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you know with these uh flat wounds you
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get this kind of sound
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[Music]
5:00
the
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[Music]
5:41
[Music]
5:48
so they're super stiff very very stiff
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strings immediately my guitar had more
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relief on it and you know they are
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heavier but also they're you know not a
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lot heavier but they're they're just
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stiffer and uh you know you can
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absolutely the guitar has more relief
6:10
here and you know I wasn't going to
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adjust it just for these
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strings also you know besides the
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bending thing I mean it really really
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makes you play differently the positive
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thing about these strings is because of
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their stiffness there's a bounce that
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you get with your pick that where when
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you hit the string it really gives you
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fight back and so the the pick kind of
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bounces off the string and so I keep
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playing some of these kind of Luther
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Perkins Johnny Cash things and I don't
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know whether Luther Perkins used uh flat
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wounds or not I mean it it's not likely
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but it's possible uh he probably used
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pure nickel and you know whatever came
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on the guitar which would be 12 through
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53 uh but there's something about the
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bounciness of these strings also these
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strings don't have a lot of other
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artifacts going on you hear just mainly
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the fundamental
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[Music]
7:11
note it's very in yourr face it's very
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clear there's not again there's not
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these other harmonic stuff going on that
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you would get especially with like
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nickel-plated steel like modern guitar
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strings where you'd have all this other
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kind of brassiness or other harmonic
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Airy stuff going on these are just just
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kind of like here's the note here's the
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note here's the note and uh you know
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I've said this before you know I I have
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friends like JD Simo that really like
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you know pure nickel or flat WS because
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he says they sound like records because
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they don't have all that other stuff
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going on it just sounds like the note
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that it's supposed to sound like so uh
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yeah so there is a neat aspect to these
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strings to these you know to these Flats
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uh
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[Music]
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if you can't tell I'm you know
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struggling a bit on these strings just
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again because of the uh the
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feel yeah the the stiffness of them they
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are of course super
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slick you know I mean
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it's you and you certainly can't do pick
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slides on it you know if you're wan to
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do your Van Halen thing um but yeah
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they're they're really really cool
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strings and they certainly would make
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you play differently and again they have
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that very fundamental sound you know
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that
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that's
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just that just you know kind of says you
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know old school and uh and that's again
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why people will say a lot that uh you
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know these these strings are uh you know
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that that's what was on you know all the
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old guitars in the 50s because you know
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a lot of old recordings kind of have
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that sound so but we're going to get the
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pure nickels out and you're going to
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hear that they kind of do a very similar
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thing and then of course we're also
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going to hear the uh half round or
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ground wound so all right
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next all right guys and our next stop on
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the Mellow train express are pure nickel
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strings so of course this is kind of the
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original you know kind of vintage guitar
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string that you know most guitars came
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with of course there might be some
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exceptions where they came with flat
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round I think maybe certain Gibsons were
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but you know originally you know guitar
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strings were were you know plain Steel
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on the high e and B strings and the rest
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were a round steel core then with pure
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nickel
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windings now starting with the early 70s
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or actually in the 60s people started
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using uh hex core like darkode Dario
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kind of you know pushed that and then
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you started getting uh nickel plated
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steel which has more output and it has
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more other stuff going on um artifacts
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harmonics whatever you want to call it
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so this is Dario's uh pure nickel which
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is on a hex core and of course it has
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pure nickel windings around the hex core
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and then of course the plain strings are
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the same you know the 10 13 17 this is a
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set of tens and uh yeah so and again
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this is on Dario's you know kind of tone
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train you know we started off with the
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mellowest which was the flat wounds and
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so this is the next stop so this is the
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pure nickel which you still have
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actually what I would think a very
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similar tone you know you know that you
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know on the back
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pck because it it still is very
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fundamental it's very kind of in your
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face the
11:34
[Music]
12:00
uh you know even going to the you know
12:02
neck
12:02
[Music]
12:21
pickup
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so these strings are much more
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comfortable for me to play on even
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though they're tins which I'm fine with
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ens uh but they you know they have a
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similar tension to other strings uh
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they're not so stiff you don't have the
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uh the feel thing you cuz obviously as
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you slide up and down the fretboard you
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get more
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noise but tonally you still have that
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real fundamental kind of sound
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[Music]
12:59
that
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[Music]
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and it still has snap on the bottom but
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not
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the not the amount of snap that you
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would get with nickel-plated steel so
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this is kind of you know your uh your
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really great middle ground and really
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this is making me seriously think about
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you know pure nickel strings so cuz they
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are you know they feel really good they
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have a good
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tension um they're a gigantic
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improvement over the flat loundes for me
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I know a lot of you guys you know do
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like flat bounds but yeah but I really
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like these strings and I like the way
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they sound and I like the evenness of
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them you
14:08
[Music]
14:16
know yeah I think they just kind of
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sound more in tune somehow and more
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together main maybe it's because it
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doesn't have all the other artifacts
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going on so yeah so there you have it
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there are the
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pure nickel strings so now we just have
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one more stop on the Mellow train it's
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the half round or ground
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wound yeah you be the
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judge all right guys so here we go this
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is the last stop on the Mellow train
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this is the uh the brightest of the
14:50
Mellow strings as far as what didario
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says these are the ground wound strings
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or they're also called a half round um
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they go by a couple different names but
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evidently uh didario developed these you
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know decades ago as a uh yeah as kind of
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an in between uh round wound and flat
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wound and so the construction on it is
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very interesting uh because you know
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like a regular wound string you've got a
15:24
steel
15:25
core and the windings are are done like
15:30
normal except they're steel with no
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nickel plating so it's not pure nickel
15:36
it's not nickel plated steel it's just
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steel and the steel is wrapped around
15:43
and let's say you want to end up with a
15:44
46 low EAS string they might start with
15:47
a a 50 or 48 or something like that and
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then they grind it down so think about
15:54
all these round you know kind of you
15:58
know winding
15:59
that go around and then they're they're
16:01
they're you know they're basically
16:03
ground down to where they're even to
16:04
where they're flat so you end up with
16:07
something that has you know Bridge
16:09
pickup all the way
16:11
up pretty you know much smoother than
16:15
round wound uh but but you can still
16:20
get you can still get a little bit of
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pick scrape if you really you know kind
16:24
of dig your pick into it so yeah so this
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is really a in between you know set as
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far as um you know the the feel they do
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not feel stiff they they feel much
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better than flat wounds I mean again you
16:42
can see that I have kind of a bias
16:44
against flat wounds not that there
16:46
wouldn't be a situation where that was
16:47
the right string to put on a guitar but
16:50
on a Telecaster for sure um maybe a
16:53
Bigby Telly or something would be a good
16:55
choice but uh yeah I'm definitely going
16:57
to go with round wound being it nickel
17:00
plated or or or pure nickel but these
17:04
strings really have a thing to them
17:08
and it's the tonal aspect it's like they
17:11
don't you know they feel smooth they
17:14
feel they Bend well you know you don't
17:16
have the high tension thing going on
17:18
like the flatwound
17:20
strings but they have an interesting
17:23
tone because think about it if you have
17:27
nickel-plated Steel
17:30
um you know round W strings they have
17:33
more highend and more output than pure
17:36
nickel strings well these strings are
17:39
just steel there is no nickel used in
17:42
these strings at all these half rounds
17:46
so you get more output even though
17:49
they've been smoothed down you have more
17:51
output and also it tends to be more
17:53
output in a certain frequency range in
17:56
this kind of low mid thing and I you
17:59
know again to kind of play a similar
18:00
thing that I played uh with the pure
18:03
nickel set you know you have this kind
18:11
of I mean it's it's
18:13
really you know
18:18
[Music]
18:48
so there are some qualities about these
18:50
strings I really like I like that I mean
18:53
they just have a lot of lowend thump to
18:58
them
18:59
they don't have you know quite the pop
19:01
and tanginess of you know some other
19:03
strings but they definitely have you
19:06
know of course more pop and such than
19:08
than flat wounds but you
19:12
know you know they still kind of have
19:14
that kind of uh
19:16
again uh I I guess it's because of the
19:19
the grinding process they don't have as
19:21
much of the brassy artifacts and other
19:24
things going on so this is a a really
19:27
cool set and it's it's fun also with
19:30
this set because of how smooth the
19:31
strings are and how you know
19:34
[Music]
19:42
uh you know you can do uh slides on the
19:46
low string uh and they're and they're
19:48
very smooth I mean you don't I mean you
19:50
just you know
19:56
[Music]
20:01
yeah so now here's one of the things I
20:05
want to I want to make sure that you
20:07
guys understand and that's that
20:09
basically the high strings on all these
20:11
sets are basically the same except for
20:14
the the you know on the on the flat
20:16
wound set you had a wound third that was
20:19
flat wound and also it used like a 14
20:22
instead of a 13 for a b string but on
20:26
pretty but on the nickel on the p nickel
20:29
and this set the half round they're
20:31
identical Unwound strings and so you're
20:35
getting all this difference is coming
20:38
just from the low strings and so it's
20:40
it's really interesting how much cuz
20:43
really I mean when you think about it
20:44
there's not much you can do with these
20:46
plain strings so when you're making up
20:49
sets you know as far as not talking
20:52
about changing the gauge but it's like
20:54
the wound strings are where really you
20:56
get the difference between you know all
20:59
these different sets so and really you
21:01
just have to find which one uh you know
21:03
works for you I'll have to say of all of
21:06
these I really like the pure nickel a
21:09
lot and uh I really enjoy these these
21:12
half rounds a lot of course uh no
21:15
offense but I'm I'm not a big uh flat
21:18
guy or chromes as they they call them
21:21
but uh yeah so now probably what you're
21:26
thinking right now is like Why didn't
21:28
have you know edit together a clip of
21:32
all three of them you know all playing
21:34
on all three string sets you know
21:36
together well that's what we're going to
21:38
do now so since you made it all the way
21:40
to the end you get to see a clip where I
21:43
play the flat rounds first the pure
21:46
nickel second and these half rounds last
21:51
so here we're going to end with with the
21:54
clips so I'm going to go ahead and say
21:56
goodbye and thank you for watching and I
21:58
hope you enjoy the clips bye-bye