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3-D Printed Ball Ends
Musical strings need to be attached to the instrument, and the traditional technique to accomplish this is a knot at the end to hold it in the tailpiece (instructions for tying a unique knot developed by Gamut Music are on every Academie package). But, the repetitive task of tying knots has taken its toll on the hands of our workshop staff over the years, and being a small shop, changes to production must be considered occasionally to make the best use of our most precious resource: Time.
Therefore, we have devised a better solution to the knot: a 3-D printed plastic ball end. This stopper will secure the string at the tailpiece with ease and elegance without the need of a knot.
Design and testing are complete, and we will be phasing out the old string knot and washer options starting with violin strings. Tricolore strings will come with a ball end by default, and most Academie strings will have the option to include a ball end. Gamut leather string washers will still be available for purchased by the dozen, but they will no longer be available as an included string option.
We hope that this innovation will prove useful to players who, like us, are also tired of tying string knots; and the discontinuation of knotted ends will be a great time-saver, allowing us to more focus our efforts on producing high quality, hand-made gut music strings.
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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.