Tyler94 - Posted - 02/16/2020:  14:05:24

I'm considering trying some Jargars to tone down a bright and loud fiddle as I've heard they're pretty good at that, especially for a steel string. But I read some reviews on here that say they're maybe a little too good at toning it down until the fiddle is dead and muffled sounding. These posts were quite a while ago so I'm curious if there's any new (or old) input on these strings? I'd rather deal with an "overly charismatic" fiddle than a dead one, but I have yet to try any strings that make this fiddle sound too mellow. Even synthetics like Violinos never sounded dead. They just didn't agree with me with how they feel under the bow

finn mcc - Posted - 02/17/2020:  11:54:23

I like em for exactly that reason a bit less bright than prim -- tried a bunch and settled on the Jargar --seem to work well with sliding around but I wear the windings off the A in about 4 months, so i just buy an extra A

DougD - Posted - 02/17/2020:  13:47:19

You'll just have to try a set and see how they do. BTW, I don't think its true that synthetic strings will sound dull. Some, like Dominants, are quite bright.
I tried a set of Jargar once that really killed the sound of the fiddle, but I think they'd been in my case for several years. My luthier used to consider them similar to Prim.

Tyler94 - Posted - 02/17/2020:  14:12:01

quote:

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Originally posted by DougD

You'll just have to try a set and see how they do. BTW, I don't think its true that synthetic strings will sound dull. Some, like Dominants, are quite bright.

I tried a set of Jargar once that really killed the sound of the fiddle, but I think they'd been in my case for several years. My luthier used to consider them similar to Prim.

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I agree that synthetics are not are all warm (or dull). Dominants are middle-of-the-road to brightish for me. Visions are as bright or brighter than steels. Evah Pirazzi are supposed to be more so. Violinos are known to be quite warm and mellow, to the point that luthiers have said Violinos in particular can sound dead. They sounded fine on my fiddle, however. I just can't get used to how synthetics feel under the bow. Just last night I put Helicores back on the fiddle with a heavy A string and Kaplan E. It's sounding very nice now. That heavy gauge A does something and warms the whole deal up. It always sounds different in a jam, though, so I'll see how it does with that in a few days. If it's not up to snuff, I'll be trying Jargars. 

Thanks for the input!

DougD - Posted - 02/17/2020:  15:19:48

I meant to suggest Helicore, but forgot. They're nice strings. The heavy A might improve things too.

montananmrk - Posted - 02/18/2020:  04:40:27

Every time I try to tone a fiddle down, I always wind up back with helicores. They sound and feel the best on my fiddle.

bandsmcnamar - Posted - 02/18/2020:  10:41:06

I'm not entirely sure I can say this so it makes sense, but I'm going to try. It used to be when I listened to a fiddle, I would think, oh, it's too bright, or too whatever and I would try to make changes to eliminate what I didn't care for in the sound. Then one time I thought, what if I looked at it from the other direction, in other words, what's missing from this sound. When I started trying add what was missing, rather than subtract what there was too much of, I started being able to dial in the sound of an instrument better, and of course they are all different, but most have the potential to sound at least reasonable.  Strings are a big part of that thought process.

Edited by - bandsmcnamar on 02/18/2020 10:46:38