Aquila 185CD Synthetic Loaded Lute String - 8th

Aquila Synthetic Loaded Lute Strings

I was always worried that going from wound bass strings to loaded synthetic ones would make my lutes sound dull and lose their beautiful resonance. However, I couldn’t have been more wrong! The Aquila loaded synthetic gut, (Nylgut) strings and indeed their treble nylgut strings give a beautifully warm resonance to the instrument. Yes, the bass string are not a bright as wound nylon strings, but that is a good thing. The sound of lutes with all nylon strings was all I knew in the 1980’s. I tried all gut strings in the 1990’s on my 6 course in A, apart from the trebles breaking every week or so, the bass strings, at that time sounded like rubber bands! When Nylgut trebles became available they were a wonderful replacement, for nylon as they sounded more like gut, but didn’t break like gut! When loaded synthetic gut strings became available, I was amazed by their sound. I couldn’t and can’t believe that composers of lute music who wrote incredible bass parts, would have written them for strings that sounded like rubber bands! I read articles about research on fragments of origin bass strings having been treated with various solutions of metallic compounds, so was fascinated to try the loaded strings when they became available. That was some years ago now, and I use them for all my instruments, apart from the diapasons on my archlute. Which interestingly are all gut and have sounded wonderful since 1984! I personally have found that the lower and therefore larger diameter synthetic loaded strings seem to have a tendency to break more often than the trebles, surprisingly, but I still recommend you try them. Reducing pitch to A415 or even A392 will help stop them breaking, If you do try them, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.