New Evah Pirazzi Gold strings -Chromesteel over metal rope core- how bright are they?

Edited: February 19, 2023, 8:48 PM · Hi,
My wife's viola sounded dull/muted (for the luck of better description), on the A and D strings.
The original strings were Evah Pirazzi Gold.
The two lower strings sounded fine, but the two upper sounded somewhat dull.
We took it to a luthier in NYC who adjusted the sound post and changed the A string to Larsen which made the A string a little brighter and brought the sound in line with the two lower strings.
The D string, however remained somewhat dull, so I changed it to Larsen which made the sound a little brighter, but still somewhat muted comparing to the other strings.
I just noted that there are new model of Evah Pirazzi Gold strings, where D, G and C strings can be ordered in chromesteel over metal rope core composition.
Did anyone use these new model strings and are they brighter than original Evah Pirazzi Gold?
The original Gold D-string is silver over synthetic.

Thank you.

Replies (4)

Andrew Holland

February 19, 2023, 9:12 PM · I've only tried the C, but if it's any indication of what the other strings are like, I wouldn't call it brighter. Maybe darker, actually. It's a more focused sound, but not brighter.

I wonder if you might be helped here more by an Evah green D (probably in medium, but not sure, in your case. Depends on how much tension the viola likes). I think most would find it pretty brilliant.

John Alexander

February 20, 2023, 7:50 AM · In my experience string tension can make a big difference with violas. Varying VSL and after-length may have something to do with it. EP Gold and Rope-core are higher tension strings. Depending on the viola that higher tension could choke the sound. I was having a similar issue with my viola. I installed a new SP and Harmonie TP with Warchal Brilliants C & G and Rondo D & A. Although, the full set of Brilliants worked well enough also. What is the body size and VSL of your instrument?

Yu Le

Edited: February 20, 2023, 12:27 PM · Andrew and John,

thank you very much for replying to my post.

We do have a set of the EP Green strings which I bought when we got this instrument about 3 years ago, because it came with some low quality strings.
The viola has mellow tone and sounds somewhat closer to violin than to cello (that's how I'd describe it).
I bought EP Gold in hope to make the instrument brighter.

We can experiment with EP Green D - the set is currently on a spare/old viola she is not using.

The measurements are:
Length: 16.5 in
Upper bouth width: 8 in.
Lower bouth width: about 9.5 in.
I am not sure what VSL is.

Thank you.

Andrew Victor

Edited: February 20, 2023, 3:51 PM · The "VSL" is the "Vibrating String Length," the distance between the contact points on the "nut" and the bridge. It often has little relationship to the "corpus" (or "body") length for "adult" violas.

New Evah Pirazzi Gold strings -Chromesteel over metal rope core- how bright are they?

Replies (4)

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