String recommendations for a 70s era Salvi Concert Grand

[sroreilly]

Any recommendations of string that work particularly well for this harp and era? Bow Brand, Premiere, Vanderbilt? Any advice is appreciated!

[balfour-knight]

Hi! I have been using Premiere gut strings from the Virginia Harp Center on my Camac Atlantide Prestige. I believe they have the best tone of any strings I have ever used, and they seem to be long-lived. I know some Salvi harpists who also agree with me about the Premiere strings, so they should sound wonderful on your Salvi!

Have a great day,
Balfour

[sroreilly]

thanks for the recommendation!I have premiere on my big blue so I am used to and like the premiere, but since I’ve never dealt with salvi I wasn’t sure if a slightly thicker gauged set was more appropriate.

[balfour-knight]

Since Salvis tend to have a darker, mellower sound than Camacs, anyway, I think the Premier strings would certainly improve the Salvi tone, just my opinion. Of course, your Salvi was probably strung with standard Bow Brand originally. As for the Bass wires, I love the ones that came on my Camac (check with Carolyn Sykes at Pacific Atlantic Harps for these.)

Hope this helps. Have a great day!
Balfour

[sroreilly]

Thanks for the advice! Given the times, it has been a bit challenging to even procure bass and nylons at all so I am getting those from the Vanderbilt company and then I will use the backup premiere set for my camac. Let’s hope it is a good combination!

[balfour-knight]

Please let us know how this turns out. The combination of Premier and Vanderbilt sound good to me. I cannot find it at the moment, but I believe someone said that the Vanderbilt strings are now made in France?

Good day to you all,
Balfour

[sroreilly]

yeah I remembering hearing something similar or perhaps that they were even made by camac as well.. but that may just be the gut strings. I have the bass and nylons now and the ends of the bass strings with the anchors are clearly constructed differently than the bass strings on my camac which I was told are premier so it will be interesting for sure!

[balfour-knight]

Hi again,

Glad you got the additional nylon and wire strings! I was not familiar with the Vanderbilt wires having different “anchors”–how interesting!

The wires on my Camac were/are made by Galli, Italian, I believe. When I just checked on them at the Atlanta Harp Center, they are way more expensive than they are at Pacific Atlantic Harps in CA. I don’t know if it is a misprint in the pricing? How interesting!

Good luck with your stringing!
Balfour

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by balfour-knight.

[sroreilly]

For clarity’s sake: the bass and nylons from vanderbilts came in and the bass strings do not appear to be similar to the bass strings on my camac which I am told were made by premiere, so I am guess at least the bass strings are not made by the same company. Sorry I think the way I worded it before was vague

[sroreilly]

Another correction: After paying more attention I realized that the lowest bass strings have a different anchor than the higher ones. So it turns out these Vanderbilt bass strings do appear to be the same design at least as the premiere bass strings. sorry for the misinformation.

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

You may want to use more nylon strings to brighten the sound, particularly in the second octave. You didn’t say which model of harp it is.

[sroreilly]

it is a salvi electra

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