December Birthdays 
I would have sworn that I posted bout these strings before, but apparently I haven’t.
For many years, I’ve sung the praises of Thomastik Jazz Swings and Jazz BeBops, and I still do. These are excellent strings and one set can last almost indefinitely if kept at tension and kept clean.
But, there’s a new player which I’m quite impressed with. Pyramid is another European string manufacturer with deep roots in the business. Their flats are well reputed. In recent years, a new product called Fusion Flats has appeared, and I find that these are great for a Surf sound.
They do not have the dull “thunk” of most flats, at the attack of each note, but strike me as falling somewhere in between a flat wound and a round wound, sonically speaking. The wound strings bend well, and the response from the wound and unwound strings is very even.
I dissected the tail of a string that I cut off, and found that the .042 had a .016 solid core, a .011 round winding and a layer of flat, pure nickel, but this last layer is wound to slightly overlap itself, somtne string looks and feels like a round wound. However, there are no gaps in the flat winding, so resistance to dirt and other contaminants is better than it would be with round wounds. If you wipe these down every time you finish playing, I expect that string life will be measured in years, just as it is with the Thomastiks I have used for years, where I have to refresh the top three, plain, strings, but seldom experience deterioration of the lower three strings.
So, how do these sound? I would say twangy and bright, but with perhaps a bit less presence than round wounds. There is no dullness, nor any tendency towards harshness. Finger nose is all but non-existent. I have these on a Jaguar with Pure Vintage ‘62 pickups, and the result is pretty much classic Jaguar. Last night I played s9me Surf and some Bakersfield Country, AKA Don Rich, and the sound for either was quite good. Tuning stability is excellent and after tuning at the beginning of my playing session, the tuning remained stable. This set is about four months old, and I detect no loss of sound quality.
—The artist formerly known as: Synchro
When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.
