Pirastro Newsletter

Newsletter – Issue Spring 2007

www.pirastro.com

Dear Musician,

Our product introductions during the show „Musikmesse“ in Frankfurt, Germany was a great success. Our customers and musicians had the chance to test our new strings, Passione for violin and Evah Pirazzi for double bass on instruments. The feedback was consistently positive.


		Pirastro Booth D17 Hall 1.2 at Musikmesse 2007 in Frankfurt

Our visitors were thrilled by Passione’s outstanding sound characteristics and they were equally surprised that a gut core string would have such good playing characteristics. In addition, this new string set convinced our customers and musicians because it offers the typical colorful sound of gut strings and at the same time it can take a lot of bow pressure. The contact point can be managed easily and precisely. And finally, the Passione strings did convince the professional musicians as being a gut core string it still offers the highest degree of modulation, no matter whether playing pianissimo or fortissimo.

We would like to point out that the Passione Silvery Steel, the Wondertone Solo Silvery Steel and the Evah Pirazzi Silvery Steel are all the exact same E-strings. Solely the color code, name and article numbers are adapted to the individual sets. Last year, we have replaced the old Evah Pirazzi Steel E String with the Silvery Steel E-string in the Evah Pirazzi set. This change has improved the harmony and the sound of the whole set as musicians reported.
In general, the sound of the Silvery Steel E string can be influenced by the type of A, D and G strings used within the set.

The other new string is the Evah Pirazzi set for double bass with a synthetic core. This set surprised the bassists due to its outstanding warm and round sound. Other than the popular Obligato set, the Evah Pirazzi is a hybrid string with a tendency towards arco playing, but also well-suited for pizzicato playing. Furthermore, during the fair musicians said that this set can also be used for slapping due to its very comfortable feeling.

Passione strings are now available for our dealers. The Evah Pirazzi set for double bass will be available end of May.

Please keep on contacting us if you have any questions, suggestions or complaints concerning our strings. We highly appreciate your feedback!

Please find below our product descriptions.

Kind regards,
Pirastro GmbH

The New Gut Violin String from Pirastro:

PASSIONE
The unique gut string for the future!

Since some time, a new trend evolved especially amongst young classical violinists who search for a full and complex sound to start to experiment with violin strings with a gut core. Baroque strings or gut strings for a historical set up are not meant here, but modern gut strings for the classical violinist in the tradition of our Eudoxa and Oliv strings. As the leading gut string manufacturer in the world Pirastro has now picked up this trend and developed a new gut core string called Passione.

Our development of the Passione aimed at reducing the playing-in-time of traditional gut strings and to increase their tuning stability without loosing the beauty of the gut sound. The gentle processing of the gut core is key to the conservation of the ravishing beauty of gut strings’ sound. Our expertise has been developed since 1798 and has been carefully protected over generations within Pirastro’s employees.

The combination in manufacturing of modern synthetic and traditional gut technology made it possible to retain the sound beauty of gut core strings and to increase significantly the tuning stability and the break-in-time. Passione strings possess a fascinating diversity of sounds, which allows musicians to alter their tone as desired. To such an outstanding extent this is still only possible with gut core strings. The core sound is full, round and warm and has a complex overtone spectrum causing brilliance and clarity and a great power of projection.

Passione’s sound can be big and powerful as well as gentle and tender. Passione is a modern reliable gut string for the demanding violin professional. The set is well-balanced; the response is easy on all levels of the dynamic range. The accuracy of contact point is easily manageable, similar to Obligato, Wondertone Solo and Evah Pirazzi.

Gauges and technical information:
The A, D and G strings are available in five gauges with a difference of ¼ PM each. Please refer to the table below. The E string „silvery steel“ is available in 25.5 and 26 and 26.7.

This plurality of gauges allows musicians to choose their preferred gauge and makes it possible to respond to the individual tension requirements of their instruments.

As a rule of thumb:

•	A thicker the string is the more powerful is the sound and the higher is the tension.
•	A thinner string will produce a brighter sound, however this does not mean that the sound is weaker or looses power.

Gauges in PM (1 PM = 0.05mm)

There is only the medium gauge available as a set:
Art. # 219021 – Violin Passione Set Medium E Ball-end packaged in envelope.
Art. # 219022 – Violin Passione Set Medium E Ball-end packaged straight.
Art. # 219025 – Violin Passione Set Medium E Loop-end packaged in envelope.
Art. # 219026 – Violin Passione Set Medium E Loop-end packaged straight.

All A, D and G strings come with a ball end in order to facilitate the installation.
The E string is available with loop or ball end.

There is no need to change the height of the bridge for using Passione strings.

The strings come in envelopes (BTL; last digit of the article # is a 1 or 5) or
straight (LANG; last digit of the article # is a 2 or 6).

Pirastro’s Passione color code at the tailpiece end:	White with Havana spiral
Pirastro tone color at the peg end:	E – green; A – black; D – rose-colored; G – brown

Evah Pirazzi Double Bass

The tremendous success of our Obligato strings for double bass has encouraged us to further develop double bass strings with a synthetic core.

The result is our new double bass string set Evah Pirazzi „BASS“. This set is a hybrid set, suitable for both Arco and Pizzicato playing. Evah Pirazzi strings offer outstanding tuning stability, a very short playing-in-time and an astonishing resistance to rolling. Similar to the Obligato bass strings, Evah Pirazzi ’BASS’ Strings are resistant to changes in humidity and temperature. All strings are wound with chrome steel and smoothly polished.

The big, powerful, warm and round sound of the strings combined with an accentuated low frequency spectrum and an exceptional resonance with a good sustain. The response is quick allowing for easy left and right hand articulation. Due to the phenomenal projection of the Evah Pirazzi bass strings the beautiful richness of the range of colors and nuances can be heard even in big concert halls. The development of these bass strings was aimed at producing a sound that is as close to gut strings as possible.

Evah Pirazzi ’BASS’ is an ideal string for musicians playing both Arco and Pizzicato. First and foremost the bow response is excellent and when playing pizzicato the long sustain fully and freely evolves.

Pirastro’s color code:
Evah Pirazzi „Bass“ colour code at the tailpiece end:	black spiral on light green
Tone colour at the peg end:	G – brown; D – red; A – black; E – green; H5 – yellow; E 2.10m – green

Pirastro GmbH

www.pirastro.com

Fax: +49 69 831663

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The company Pirastro GmbH is registered in Offenbach am Main, Germany.

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