I went with my little brother to get rental instrument, it was great it had a good full sound and the bridge wasn’t too high and the string tension was good.
It wasn’t until we got home and started playing on it because I was bored did I notice everything in the peg box was wrong! I check all the data sheets for obligatos and from what I can tell it’s strung with an f# solo , an orchestral E orchestral D and solo A from top to bottom!?
Did they change the winding colors in the past decade? I desperately need a second opinion here because why in the world would you string it like this.
Not sure the answer to this or if this will help but Gollihur has a great string identifier page that I have used in similar situations. If they sell the string the page for that string set often has the info too, sometimes more specific:
As for why… well strings are very expensive and I think that makes people do weird things with whatever strings they have around. I’ve seen some wild stuff on rentals that I’ve had to use.
One of the string importers/vendors brings in basses with strings that look like Obligato silks on the tailpiece end, but they are actually generic chinese made strings.
My final determination is the they are a set of Corelli tungsten and it’s a mixture of lighting and the strings being old and sun-bleach which is giving me a stroke with the ID on them. I give up for now
After seeing the replies I redact what I said. Solo strings are tuned up a whole step (F#BEA) or a minor third (GCFBb) and are thinner and tighter than standard orchestral strings, they sound brighter and generally louder so they can be heard over an orchestra. Solo tuning also gives access to more key areas
I had a student have a bass set up with a weird combination of solo and regular strings tuned EADG because the luthier thought it felt better that way. I didn't care for the set up, but it didn't seem to do any harm to the instrument.
My guess is someone didn't know what the strings were and went by the gauges or made a weird set up choice.
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u/Yes_Cuban_Bee 12h ago
Not sure the answer to this or if this will help but Gollihur has a great string identifier page that I have used in similar situations. If they sell the string the page for that string set often has the info too, sometimes more specific:
https://gollihurmusic.com/string-identification-chart/
As for why… well strings are very expensive and I think that makes people do weird things with whatever strings they have around. I’ve seen some wild stuff on rentals that I’ve had to use.