Gut (and nylgut) Strings

Gut strings can work especially well without nails. A significant reason for this is practical: with nails, gut frays and breaks more easily. Without nails, and with proper care, gut strings can last months. Additionally, no-nail players often like the rough texture of gut, to help ‘grip’ the string. The sound of gut can also pair well with fingertips — a number of no-nail guitarists today have a particular interest in gut and silk strings and guitar construction between the late 18th and early 20th centuries.

Gut strings were used by all players until after the Second World War, when they were superseded by nylon. The practical advantages of nylon are that they less likely to be false (i.e. out of tune along the length of the string), do not fray, and are less vulnerable to humidity changes.

A number of manufacturers today produce gut strings for guitar. They tend to be expensive, but a good gut string, well looked-after, can last a long time.

Do read Rob MacKillop’s more extensive thoughts on gut strings: https://rmclassicalguitar.com/strings/

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The wonderful string manufacturer Aquila, as well as producing gut strings, also produce synthetic gut (nylgut). There is Ambra 800, which imitates nineteenth-century gut; Ambra 900, which follows measurements given by Emilio Pujol in his 1934 method; and finally Ambra 2000, which have a smooth texture and to my ears sound a tiny bit brighter.

Nylgut have the stability and durability of nylon, with some of the sound characteristics of gut. In fact, I actually find these strings even more reliable than nylon, because they also have one of the few practical advantages of gut strings: the tuning stabilises quickly.

One common misconception about gut is that it is lower tension than nylon. All things being equal, it is actually higher tension. Nylgut are therefore high tension strings — 800 is moderately high, and 900 & 2000 very high indeed.

I like these strings a lot on modern guitars (strangely, I think they sound unlovely on many historic instruments). I like Ambra 800 most of all (900 is slightly too high-tension for my left-hand). They feel excellent under the fingers — thick and textured — and the sound is consistently full and strong. They’re not really like gut or nylon, but have their own feel and sound.