Until the first half of the twentieth century, the only available guitar strings were made of gut for treble and gimped with silk for bass.
Its acoustic spectrum was very different from the currently used synthetic strings, and its main features were: a remarkable tonal presence with the response and the typical brightness of the gut (certainly superior to plain nylon and in some respects closer to fluocarbon strings), while the bass had an exquisite vocal quality (not so bright as, and with less sustain than modern wound on nylon strings) with a sound that was richer in fundamental frequencies.
The Ambra sets by Aquila Corde have been developed with this historical fact as a fundamental basis, in order to faithfully reproduce the sound of that time with synthetic materials.
These sest have been conceived for one grade of tension only, and consists of gut-coloured Supernylgut® trebles, with a rectified surface exactly as it’s made on gut strings.
Basses have a silver-plated copper winding over special multifilament core, called ‘Rayon’, and are specifically balanced between metal and core in order to achieve the same texture of sound found in the original silk-wound strings.
Ambra 800
(1790 and 1870 performances)
This set (made in one degree of tension) reproduces exactly a typical 19th century string setup and was specifically designed to best recreate the ‘sound’ of the 19th century, using modern synthetic materials.
Ambra 800 is the synthetic version of the Gut & Silk 800.
GAUGES
Tensions are calculated considering a standard vibrating length of 65 cm and using A=440 Hz
NOTE
GAUGE
GUT EQUIVALENT GAUGE
TENSION (Kg)
e
0.63
0.63
7.5
b
0.78
0.78
6.5
g
0.94
0.94
5.9
D
0.76
1.30
6.4
A
0.94
1.83
7.1
E
1.12
2.36
6.7
Ambra 900
(1880-1946 performances)
Ambra 900 set, conceived for one grade of tension only, was developed keeping in mind historical facts, in order to best re-create, by means of modern synthetic materials, the sound of gut and silk-wound basses and the exact typical historical setting of the period of Llobet and Tárrega, adopting the representative mean diameters as indicated by Pujol in his method “Escuela Razonada de la Guitarra” of 1934.
Ambra 900 is the synthetic version of the Gut & Silk 900.
GAUGES
NOTE
GAUGE
GUT EQUIVALENT GAUGE
TENSION (Kg)
e
0.66
0.66
8.3
b
0.83
0.83
7.4
g
1.00
1.00
6.7
D
0.80
1.48
8.3
A
0.98
1.94
8.0
E
1.15
2.46
7.2
technical details
- STRING: Synthetic and wounded strings
- MATERIALS:
- Trebles: gut-coloured Supernylgut
- Basses: silver-plated copper winding over a special multifilament
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STRINGS CATALOG
AQUILA - HISTORICAL / ROMANTIC GUITAR SETS
 | Aquila Ambra 800 - Romantic guitar (82C) | €16,80 | In stock | ||
 | Aquila Ambra 900 - Historical guitar (55C) | €16,80 | In stock |