One more question - the new strings I got at the weekend have a different colour thread on the string up near the fine tuners.....but the extra set of strings I got (in case of breakages) don't have the same coloured thread on the strings even though they are both dominant strings.....

Is the colour of the thread random or should all d strings for example be the same colour?? Sorry for the newbie questions :-)

I think you may have gotten dominant strings for a viola or something, as all dominant strings are the same colour for 1 type of string (e.g. all dominant Gs are yellow at the tailpiece end).

Thanks for the reply. I'll have another look and see whats on the violin and what's supplied as spares...

Ok...on the violin I have

G string - yellow
D string - green
A string - blue
E string - purple

And the "spares" in my violin case are each in little packets but are all blue except for the one labelled A which is red.....

makes no sense.....have the violin with me at work today hoping to visit luthier at lunch but they are closed on mondays!!

Dominants have purple thread at the peg end I think and I'm sure are colour coded at the tailpiece end. I don't have an instrument to hand but the colours you have listed for the ones on your violin sound familiar. I don't understand why your spares are all the same colour, check the packets to make sure you haven't been given 4 strings the same and give the shop a call if you still can't work it out.

What make/manufacturer are the spare strings?

Try This site to determine what you've got.



Dominant viola c string is red

There is a fair chance that you have two sets of Thomastik strings, but not two sets of dominant.

Thomastik make various strings in addition to dominant and it sounds like you have a set of infeld blue, with one infeld red, as your back ups.

This shouldn't pose a problem as the strings match very well, although if you like the dominants it makes more sense to stick to them.

Hope this helps.

Allan

Thanks Allan - do infeld blue have blue thread for all strings, g through e? and only dominants are colour coded with different colour for each string? I'll probably pop down to the luthier tomorrow at lunch and see what he says!

Hi Orla,

Yes, infeld have blue windings for all strings (or red, depending on whether you take infeld blue or red).

Allan

What a useful site - thanks