Why Are Rotosound Guitar Strings Not So Popular?

ICBM

You should, it's a beautiful place and the people are very friendly as long as you keep out of any of the notorious sectarian areas - which are reasonably obvious - you're probably more likely to encounter violence in the bad areas of most large mainland cities. If you do something stupid like wearing a flag then you're just asking for trouble.

Dave_Mc

)

I dunno about that. I mean it's probably more dangerous if you're from here. And if you're on holiday you're liable to be in the more touristy areas (like with any holiday anywhere) so would likely avoid the worse places.

I mean even at the height of the Troubles New York had a higher murder rate than Northern Ireland. ) (that might be an urban myth, but I'm sure I read it somewhere half-sensible like a newspaper... which means it's probably wrong ) )

Also we have pretty low crime apart from the troubles.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/research/esrc7.htm

("Crime statistics in Northern Ireland are notable for several reasons. Firstly, contrary to the media image, the province suffers from very low levels of crime. According to both recorded crime figures and victim surveys Northern Ireland has one of the lowest levels of crime in Western Europe. For example, recorded crimes for 1990 showed that it had the lowest rate of recorded crime per 1,000 of the population compared with all 43 police constabulary areas in England and Wales." )

EDIT: I'm not sure why that last bit went blue )

usedtobe

I thought it was a strangely long hyperlink..!

monquixote

I've been to Belfast a couple of times and it's a good place to go for a beery weekend. 

There are places you wouldn't go unless you wanted to get stabbed, but the same is true of London or Manchester.

usedtobe

ICBM said:

You should, it's a beautiful place and the people are very friendly as long as you keep out of any of the notorious sectarian areas - which are reasonably obvious - you're probably more likely to encounter violence in the bad areas of most large mainland cities. If you do something stupid like wearing a flag then you're just asking for trouble.

As luck would have it, I'm not one for flags.. I'll give it some thought..

Dave_Mc

^ Yeah. As ICBM says basically. To pay back the nice things he said, I should also add that I really love scotland.

Bear in mind, it's not just flags. Things like (Glasgow) rangers or celtic tops, avoid those. Or those "ironic" rock t-shirts with union jacks on them etc.. Even anything which has colours on them which might be mistaken for sectarian colours I generally avoid, just in case.

If you see murals, painted kerbstones, lots of flags (either UK or Ireland, or palestine or israel) or sectarian graffiti, that's generally a bad sign, as ICBM suggested.

EDIT: also don't book a holiday around the 12th july period. just in case. back when drumcree was in full swing we used to coincide our holidays with it so we avoided it. ) hasn't been as bad as that for ages, but you never know when it'll just flare up again. even if it goes without a hitch, whole towns are more or less out of action for a day at a time etc. and you could get caught in traffic etc.

usedtobe said:

I thought it was a strangely long hyperlink..!

yeah ) the first short one is the link, the second bit i just copied and pasted from the link and for some reason the forum thought it was a link, too.

usedtobe

Yeah - Scotland is lovely. I'd like to spend more time there, if I could. Off up in December, but only to Berwick. We usually get up to Edinburgh - but sadly not, this time.. I usually get away with wearing the football top, though..! That said - it's not an old firm top..

EricTheWeary

Dave_Mc said:

)

I dunno about that. I mean it's probably more dangerous if you're from here. And if you're on holiday you're liable to be in the more touristy areas (like with any holiday anywhere) so would likely avoid the worse places.

I mean even at the height of the Troubles New York had a higher murder rate than Northern Ireland. ) (that might be an urban myth, but I'm sure I read it somewhere half-sensible like a newspaper... which means it's probably wrong ) )

Also we have pretty low crime apart from the troubles.

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/research/esrc7.htm

("Crime statistics in Northern Ireland are notable for several reasons. Firstly, contrary to the media image, the province suffers from very low levels of crime. According to both recorded crime figures and victim surveys Northern Ireland has one of the lowest levels of crime in Western Europe. For example, recorded crimes for 1990 showed that it had the lowest rate of recorded crime per 1,000 of the population compared with all 43 police constabulary areas in England and Wales." )

EDIT: I'm not sure why that last bit went blue )

crime statistics and crime being quite different things of course.

ICBM

usedtobe said:

Scotland is lovely. I'd like to spend more time there, if I could. Off up in December, but only to Berwick.

Personally I think Berwick should be returned to Scotland as part of the constitutional settlement. It's on the north side of the river for a start...

bandmaster188

Our singer paints their overpriced pedals for them. When he got the contract a couple of years ago, he went to the factory and was given a load of freeby stuff, strings & leads etc. he offered me a few packets of strings but I had to politely decline them. They say never look a gift horse in the mouth but well, they are a bit shit aren't they!

Dave_Mc

usedtobe said:

Yeah - Scotland is lovely. I'd like to spend more time there, if I could. Off up in December, but only to Berwick. We usually get up to Edinburgh - but sadly not, this time.. I usually get away with wearing the football top, though..! That said - it's not an old firm top..

Yeah. You can get away with most of the other ones. Though a lot of venues here won't let you wear any football tops... they figure they can't say "No rangers or celtic tops", so just say "no football tops at all".

EricTheWeary said:

crime statistics and crime being quite different things of course.

true, but i'm guessing they count them the same way throughout the UK, so any error would (presumably, could be wrong) the same in each.

i know i got the feeling that, if you kept your head down and stayed out of the sectarian stuff, it actually felt pretty safe here (as long as you weren't really unlucky and ended up in a bomb or similar).

xSkarloey

Iamnobody said:

They now come in sealed foil packs with a silica gel thingy and coloured ball ends.

Well on this evidence, should I ever be fortunate to play in beautiful Northern Ireland but some wandering sectarian sociopath comes sniffing around my ball ends, I shall pretend I am a Frenchman. 

usedtobe

ICBM said:

usedtobe said:

Scotland is lovely. I'd like to spend more time there, if I could. Off up in December, but only to Berwick.

Personally I think Berwick should be returned to Scotland as part of the constitutional settlement. It's on the north side of the river for a start...

I won't argue.. We're going for a Scottish League fitba game.. I think of it as being in Scotland - my mistake..

usedtobe

Dave_Mc said:

usedtobe said:

Yeah - Scotland is lovely. I'd like to spend more time there, if I could. Off up in December, but only to Berwick. We usually get up to Edinburgh - but sadly not, this time.. I usually get away with wearing the football top, though..! That said - it's not an old firm top..

Yeah. You can get away with most of the other ones. Though a lot of venues here won't let you wear any football tops... they figure they can't say "No rangers or celtic tops", so just say "no football tops at all".

I've been in pubs, up there, that had 'no football tops' signs - but they didn't seem bothered enough to enforce it. My team presumably isn't taken that seriously... In fact people tend to have a chuckle, and then offer to buy me a drink.. I might be onto something, there!

Dave_Mc

Skarloey said:

Well on this evidence, should I ever be fortunate to play in beautiful Northern Ireland but some wandering sectarian sociopath comes sniffing around my ball ends, I shall pretend I am a Frenchman. 

I think you're possibly giving the sectarian types too much credit there. I'm not sure they're aware that any other country uses red white and blue for its flag.

usedtobe said:

I've been in pubs, up there, that had 'no football tops' signs - but they didn't seem bothered enough to enforce it. My team presumably isn't taken that seriously... In fact people tend to have a chuckle, and then offer to buy me a drink.. I might be onto something, there!

Yeah it's possible they don't enforce it unless it's rangers or celtic. I dunno because I don't wear football tops anyway. )

usedtobe

Only on matchdays, honest..

Neil

usedtobe said:

I've been in pubs, up there, that had 'no football tops' signs - but they didn't seem bothered enough to enforce it. My team presumably isn't taken that seriously... In fact people tend to have a chuckle, and then offer to buy me a drink.. I might be onto something, there!

Is your team Queen of the South? 

EricTheWeary

Dave_Mc said:

usedtobe said:

Yeah - Scotland is lovely. I'd like to spend more time there, if I could. Off up in December, but only to Berwick. We usually get up to Edinburgh - but sadly not, this time.. I usually get away with wearing the football top, though..! That said - it's not an old firm top..

Yeah. You can get away with most of the other ones. Though a lot of venues here won't let you wear any football tops... they figure they can't say "No rangers or celtic tops", so just say "no football tops at all".

EricTheWeary said:

crime statistics and crime being quite different things of course.

true, but i'm guessing they count them the same way throughout the UK, so any error would (presumably, could be wrong) the same in each.

i know i got the feeling that, if you kept your head down and stayed out of the sectarian stuff, it actually felt pretty safe here (as long as you weren't really unlucky and ended up in a bomb or similar).

the counting is the same ( although the crime stats I look at are generally for England and Wales so I'm not 100% sure) the issue tends to be local police policy on minor crime. It might be, for example, that the police in NI don't arrest/ prosecute a lot of small stuff in the name of community relations. Anyhow, Rotosound - I have a bag of their patch leads somewhere. God bless em they were regulars at any guitar show selling off strings,etc, cheap as chips.

usedtobe

Neil said:

usedtobe said:

I've been in pubs, up there, that had 'no football tops' signs - but they didn't seem bothered enough to enforce it. My team presumably isn't taken that seriously... In fact people tend to have a chuckle, and then offer to buy me a drink.. I might be onto something, there!

Is your team Queen of the South? 

Worse than that!

Clyde..

Halikus

Okay so I got the set of 11s that @Guitarfishbay so kindly posted out - Again thank you man was very cool of you - and I can report back.  Now just to set the scene I normally use a mixture of D'adrarios, dunlop heavy cores and elixirs and I have also had recent sets of super slinkys and cobalt slinkys. 

Sound wise they are definitely not bright and jangly like my normal d'addarios however depending on the guitar this may well be a good thing to control a very bright instrument.

I can also wholeheartedly agree with the stiff sentiment mentioned by many previously in the thread.

Unfortunately the corrosion issue has not been fully dealt with either, now the good part is as they come sealed with some silica they are fresh out of the packet which is great news however things went down hill quite quickly from there. They basically lasted 72hrs before visible corrosion took hold of all the unwound strings.  I diddnt play the guitar in question that much, maybe an hour in total over the first 72hrs and I always wash up prior to playing and wipe the strings down after playing.  5 days in its like playing sandpaper.

I dont know how everyone elses experience is, and maybe the oils in my skin are specifically formulated to destroy rotosounds but unfortunaly they just don't gel with me.  Though they arnt the worst strings I have encountered for corrosion.  That crown goes to the Cobalt slinkys.  48 hours and they were dark brown and starting to corrode the other metal parts of the guitar.