Oak Rosin at Gregorian String Products

[jfv]

Does this guy ever answer his phone? I saw someone say
that you could use paypal in ordering, and I'd like to do that
but I need to TALK to someone and so far calling at different
times of the day I only get an answering machine I left a
message so we'll see if he calls back.

Does anyone know if some normal retail shop stocks and
resells this stuff, seems if he doesnt want to do the whole
'net retail' thing that someone would be willing.

I'm about to try our a handful of different rosins, and I'd like
to include this stuff in my comparison.

Cheers,

[KSB - Ken Smith]

I have some I have been using but I feel the Kolstein Soft, which is also similar to the old Oak Formula is as good if not better. It is also easier to get and cheapr to buy.

[Dr Rod]

I agree with Ken, the Kolstein is fantastic, but if you live in a very cold/dry climate, the Oak is a tad softer and therefore works a little better.

[jfv]

Well, Arnold DOES call back promptly on messages. And,
you can use paypal, I ordered a medium cake today. You
make payment to sales@gregorianstrings.com. Probably
a good idea to talk with him first though.

I am rosin-rich now, I just had delivery this afternoon
from Quinn. I got some Kolstein soft, Jade, Nymans,
and Royal Oak.

I have no idea how to approach this whole comparison.
I take it that trying them one after the other in a few
hours isnt gonna be the right approach, right?

Suggestions about how long to give each, oh, and
should I clean the hair inbetween or anything like
that?

Messin with all these rosins distracts me from the
pain my thumb is having getting used to thumb
position

[JoeyNaeger]

Use a different rosin once you stop getting a useful amount grip with the bow(may take a few days). Using rosin one after the other can be misleading. I once tried nymans and thought it was so much better than pops, but it turns out that after using just nymans for a while, the nymans just smoothed out the sound that the pops was giving me. Once the layer of pops was gone, the nymans really became useless.

[jfv]

Gregorian Oak rosin arrived yesterday, thats just a
couple day turnaround from my order, wow, thank
you Arnold if you read this

I like it a lot so far, not as sticky as Kolstein, grabbier
than Jade however, and its got a great smooth sound.

Oh, and the cake is bigger so its not really more expensive
than say Carlsons.

[Pete G]

Even after Arnold came out with the re-discovered Oak rosin about a year ago, I wasn't sold. I tried it, liked it, but liked Pop's more. And I'm one of the old-timers who grew up on the original Oak rosin.

But I've come around. After a disaster with Pop's a month ago (mostly user error -- I applied too much, and let the bow get hot, with the result that the Pop's glazed onto the hair and made the bow almost unusable), I played the bow without any rosin at all for about ten days, then started using Oak, with great results. I've been using Oak medium for orchestral work, and the Hard version for solo playing.

I don't think any rosin is perfect -- the Oak doesn't give me the "chainsaw grip" that Pop's does, which is sometimes useful for loud orchestral passages. But I like it enough that I've just ordered the soft variant as well, in the hopes that it may give me enough extra grip that I'll be able to use Oak for all purposes.

Besides, the Oak website now has a glowing testimonial from Sue Lipkins. If it's good enough for Sue, it's good enough for me!

[jfv]

For right now its what I'm using. I actually have liked
a number of rosins I've tried. When I get a couple more
years under my belt, and maybe a Lipkins bow , then
I'll revisit the matter again.

[Silversorcerer]

I've been using the GB Oak for a year now, so that is a good long trial period. I still like it much better than Pops on most days. I find the medium & soft most useful, but I could see using the hard if I was playing something that was totally up in thumb position. There is still one time when I will put a swipe of Pops on and that is when I am doing a mostly pizz thing on a cold day and I have to shift to the bow for only a short passage and then go back to plucking. With the Pops you don't need to warm up the bow. It's always going to give a sure start warm or cold. But that's about my only use for Pops now. To me, the Carlsson rosin is quite similar to the Oak, but doesn't grip the low B on my 5-er too well. The soft Oak is much better across all the strings and my bass doesn't sound like a snoring tugboat like it does with Pops.

[GriffithLea]

The best thing about Pop's is that during long rests you can just stick your bow to the strings.

I recently discovered Oak, which I really like. Before that I was using Carlsson. Now the interesting thing is that I liked Oak the most right when I first started using it. Since then it doesn't wow me quite as much, though it still wows me. I can think of two things that might explain this: my expectations have adjusted higher, or that the combination of the Carlsson left on my bowhair and the Oak over the top of it was a favorable one. I'm going to experiment with putting a little of both rosins on the bow, to see if I notice a difference in the positive direction.

I noticed recently that other musicians are using combinations of rosin, which gave me the idea.

[paul]

I've been using Oak for about a month now, and I'm loving it more and more (now that the Pops is almost all out of the hair). Love the medium. Even though I'm in TX, the AC dries out the air so much that Pops would inevitably powder up after about 30 minutes.

I did the season opener with the San Antonio Symphony last weekend, and a gentlemen in the section saw my new Oak - turns out he'd stockpiled several cakes of the original stuff, and kept it in his refrigerator, where it was still sitting... He brought it to rehearsal, and it did look similar, though I think 30(?) years in the refrigerator had dried it out just a bit

[Maaaven]

I got my cake mailed very quickly - great service.
The cardboard box container is a bit funky, but a
little work with the exacto blade and it was all
funky smell, smiles and ringing tones.

I thought the violin quality white hair on my favorite
bow was a bit too fine, but with Oak it plays fine.
This is a great match to the Bel Canto strings.

[bribass]

Originally Posted by Maaaven

I got my cake mailed very quickly - great service.
The cardboard box container is a bit funky, but a
little work with the exacto blade and it was all
funky smell, smiles and ringing tones.

I thought the violin quality white hair on my favorite
bow was a bit too fine, but with Oak it plays fine.
This is a great match to the Bel Canto strings.

I'm about to send in an order for some.
What grades (soft, med, hard) are you guys using/prefer?

thanks, BG

[JoeyNaeger]

I have a cake of soft and medium. I love the soft for orchestral work. It has all the grab in the world, and can articulate well, but it's still very smooth. I prefer the medium for when I need to play in the higher register for solo material.

[jfv]

I only have medium, but I've been using Kolstein soft
quite a bit lately, probably would like Oak soft, but the
Kolstein's is gonna last a while and I don't see wastin
it.

If I was gonna order again I would get BOTH soft and
medium.

[Cory Palmer]

I'm not sure how the humidity is in NJ compared to Baltimore but the medium is very dry right now. Soft is great for the winter. I would say either buy soft and medium or just soft and buy a cake of medium in the spring. Soft gets too soft for me in the summer time.

[bribass]

Hey, Thanks for all the quick responses. I think I'll get one cake of Med and one of Soft.

BG

[dchan]

I know a bassist who uses Oak Rosin, I believe the soft variety.

He had a bit of trouble with the cake sticking to the box lid. He fixed the problem by cutting out a square of Teflon and putting it inside the lid. Now, he has no problem at all with getting the rosin stuck to the lid.

Nice solution, but I wouldn't know where to get Teflon conveniently. Just a suggestion.

[Cory Palmer]

Arnold sells leather squares that you can put the rosin in. I think they're $3.50 each. You can take off the cardboard and melt part of the rosin to the leather. It works a lot better than the cardboard.