Whatever Happened to Picato

[Chienmortbb]

I mentioned in another thread that I used to love the Picato Groundwounds. As I remember it these were made at Picato in Wales. I may be wrong but I think they were based in Treorchy. I understand that the Welsh facility closed some years ago and PIcato strings are now made by another UK company?

 

I found this on Wikipedia but it is not really that enlightening.

 

"Picato Musicians Strings has been owned by Strings And Things Limited since the early 1980s when it acquired the business of General Music Strings Limited, the original founders. General Music Strings Limited was established in the 1940s by the Stein family and by the 1970s were prolific British producers of strings for acoustic, classical, electric and bass guitars; as well as banjo, mandolin, ukulele and violin. It was during this period that Tony Iommi lost the tips of two of his fingers in an accident and the Picato company designed an extra low gauge string set (.008" - .032") especially for him.[1] At that time Picato strings were used by many famous rock guitarists and bassists such as Ritchie Blackmore,[2] Roger Glover,[3] Tony McPhee and Eric Clapton[2] to name just four."

 

Any more info?

 

 

 

 

[Pow_22]

I used top love their groundwounds and full on flats.  However, they did change towards the end and the flats went from fantastic (pre silk ends) to dead and cardboard boxxy when they also added black silks at the ends - the E was unusable.  I now use Elites groundwounds, a bit brighter/livelier but settle down well.

 

I think they also used to make the Status strings as they also offer a 'halfround' but stock died out when picato went under

[Chienmortbb]

37 minutes ago, Pow_22 said:

I now use Elites groundwounds, a bit brighter/livelier but settle down well.

What is the tension like on the Elites?

[Pow_22]

From memory of the Picatos the Elites are slightly higher though its been a while since i played picatos. 

 

I really miss their silkless flats, very old school with a pillowy 'whhoooomf' that ive not found since

[Supernaut]

They went under. 

[fabbabass]

I believe Picato as a business was bought by Americans.  They took all the machines from Wales (I think that’s where they were based) and started up over there. The price of the strings doubled, especially the DB strings and I think they are still going.  That all sounds a bit vague but they are still available in the US. I remember having nickel rounds on my Wal and I liked them a lot.

 

i managed to get a couple of NOS packs from Gareth on this forum a few weeks ago.

[Kickass]

General Music Strings guitar sting packaging. This has been kicking around in my box of bits for more than 4 decades.

[franzbassist]

Yes they were based in Treorchy and went out of business a while back.  The only part of the business that went to the US was the Innovation string range for uprights, which was bought by GHS in 2019 a year after they became the US distributor.

[Kickass]

Further rake through the box of bits finds these: