Gut or nylon strings

[plectum]

Has anyone tried using gut or nylon strings on sarod?

[aparajit]

For a long long long long time before Baba Allaudin Khan proposed and started using steel strings on the sarod.

Though I doubt if anybody who used gut regularly back in the day is on this forum...

[plectum]

I guess the metal strings with their clear twangy sounds have an advantage over gut strings. Anyway the metal strings are hell on the knife edge sarod bridge, which is one advantage that nylon strings would have.

[tablatime]

the reason for the afghani rabab becoming the sarode is because the gut strings of the rebab weren't able to hold a sustained note, okay for rhythmic afghani folk music, but not for indian classical music. the move to metal strings necessitated the need for the metal plate of the finger board as the metal strings would eat into the wooden finger board. this happened long before allaudin khan was born, otherwise he would have been the inventor of the sarode, which he wasn't. as for nylon strings, wouldn't they have too much stretch in them and what would be sacraficed in sound quality?

[plectum]

I think playing meend on afgani rabab is not possible, as not only is the fingerboard made of wood, but it is also decorated with carvings, so u may end up breaking your nail trying to play a meend. The clear, bell-like sarod sound can only come with steel strings.

[NorCalBaglama]

I think playing meend on afgani rabab is not possible, as not only is the fingerboard made of wood, but it is also decorated with carvings, so u may end up breaking your nail trying to play a meend.

I disagree with this; I happen to actually own a rubab and, while meend isn't the easiest or most comfortable thing to do on one, it's certainly not impossible and it actually sounds pretty good...if somewhat dull by comparison to the sarod. The only drawback to playing meend on a rubab is that it wears a larger groove in your fingernail than the sarod does after a while, making it almost impossible to play sarod accurately afterward.
The fingerboard on a good rubab should not be decorated with anything other than inlay so it is pretty much a uniform flat surface, anything else would effectively be an unplayable instrument for hanging on the wall and forgetting about.