6 string players...unwound C

[Randyt]

my apologies if this has been posted, but did not find any information on it.

As my years of a bassist (6 string) pulls me towards lighter gauge strings, i find myself at a point where my sets that i order will no longer come with a wound C... What have you found in your experience that an unwound C will give?? loss of tone, ...too bright, or is it just a feel thang?
I presently play a .124-25 right now but if i move to a .118 to a .022...the C is unwound....not sure if the unwound will bug me or sound crappy.

Thanks for any input

Randyt

[FunkMetalBass]

If the set is designed correctly, you shouldn't notice a difference tonally. In fact, with a thin enough G-string, you shouldn't be able to feel a difference either.

[ixlramp]

A plain as thick as .022 will be rather stiff, being a solid steel rod and therefore will have a slightly 'stiff' and inharmonic tone. It will be very strong. The pitch response to bending will be huge, but also, pitch response to unintentional bending is larger. They tune up fast with fewer turns of the tuner, making it harder to tune precisely. They take a little getting used to due to tone and feel under the plucking finger. I find it good to step down the tension from wound to plain to mellow and quieten the sound, so you might like to try a .020 or even a .018 which will be less stiff.

You can get .022 and .020 wounds from Conklin: Conklin Guitars Snakeskins Extended-Range Bass Strings and some other brands.

I would recommend wound over plain for gauges between .020 and .025, but hey why not try both, you may like the plain strings If you can find guitar plain strings long enough (Rotosound are) just thread an old bass ball-end onto one, a good way to experiment cheaply.