Fast fret making strings duller?

[carl-anton]

I just picked up an old habit and bought a can of Fast Fret. I used it on fairly new strings I had soaked in alcohol overnight. They were nice and bright but became noticable duller when I rubbed fast fret on them. I used it a couple of times but the strings just became duller and duller. Installed another, even older, alcohol-revived set on and now my brightness is back. What's up with that? I remember Fast Fret to prolong and keep the brightness of a strings. Now it just made my stainless steel strings sound like nickle strings. So will Fast Fret give me and retain a brightness similair to nickles, even though I'm using steel strings? Any thoughs?

[Joe P]

I'm not familiar with 'Fast Fret', but I soak'em all the time with 'Finger Ease' spray, and haven't had trouble with dead strings. ..But on the other hand, I usually cut the highest-highs (used to use a no-tweeter cab; now I use a big'ol horn, but do GK crossover highcut at 5KHz), so I can't really speak for the crystal-ding that a lot of players like.

I recently switched to T.I. Jazz Flats (no roundwound-ding if I even wanted it now!). Now that kind of worries me; I'm afraid that it might interfere with that silk inlay thing they have going on, and harm sustain or something!

Joe

[carl-anton]

Yeah, I can see why your worried about the silk inlay. The silk on my string ends doesn't look too good after a couple of soaks in alcohol (neither do I ), but they're only serving a cosmetic purpose. Dunno about the TI's