Low tension string enjoyment

[AmadeusXeno]

The other day I was sitting there wanting to try something different so I took some old Rotosound flats from one of my six string basses and put them on my fretless. I was going for a baritone piccolo tuning (if that makes any sense) tuned BEAD. I was using the ADGC strings from the set. As you can guess they were very high tension at that tuning. Yesterday I decided to tune it back to standard while still keeping those strings on. After doing a setup on it all I can say is wow. I wasn't able to stop playing for a couple hours. The tone was sounding great and the playability was awesome. The gauge that is on it now is 30-45-65-85. I used to always use a high gauge string, then switched to a more regular gauge for easier bends. Now I wanna put lower gauge strings on all my basses. Gotta get some more money first lol. Thanks for reading and I hope everyone gives it a try at least once.

[darkstorm]

Lighter gauge casn be nice for both feel and sound.

[Jay2U]

I sometimes tune down to DGCF with my .045 to .100 chromes. The resulting lower tension feels very comfortable. Maybe I should put a .030 to .085 set on my bass.

[carlthegroover]

I did the same (tuning DGCF with EADG strings), and I find a lot of difference in playability close to the nut. It is way better.

I might also try the ADGC strings for a regular EADG tuning for low tension. It might help a lot, though I'm concerned that they might be too floppy. Is that the case?

P.S.: Yeah, thread zombifying... I think it's worth it, 'cause I wanted to ask a similar question, but there is no point since this thread already exists.

[AmadeusXeno]

Originally Posted by carlthegroover

I might also try the ADGC strings for a regular EADG tuning for low tension. It might help a lot, though I'm concerned that they might be too floppy. Is that the case?

If you are using rounds that might be the case. Like I siad before I was using Rotosound flats which are much higher tension then any round I've tried. Using the ADGC strings tuned to EADG feels good to me with these strings. I'd probably use a higher gauge for rounds like 40-90 or 40-95. By the way this might not work with low action, I set that bass up with a med/high action. Hope this helps.

[winegamd]

I am using .094, .070, .053, .039 Circle K's and love the tension,flexibility,feel,and tone. So much growl and snap. I even find that the low notes have more definition. I will never go back to regular gauges!

[ixlramp]

I've always found so called 'standard' bass sets unnecessarily tight, perhaps there's an assumption the instrument must be similar to a double bass and that bass players are naturally strong and heavy-handed (which i am not). Over the last few years i've been searching for the absolute practical minimum tension on each string, refining my techniques to a light touch, and got down as far as a .070 for E on a 35" scale (roughly 20 pounds tension, and that was the tightest string in the set) without losing excellent tone. Jauqo uses an .080 for E.

I found the minimum practical tension increases with the gauge of the string. Thicker strings are more massive, have more momentum and therefore are more prone to flop, it's intuitive and obvious that they need a higher tension to keep the vibration tight and under control. If you scale up the size of a string you scale up the tension. With a .145 i found roughly 30 pounds to be the minimum. So this is how i arrived at my current custom sets which have tension decreasing from low to high strings, the very opposite of most bass sets (traditional tension).

So yeah any standard ADGC strings can be used for EADG, detuning by a fourth reduces tension to 56%, almost half. However a B string needs a bit more tension so i would consider a .120 as minimum (29 pounds).

[carlthegroover]

I guess it's a matter of trying them out (the smaller gauges). How can anyone get used strings to try? Maybe post an ad online or something?

[carlthegroover]

I just got some Ernie Ball Slinkys, light gauge, for both my basses (one strung EADG one BEAD) and both are awesome to play with, so far! Apparently the guy at the music store was right when he told me they were low tension. And maybe it's because they're new, but the sound is so... rich and full is how I would describe it.

Anyone else had some good experiences with Slinkys?

[ixlramp]

40 60 70 95? That's not particularly low tension. If you want to try looser buy singles, then you can create a balanced tension set too which really helps as one approaches a minimum practical tension