my new strings (rounds) are dull and muddy

[Matthew Bryson]

I've been using Ernie Ball Regular Slinkies for some time. I like the way that they sound. I was doing some recoding last night and decided that once I had a good take down with my old Ernie Balls, I'd put on a new set and compare the difference in sound. Also, I'd been wanting to try heavier strings so I did.

I usually like new strings and expected to prefer that sound. When I went from the semi-old standard slinkies to the brand new heavy gauge slinkies, without touching any settings on my bass, amp, or 4 track recorder - my sound completely went to crap. I expected brighter, more zing, more growl, more punch. What I got was dull and muddy. Very disappointing. Not to mention the incredible amount of force I had to use to tune the things to pitch. I stopped half way through tuning my D string to double check and make sure I wasn't trying to tune an octave high or something. of course, the only real problem is that I didn't like the sound - the dull and muddy sound problem was most noticeable of my E string.

Is this normal for heavy gauge strings? (the dull muddy sound) Is it a technique issue, that I did not adjust my right hand technique enough for the heavier strings? In other words, was I just not playing hard enough for that big string, or will heavy gauge always sound muddier? Or did I just get a bad string?

[Lunardecay]

I think they may just be bad....
I dont really use slinkies but I use very heavy guage strings and have never had that problem.