Silver?

[Disappear]

In my drunken rambles last night after a gig, I was telling a fellow bassist what strings I used. I was going to say "stainless steel" but for some reason it came out "sterling silver". This provoked an interesting thought. Have there ever been silver strings? Instinct tells me no because silver doesn't have much flex and is a little bit more expensive but there has to have been a crazy bassist that got curious one day.

Shed any light on this, guys?

[staindbass]

i think it would be too soft, your frets would eat thru the silver quickly. is silver magnetic? i think the metal has to be magnetic to make the signal, not sure. johnny a.

[Fliko]

Aye, the metal definately has to be magnetic for the pickups to pickup the string, and silver is not magnetic.

[Yvarg]

Originally Posted by Disappear

. . . Have there ever been silver strings? . . .

Bass strings in a nylon guitar set?

[Parabolic Box]

Silver is diamagnetic. Plus it tarnishes. That precludes it from both as a base material and a coating.

[JimmyM]

There are silver-wrapped gut strings for upright. Pirastro Eudoxas and Olivs. Tried the Eudoxas...very stiff, thick, and delicate. Good string but way too easy to break windings.

[Lokire]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

There are silver-wrapped gut strings for upright.

Yep. I've used some on my Acoustic basses with good results:

[JimmyM]

Bet that sounds sweet with wrapped guts. What did you use?

[Lokire]

Those ones were Pirastro Oliv Cello strings. Worked out pretty well since my little acoustic is 30" scale. I think it was a heavy gauge C and a light gauge G that ended up working as the E and A strings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rNqVbA__YE

I'm back to all acousticores now though. It seems like noone makes cello D and A strings with the Sterling Silver wrap. They're all Aluminum, which seems to have a really bad scratchy sound through my piezos . Someday I'll try some plain gut strings too...

[Lokire]

Originally Posted by staindbass

i think it would be too soft, your frets would eat thru the silver quickly. is silver magnetic? i think the metal has to be magnetic to make the signal, not sure. johnny a.

Silver isn't magnetic, but with strings you mainly just need the core to be magnetic. So you could have a steel core string wrapped in Silver. I don't know how well silver would work with a fretted bass as far as durability and string wear, but it should be fine for a fretless bass. The only issue is getting string companies to do something different for electric basses. Pretty much impossible, since there isn't enough demand for them to make a profit from it.

[JimmyM]

Ya, electric bass is a magnetic pickup world. Nobody's going to pay a couple hundred bucks for electric bass strings that can only be used on a handful of piezo electrics. At least not on a scale large enough to make it worth it. But for upright players who spend in the 5 and 6 figures on a bass, $400 is nothing to spend on strings.

[John Wentzien]

I think Dean Markley "Alchemy" strings have silver in the windings with some kind of gold coating..I have them on my acoustic bass and they are pretty darn good...

[Disappear]

Magnetic flux -_-

Yeah, maybe some uber strong pickups with some sort of magnetic core. Well, I learned something today. Cheers TBers