Steel/Nickel Confusion

Tom5 · #1 01-20-2009, 06:45 AM

After reading many posts about stainless steel vs. nickel strings, I've been left a bit confused. I own a Lakland 55-01 and 55-02 (each with Lakland stainless steel strings), and a Fender Jazz 4 (with Ernie Ball slinky strings, which are nickel). From every post I've read, SS is supposedly brighter and more harsh, while nickel is supposedly smoother with a more even tone. But when I put my 55-02 next to my Fender, I've found just the opposite to be true. The Lakland SS have a smoother feel, more mellow tone, and a flat finish. The Ernie Ball strings are much brighter with a more "chrome" finish than the SS. What am I missing here?

Bassman316 · #2 01-20-2009, 12:49 PM

That's interesting... like you've said, most posts will say that stainless steel strings are brighter than nickel. As for the stainless steel strings having a flatter finish than the nickel strings, I can vouch for that personally. I've gone through several sets of stainless steel strings in the past year or so, and the steels have a visually flatter or duller appearance than the chrome-like appearence of the nickels. Sorry I can't give you any info concerning the sound of the two, bro...

Williamsburgjim · #3 01-20-2009, 01:02 PM

....don't know what kind of lakeland that is, but played a passive lakeland J bass and the pups were not agressive nor did it have the classic Fender single-coil growl. In other words, it's certianly possible that it could be more the pups, not the strings.

(I've played nickel rounds for years mainly cause they were easier on my fingers, but they wear out quicker. Some manuf. like D'adarrio are now making them easier on the fingers - I play their pro-steel's now.)

Jimbob

Tom5 · #4 01-20-2009, 02:11 PM

I also thought it may have to do with the difference in pickups, but I really notice the sound difference when I play them unplugged. Granted they are two different basses, so I'll get different tones anyway. On the other hand, at one time I had the Lakland nickels on the 55-02, then later switched back to their SS (which is apparently what comes on them stock), and the characteristics for the Lakland nickels were very similar to the Ernie Ball slinkys that I described. Lakland calls their strings "custom wound", so I wonder if they are going for an altogether different feel for the SS strings than the standard, like you mentioned for D'adarrio. Honestly, I've never tried any other SS before, so I really have nothing to compare the Lakland SS with.

JTE · #5 01-20-2009, 04:13 PM

Nope, the Lakland Stainless steel strings are pretty typical of most stainless strings. I alternate between the Laklands (which are made by GHS and totally indistinquishable from GHS Super Steels) and DR Hi-Beams on my Laklands. It's more that you're comparing two very different sounding chunks of wood and metal.

Your Laklands have a 35" scale, graphite reinforcement in the necks, and are solid ash. But what's the Jazz? Fender makes about a million different models of Jazz bass, and they vary quite a lot. So, you're really comparing apples to oranges. BTW, the Lakland Nickel strings are not a typical nickel string- to me they're much much more like GHS Boomers (designed to be similar to stainless without the fret wear) than like GHS Gus series nickel strings- and not much like D'Addario XL nor DR Sun Beams (the other nickle rounds I'm very familiar with).

jte

ShowKing · #6 01-20-2009, 10:33 PM

hey man
i have the same issue as you with my lakland 55-02.
it came with lakland stainless steel strings and did not sound bright to my ears.
i replaced it with SIT rockbrights steels and it still was not bright.
(even unplugged)
compared to my jazz bass which sounds brighter even with nickels.

Tom5 · #7 01-21-2009, 07:17 AM

Thanks guys, good thoughts. And I agree that comparing the Jazz (which is MIM by the way) with the 55-02 is apples to oranges. I guess what really throws me off is that I've had both nickels and SS on my 55-02 (both Lakland brand strings), and the nickels were by far more bright and harsh. Even if I pulled off a little to "test" the fret buzz (which didn't take much with these), it was very metallic sounding. When I switched back to the SS, the same "test" resulted in a much softer buzz, as well as a smoother feel on my fingers. It's very perplexing that what I've read about others' experiences and my own experience are polar opposites.

ShowKing · #8 01-21-2009, 02:14 PM

same here.
I put on sadowsky nickels on my 55-02 and to me, those sounded slightly brighter than sit or lakland steels.

I'm going to try sadowsky steels next time and see how it goes.

Tom5 · #9 01-22-2009, 06:24 AM

I'm wondering if the difference is in the frets themselves. Could different fret metals react differently to the same kind of string? I'm not sure whether or not Lakland, Fender, etc, use different alloys for their frets. Just a thought.