String too bright

[BlackSwan89]

Hey, I play a Peavey Grind 5 string bass and have never willingly changed the strings since the day I bought it. Sadly I busted my E-string playing silly devils and had to replace it. Now my E string just sounds wrong, it's too bright for the bass and definately too bright for my taste. So here's my question: is there any sort of secret method to getting a new string to have that nice, aged sound of a quality worn in bass string.

[makkE]

Play it a lot. That harsh zing will go away after a while.
You could also deliberately add some sort of grase/gunk, but that isn't too good of a solution.

Best solution is to change all strings once a string breaks, so they can all mellow out evenly again.

If you find you hate the sound of new strings in general, you could think of getting flatwounds. They sound like old roundwounds right from the start, and can be played for years, even decades in some cases. They still sound a bit diffrent from old roundwounds though.

This site has great comparisons of flats vs rounds:

Welcome to Lakland

[tangentmusic]

Yeah, like makkE said, changing the entire set makes more sense.
The new string will always sound brighter & newer (cuz it is!) than the rest.

[TomA1234]

You can dull down the string a bit by holding it tightly in one hand and pulling it through a few times to get some oils in it.

[darkstorm]

Unless the strings are fairly new, change all rather then just one. Even with flats, chageing just one while rest have been on for a long time. Is gonna give a very noticeable tone diff. Did you even use the same brand and version of the string as the other strings? Even putting multiple brand, brand new strings on is in many cases gonna create an undesireble tone diff between the strings. Also what brand and version of their strings did you use for the replacement string? Some string are quite a bit brighter then others.

[BlackSwan89]

Yeah but I didn't want to change all as it costs money and I don't like new strings. Yes I did 'even' use the same sort of string thank you, thats probably why its so bright in fact, its was a bright set originally. I don't like flatwounds either haha, I like old roundwounds. Thanks for the tips guys, answer to my questions looks like no tho lol, I kinda worked out that a whole new set would sound more in keeping with one another than changing one string- but I didn't want to do that. Ah well, probably will end up doing it now, next question is what strings are never gonna break so I don't have to do this again lol.

[Craig_S]

The only way you'll get all strings to sound correct together is to break in the whole set. Just replace the entire set. An instrument requires maintenance. That's part of the deal.

Don't like the sound of fresh rounds? Use half rounds or flats.

[Electricblue]