Strings I will use if someione is pointing a gun at me ...
Roto Swingbass - too much twang and too inconsistent
Roto Monel flats - bad feel, merely average tone and that on a fretless J that just sings with TI's or Chromes.
GHS Boomers - just gleck... can't dig them at all. All top with no complexity and non-existent string to string balance. Cheap and they sound like it.
Strings I like...
TI Super Alloy's - my fave round of all. They settle in a a few days and are then extremely long lived.
TI Jazz Flats - my choice for fretless or for a setting where the woody quality works for me. Blue Grass, Django jazz, folky stuff - perfect. Also on a bass that is settling into it's new home in the northwest where we swing from extreme dry to extremely humid twice a year - the lower string tension may help.
Chromes - my choice for country or retro-rock that wants a percussive thud, quick decay. I have them on 1 bass. THat bass actualyl get's a lot of use at the moment as I'm playing without a drummer almost all the time. So I get to be kick drum and bass all into as far as the pulse goes.
D'Addario XL - light, snappy, cheap, short lived. They stretch in quickly - basically my tuning is stable in a couple of hours. I keep them on 1 bass in the house. They won't light the world on first tonally but they aren't bad just 'average' - what I like is what they do for the first two or three weeks they are on. After that, cut 'em off & throw 'em away. Still they are cheap enough that if I want that light weight zippy thing they have - hell it cost less than $10 a week to get it - dat's two trips to Starbucks for that sound...
DR - Black Beauties. On a bass that is just over the top brite, BB's can help tame the highs. The light tension set may help with setup on some basses. I can work with those. Not a first call by any means.
GHS Brite Flats - I've only run 1 set of these and I recently traded off the bass they were on but I'll try another set. I was a big fan ofthe D'Addario Half Round baclk inthe 90's. I was primarily focused on smooth jazz and they do that well. Big Ballad Booty with just enough zing to get over for slap or a least slap as I immitate it
- then D'Addario changed the formula to something that doesn't agree with my sweat and I really didn't like the results. Brite Flats reminded me of what I liked about the original HF's... I'll try a set of the turn of the year and things settle down. IMO - that half round thing is that they record phenomenally well. They are easy to fit into a certain space. They have no appeal with 'bed-room' tone. To me it's very much a string with a purpose rather than attempting to be an all around.
If I had to pick 1, it would the TI Super Alloys hands down. They always seem to work for me. G&L MFD Humbuckers and decent quality P and / or J pickups seem to really pair well with SA's... I've sold a number of basses with those installed over the years. Nearly everytime I get a message that loosely translates to 'I love those strings, what are they ?'
