Will stand up bass, or cello strings, work on an electric bass guitar?

[horseghost]

Does anyone know?

I have been tuning in fifth on my fretless bass for a long time, and its a real pain to get strings of the right gauges. But anyway, I think those violin and cello strings sound a lot nicer.

Thanks in advance. I made this account just to ask this question.

[tylerwylie]

They need to have a steel core usually... something that responds to a magnetic field. If you want 5th's tuning for Electric Bass check out Circle K Strings they have good gauges for custom tunings that's hard to beat.

[AmadeusXeno]

As far as fitment I'm sure it's no problem, just have a new nut cut. I don't know about the strings for an upright but I know cello strings are very very very low tension. Cello strings will give you no sustain at all, using a bow is what keeps them vibrating. Both cello and upright strings are made of different materials then electric bass strings. They would most likely have much lower output so you'd have to crank your amp to hear it at all. You could just order custom sets. A lot of shops sell Ernie Ball and D'Addario singles you could put together to make a set. If your local shop has GHS they can usually order a custom set through them. I have also herd that DR dealers can do the same but I'm not 100% on that one. Hope this helps, and welcome to TB.

[horseghost]

Thank you, both of you.

Ill look into these custom strings.

If I ever end up trying cello strings on my bass guitar Ill be sure to come back and tell you all how it went.