Worst string manufactuer you know

[Direct Box Rox]

Out of all the major brands (Ernie Ball, D'Addarrio, SIT, DR, GHS etc), what manufactuer has consistently let you down with quality & tone?

for me it was DR. Only time I ever broke a string while tuning up. It was a set of DR Low Riders & GHS strings have always lost their luster after a week or so.

[jacojbass]

easily DR.... so overrated

[octaverazor]

Ernie Ball makes the most lifeless, bland sounding string I have every heard. Both guitar and bass.

[petrus61]

D'addario

[Stone Soup]

Originally Posted by petrus61

D'addario

I think D'Addario strings are like the SM58 microphone. There might be better sounding offerings out there, but none of them do the job any better.

I've had more isues with DR than with any other string I've tried.

[alembicguy]

D'Addario
GHS
Rotosound
Ernie Ball

[alembicguy]

I miss the old Trace Elliot strings in light gauge with the bright green wraps!

[Floyd Eye]

lol ^

Every brand except your current favorite?

[JTE]

Dean Markley. Only because my personal contact with Mr. Markley was atrocious. He was an abominable jerk.

I don't like Rotosound RS66 strings, but I won't dismiss the whole line because of that. Never liked Fender strings from when I managed a store. The only guitars we cut brand new strings off of when the guitars came into the store before we put 'em on the wall.

John

[madbassplaya]

[SBsoundguy]

I love DRs for the 3 days they last. I'll have to say GHS based solely on the Boomers, but I have yet to try the precision flats.

[4-string]

Dunlop - I tried 3 sets, all had a completely dead E string. The A, D and G were only half dead.

[davedblyoo]

Doesn't GHS actually make Ernie Ball strings, or is that just a vicious urban legend?

[C.Linton]

Whoever makes the strings that come on SX basses.
Oh, and , I'm not a fan of Fender strings either, never have been.

[mellowgerman]

Interesting how people's opinions can differ! DR Legend flats happen to by my all-time, hands-down favorite strings...

Either way, to answer the question, being a fender-bass-lover, I'm sad to say my least favorite strings are definitely Fender. In my experience, their "new formula" strings have some of the weakest tone, worst balance, and cheapest feel I've come across. In addition, I've had issues on several occasions and everytime I got in touch with customer service, they'd promise to make it up to me by sending me replacement strings. They'd take down my info but never send a single replacement. I've dealt with them 3 times with issues and they failed to honor their word to make it up to me every time --- 2 times I had a round wound in a set of flats and once the outer winding of a string was loose before I ever took them out of the package. Never again Fender (at least in the strings department anyway).

[Quilbert]

I once tried 'nano-coated' elixir strings 45 - 100s. They cost €30 (around $40). They Felt awful on my stingray. It felt like they were too tight or something. I ditched them and reverted to my usual XL pro-steels, they were 1/2 the price and felt so much better.

[carldogs]

I used GHS progressives on my Ibanez 4 string many years ago and I really liked them, it took a while to get the taperd E string to sit properly due to lack of individual string height adjustment on the accucast bridge, I had to file the saddle a bit but once set up they worked great, I decided to keep using them but after about three set I stoped, what I found was;
String set life was very inconsistent, one set would last like a year and still be sounding ok, the next set would be dull in three weeks with the E string sounding ok.
The core seemed to be brittle, they did not like to be slacked of and retensioned especially the D string, I broke two D strings, the one I slacked to get access to adjust the truss rod and on retuning the core broke before I even got to D, I never had that problem with any other string make on that bass.
I'm wondering if anyone has had similar experiences with them.

[MostlyBass]

LaBella. Meh.
D'Addario Helicores. Meh.

Love DR strings though!!

[Floyd Eye]

Admittedly I don't do much experimenting with different strings any more, but I have used a bunch of different ones over the course of my life and the only ones I can say with certainty that I will never use again are Elixirs. Plenty of others will disagree.

[BassPlayer900]

I'm not a fan of DR, however, I can't say they're the worst because I've only tried 1 set from them. The problem was that the G string broke about a few weeks after I first strung them on. Their strings didn't seem durable enough for me, so I moved on to different strings and haven't experienced the same problem since.