DD gut strings

JeffKissell · #1 12-20-2006, 01:02 AM

OK, I'm goin' in... I'm in the process of ordering a FULL set of Damian Dlugolecki gut strings. Plain D & G (no varnish) and wound E & A. the wound strings are round silver/nickel wire that is polished smooth. I won't have them put on the bass for another week or two, but hopefully by the new year I'll be tuning every five minutes.
Reason #1 - At $200 plus for entry level strings(" I'd like to try gut strings... are the blah blah blah strings any good?") I'm already half way there.
Reason #2 - My bass sounds really good, but every time I play my friend's Kay with a full gut set (all unwound) I think to myself, damn this sounds like a bass should sound. I KNOW the Cleveland would sing with gut strings.
Reason #3 - I can't get pass the "steely" sustain with all of strings I've tried so far.
Reason #4 - This is the big one...It's what the instrument evolved with. All of the recordings that just stop me cold are gut. Walter Page, Jimmy Blanton, Oscar Pettiford, Bob Moore, etc. The SOUND of the bass and where it fits in the music is what I'm after. I have some old opera recordings from the thirties and I have to say that symphonies sounded different before steel strings.

Damian seems like a nice guy and has been really informative. I've scoured his website, as well as Gamut's and the Aquila website is also fascinating reading. I'll keep you all posted as to the trials and tribulations. I've come to the conclusion in my own playing that the quality of notes is WAY more important than the quantity, and as I said in a recent post, I would like to experience the instrument in the same way that my heros did.
-J

p.s., man that's a lot of bread

jazzbass72 · #2 12-20-2006, 02:03 AM

Hey Jeff,
I admire you for wanting to go all gut. No doubt, the all gut sound is amazingly beautiful and makes your bass sing, indeed. However, everytime I am tempted to go back to gut, I always think to myself: " Ray Brown, Milt Hinton and some other heavy cats wrote the book on jazz bass playing with gut strings... however, if THEY switched to steel at some point and stuck to it, THEY must have had some pretty good reasons to do so". Just my $0.02....

-MP

PB+J · #3 12-20-2006, 05:29 AM

That's a great point Marco makes. I'm sure gut strings sound great, but most guys who came up playing gut switched to steel and never went back

M Ramsey · #4 12-20-2006, 05:41 AM

Morning all,

I came up playing steels, Perlons, other steels, Labella guts nearly 20 years ago. Went back to guts (on one bass) in the fall of 2005 and will continue to play the guts when I can. I have to switch to my other bass (Animas) for outdoors, heat and humidity issues. Recording will always be guts.

No, I'm definitely not playing them for the convenience.

It's the sound that matters to me.

YMMV

Uncletoad · #5 12-20-2006, 06:51 AM

Oh yea. It's a big step. As you know I've been using the Gut D and G for a short while and find them very compelling. I haven't had the stones to go for it on the wounds yet.

Please keep us posted on your progress.

Marco is correct in that Steel is easier to maintain, stay in tune on, and travel with. Hence our heros switching to them and sticking with them.

I don't know if I'd feel the way I do about guts if I had to live with the problems associated with working and traveling everyday with them enough to want to give up what they bring to my playing. Unlike the full time pros here on this list I don't go very far from home anymore so I don't really care as much.

I also haven't played on them for a couple decades like Ray did before he went to steels. I may get fed up with them before to long too.

Regardless of whether I stay with them for any great length or put them aside for convienience of steel again the process of playing with them on the gig has helped me understand something about how my heros played, how they approached the things they did on the bass in part due to the nature of the strings they used.

I know those insights have changed the way I play and helped me internalize some of the detail that made me giddy when I first started to get next to Blanton or Brown. That won't go away if I move back to steel.

JeffKissell · #6 12-20-2006, 09:22 AM

I am not a full time and/or traveling pro. I do however have the benefit of a relatively consistent marine climate. The tuning issues to me were never a concern.
I'd seen Ray Brown play several times before he passed and I think he used steel strings because he couldn't say what he wanted to say with gut strings. He took advantage of the technology to facilitate his voice so to speak. AFAIK, Mingus never switched.
Personally I would rather compromise my facility and dexterity, if it comes to that, than the SOUND. I know of two players in this area, and there may be more, who play a full gut set (all unwound strings) who sound great. They just don't spend much time on the 'net. Thanks for the feedback so far. I hope to have more info soon.
-J

Dave Speranza · #7 12-20-2006, 09:28 AM

You're gonna love em. I just bought the plain G & D from Damian and have had them on for 2days and I love em. I am planning on getting the wrapped E & A in about another month...he said he was coming out with a somewhat "new and improved" wrapping...you should ask him about that.

Marcus Johnson · #8 12-20-2006, 12:41 PM

I noticed on Damian's website that he offers his strings in 1mm increments. How does one go about deciding what thickness to order?

PS.... while I was thinking about gut strings, I went back and read Dan Larson's excellent webpage on how they are made. I came away realizing a couple of things; 1.) It's no big surprise that there are very few people involved in the art of gut string construction, considering the process involved, and 2.) the price of premium gut strings doesn't really seem that high when you see what the maker has to go through the get to a final product.

KrispyJones · #9 12-20-2006, 04:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazzbass72

Hey Jeff,
I admire you for wanting to go all gut. No doubt, the all gut sound is amazingly beautiful and makes your bass sing, indeed. However, everytime I am tempted to go back to gut, I always think to myself: " Ray Brown, Milt Hinton and some other heavy cats wrote the book on jazz bass playing with gut strings... however, if THEY switched to steel at some point and stuck to it, THEY must have had some pretty good reasons to do so". Just my $0.02....

-MP

maybe just a trend when they came out ?

why are many players going back to minimum d and g gut ?

Peck_Time · #10 12-20-2006, 05:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KrispyJones

why are many players going back to minimum d and g gut ?

I think there has always been a 'hard core' of gut players, it's just sometimes they get a bit more attention. Like on TalkBass with the 'string of the week', today it's gut, yesterday it was Belcanto/ Dominants/ Animas/ Obligatos...

**Adrian Cho** · #11 12-20-2006, 06:09 PM

I just want to repeat my belief that there is not as much to be gained by using gut on the bottom two strings as there is on the top two. Especially when you take into account the higher cost of the bottom strings. Most of the gut sound comes from the top two strings. I have long forgotten of any difference between the Gamuts I have on G and D and the Permanents on A and E. It's a very matched set and a lot less expensive and the lower strings have more stable tuning (although the Gamuts are surprisingly stable too). Also if you use a C extension as I do then you have no choice since nobody out there (Damian, Dan Larson, Aquila, etc.) can make a C extension wound gut except for Pirastro who will do a special order for a Eudoxa (and probably Oliv too) for a lot of $$$ ($160 from memory).

If you want to try gut, think about getting the best quality guts you can for G and D (like Damian's strings) and use matched steel on the bottom. A less expensive experiment and arguably a good long term setup too.

jazzbass72 · #12 12-20-2006, 06:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KrispyJones

why are many players going back to minimum d and g gut ?

hmm... masochism, maybe?

I am just kidding... the gut sound is a beautiful one, and if that's what works for any bassists on this forum, definitely more power to them. It's all about matching the sound you have in your head, isn't it? If it is gut, it's gotta be gut.

-MP

**Adrian Cho** · #13 12-20-2006, 06:35 PM

It depends a lot also on what you are playing. For what I do and for how I do it, gut works for me. I also play with the strings in mind - both the limitations and the best points of them. There's lots of music that I would hate using gut for.

Marcus Johnson · #14 12-20-2006, 06:52 PM

That's the root of the problem for me.... deciding what the core of your sound is. Every time I play gut strings, I enjoy the experience a lot. A good portion of the music that I love and listen to on a daily basis is performed on gut strings.

Then I play stuff on my very-well-broken-in Spiros, and I really start to see the appeal of them. Arco or pizz, they're very good, but maybe not "great". Maybe they are the ultimate delayed payoff string, because they really age well... they just get big and fat and warm with time, in my experience. The thing that makes me go back to them is their transparency; when they're on my bass, the instrument disappears, and I've found my voice. When the Spiros are on the bass, I'm not thinking about the strings. Of course, that will be different for every player.

I suppose owning multiple basses is the real answer. Not an option at the moment. I still want to try Eudoxas &/or Olivs as a compromise, but that's another thread.

jazzbass72 · #15 12-20-2006, 07:06 PM

This is from my gut (plain Labella) days... kinda miss that sound sometimes

but I am not going back to them

http://webzoom.freewebs.com/marcopan...ndOnlyLove.mp3

-MP

Dave Speranza · #16 12-20-2006, 08:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazzbass72

This is from my gut (plain Labella) days... kinda miss that sound sometimes

but I am not going back to them

http://webzoom.freewebs.com/marcopan...ndOnlyLove.mp3

-MP

Wow man, thats a killer solo. I LOL'ed at the introductory quote of course, but really great the whole way through.

**Jeremy Allen** · #17 12-20-2006, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazzbass72

This is from my gut (plain Labella) days... kinda miss that sound sometimes

but I am not going back to them

http://webzoom.freewebs.com/marcopan...ndOnlyLove.mp3

-MP

Wow, Marco, I never knew you had a plain gut phase! Sounds very nice.
Who's the singer? Sounds like Chiara Civello.

I had Dlugoleckis on my bass for a bit (D and G); they were so well-made compared to the other cheapo guts out there! Very nice, but I chickened out after a bit and went to Animas (which, it turns out, are not really "gut-like" at all, except maybe in diameter and tension).

**Chris Fitzgerald** · #18 12-20-2006, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jazzbass72

This is from my gut (plain Labella) days... kinda miss that sound sometimes

but I am not going back to them

http://webzoom.freewebs.com/marcopan...ndOnlyLove.mp3

-MP

Great solo, but somehow I think your current sound matches your "voice" better nowadays.

Uncletoad · #19 12-20-2006, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Fitzgerald

Great solo, but somehow I think your current sound matches your "voice" better nowadays.

+1. You kill me Marco. I could listen to you play all day.

fwiw my bass doesn't sound anything like that with guts. Bigger, warmer, with more puff. I gotta find some clips...

Quote:

Originally Posted by mojo

That's the root of the problem for me.... deciding what the core of your sound is. Every time I play gut strings, I enjoy the experience a lot. A good portion of the music that I love and listen to on a daily basis is performed on gut strings.

Then I play stuff on my very-well-broken-in Spiros, and I really start to see the appeal of them. Arco or pizz, they're very good, but maybe not "great". Maybe they are the ultimate delayed payoff string, because they really age well... they just get big and fat and warm with time, in my experience. The thing that makes me go back to them is their transparency; when they're on my bass, the instrument disappears, and I've found my voice. When the Spiros are on the bass, I'm not thinking about the strings. Of course, that will be different for every player.

Yes thats it. Although for me I never got next to their sound in that way. I'm with Adrian in that the mix of steel on the bottom and gut on top puts me in a middle spot that seems right.

I have yet to find steel strings that make me want to play on them like the guts do. On spiros I stay down in money land all night. With gut on top and steel on bottom I play more all over the place.

Now if I could just learn to bow...

Marcus Johnson · #20 12-21-2006, 03:59 AM

My problem is that I'm more influenced by horn players and singers than by bassists, when it comes to soloing. I'm thinking about Billie Holiday or Dexter Gordon most of the time. The sustain of the Spiros is really helpful at that point.

I'm hoping that I can get to a happy medium when I eventually try some wound guts on this bass (pirastros of some type, most likely). I think it could be pretty happening, especially because I use the AMT mic almost exclusively. The pickup doesn't get used much at all anymore. If that works out, then maybe I'll go to the real gut thing later.