| Helicore Hyrbrid compared to Spirocores
In another stop on the never-ending quest to find strings that work well for both pizz and arco, I replaced my Spirocores (med gauge) with D’addario Helicore Hybrids (med gage). Now, keep in mind, I absolutely loved the sound of the Spirocores for pizz and was reluctant to change. But, even though I stuck it out for over a year (I was advised to “give them time to settle in”) I just grew tired of their scratchy, hard to start bow response. I know that both Christian McBride (light gauge) and John Patitucci (heavy gauge) use these strings and both of their instruments sound great. So, I thought, they should be good enough for me.
When I strung them up for the first time, I found the D string to be twangy and thin. I returned it for a replacement (thanks) and that problem was solved. I also noticed right away the G and D were much lighter in gauge and more flexible than the A and E with the E very heavy and stiff. This proved to present a modest challenge as I started to play.
Since I was after a better arco sound, the first thing I did was put them to the bowing test. The strings played very smoothly and sounded great. Good sonority, easy to start, nice warm tone. I was definitely pleased with the arco sound.
When I started to play pizz, I felt the difference between the G/D and A/E right away and it took some time to get used to the differences in response (I never fully got used to the stiffness of the E). The next thing I noticed was that all of the strings required more pressure by my left hand to get good clear pitches. After a couple of days of getting used to the extra pressure, that was behind me. Also, the sonority of the Helicores was much less than the Spirocores. Next, I noticed that my right hand needed adjustment. A very definite, strong hand was required to get that “pop” of an attack and a good full sound. Anything less sounded too “thuddy” (more like wood on wood) with not enough fundamental pitch sound. This took some getting used to but that is now mostly behind me too. I continued, however, to have trouble with the E string. I couldn’t get as full of a sound as I wanted unless I really dug in. Often, to get that big sound on the E string, I was required my to put so much meat into the string that my finger often hung up on the string, causing me to lag the time. I worked on this for some time without success. I finally gave up. I replace the E string with the Spirocore E and bingo! There was the sound I wanted and the response I needed. Arco, the Spirocore E works well too as the little bit of scratchiness is perfect to help those low notes cut through. Response-wise on pizz, the Helicore E was very thick and heavy while the Spirocore E has a feel closer to the Helicore A and therefore across all four strings, there is more uniformity.
Finally, I think there has been some settling in of the strings themselves while I was making all of these other discoveries and adjustments. The strings seem to have gotten much more flexible overall as time has passed and they have been played more.
In the end, after replacing the E string, adjusting my technique to meet the physics of the strings, and a breaking in of the strings themselves, the strings have the sound I want in both pizz and arco and will work well for me in my playing. It took about 3-4 months to come to this conclusion but now I get a very nice arco sound and a very nice pizz sound. By all accounts from those that have heard my bass, the bass is sounding very good indeed.
Peace
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