Lenzner Plain Gut A

[Peck_Time]

I received a few strings in the mail from Quinn Violins yesterday:

E and A Obligato
Plain A Lenzner gut

I love my plain gut G and D, but I was also using a super silver A (great pizz, bad arco) and Spiro mittel E (not too bad).

First I tried the Obligatos. Hmmm, they sound good, but it feels like they are missing some 'guts' (to coin a phrase ). I had a Ukulele Orchestra gig (10 ukes, 1 bass), so I left the Oblis on for it. First up was an acoustic rendition of the kiwi classic 'Nature'. The oblis did the job, but I dunno, I missed my spiro and super silver. Next was a lightly amped 1/2 hour set of tunes to do with nature (the gig was for the Department of Conservation, so we played Bright-eyes!). I was miking my bass through a Sennheiser 906 into my iamp and Whizzy 12. In this situation the Obligatos suffered. They 'disappeared' in the mix and I was puliing the strings pretty hard.

So today I took off the Oblis and looked in my string drawer. I found an old La Bella wrapped gut E that I had on briefly 6 months ago. I put that on and bam- instant boom! a fundamental tone.

So I had one A string left to try and it was gut. But not just a namby-pamby metal wrapped Eudolive gut, no, this is a fire-hose diameter small child strangling Plain gut!

Here it is lying sleepily on my bass:


Here it is compared to a Spiro Mittel E string:


Well I wrassled that sucka' on to my bass. Had to borrow a Dremel to cut a hole in the tailpiece big enough.

[TimoMetzemakers]

What a cliffhanger!

How does the plain A sound? Inquiring minds want to know!

[Bobby King]

"Eudolive" Well, do you actually get a pitch from that plain A or just a "doink"?

[Peck_Time]

Originally Posted by TimoMetzemakers

How does the plain A sound? Inquiring minds want to know!

It sounds DEEP fellas, like it's just spent 3 years reading Wittgenstein. There's a lot of fundamental and not much top in there. The metal-wrapped E on the bass has more harmonics.

Originally Posted by Bobby King

"Eudolive" Well, do you actually get a pitch from that plain A or just a "doink"?

Well yeah I get a pitch, but it doesn't sustain . It's hard to explain, the note comes out when I pull the string, then there's this sort of 'thoom' sound that does sustain. It's a fun string to play. I'm going to try and put up a recording somewhere.

[Steve Swan]

It requires a very responsive bass, but the plain A really sounds amazing on the right instrument. I use a Gotz plain A on my bass.

[Peck_Time]

Originally Posted by Steve Swan

It requires a very responsive bass, but the plain A really sounds amazing on the right instrument. I use a Gotz plain A on my bass.

What do you use on the E string Steve?

BTW, beautiful basses on your site.

[Steve Swan]

I'm using Gotz strings on the bottom 3 (#s 298, 308, 304) and a Golden Spiral G on this bass. It's gut heaven.

[Peck_Time]

I took the gut A off, it did not have any sustain (which I might be able to live with), and it was not as loud as the G or D.

I'm also thinking about taking off the gut e and going back to the spirocore e, as my bass seems to be louder with a spirocore e.

This was an expensive (and frustrating) experiment to find that I like what i've had on the bass for 6 months!

ps- I wonder if this is how Unkle Toed feels?

[TimoMetzemakers]

C'mon, you've got to give that thick A a little more time!

I re-installed my old Chordas on my bass last week, and although these strings are already used and pre-stretched, it took them a week to sound good. The G has now stabilized, I think, but the thick Chorda D is still stretching and sounding a little bit better and louder every day.