New strings! Tiplop guts from India
 

Despite being incredibly sick, I was able to roll out of bed and go to the Post Office in order to pick up my set of Tiplop strings for my upright. I thought it was interesting that, even though Tiplop is in India, the package came via POS Malaysia :hiding: Either way, I'm just glad they came via registered mail so there was no chance of them getting lost along the way.

Speaking of which, according to eBay, delivery was estimated on March 15th at the earliest and these arrived on March 1st - nice!

A little background on the strings/Tiplop: Tiptop is a company from India that specializes in making gut strings and gut tennis rackets. The site uses a stock pic identical to a pic on the Upton Bass site. The strings are incredibly cheap because, presumably, you are buying straight from the place of manufacture (ie there is no "middle man" to jack up the price). The site goes back and forth from hinting that they are either mutton serosa or cow gut (however, I have no idea how much of this is to be blamed on the language barrier).

Here are the gauges of the Tiplop upright strings: E (4.5), A (3.7), D (2.8), and G (2.1). Mine were pretty close to those measurements.

The day after I picked them up, I took them to KC Strings in Merriam Kansas and had them installed by a professional luthier. I loved the way they felt under my fingers (for both my left and right hand); however, there was just not enough tension on the E and A strings. It should be noted that my bass is a 5/8 with a 40.5" scale neck so that may have something to do with it. Honestly though, I don't see how adding another 1" to 1.25" would have helped.

I left them on for a few days but - even though I really liked the D and G, I just couldn't stand the E and A. Today I took them off and did what the luthier suggested - re-install the E and A Innovation Psychoslaps in place of the E and A Tiplop guts. I just finished and - after adjusting the action, etc - I must say, it is a MAJOR improvement.

Additionally, the D and G strings are so slim, I'm wondering if I should try replacing the G with the D, as well as the D with the A. The D is so especially slim I'm almost afraid to slap it :( However, right now, everything seems to be working out just fine.

Overall, so far I'm satisfied with the Tiplop D and G strings but and very disappointed in the A and E. What's worse is that - even though the set only cost me $95 (including shipping) - if I had just bought the D and G set, I would have only paid about $30 (including shipping). I have no idea what to do with the E and A, and I'm not sure if Tiplop would accept those as a return.

Speaking of the E and A guts being to flabby - is this normal or do more expensive gut strings usually not have this problem?

Isn't this the same company that changes their name like every other Tuesday? :)

I got a set maybe 2 years ago as a back up. They were called something else then, but used the same Upton Bass image.

The gauges are too thin for my liking (their D is thinner than my gut G), but in an emergency scenario, I'm sure the strings will do the job.

George

So just to put the obvious next question on the record, what about replacing the A with the E?

At this point, I like my set up (Inovation Psychoslaps for the E and A, and the Tiplop guts for the D and G) and just don't want to mess with it. Right now - since I finally have a decent set up - I'm just going to stay focused on getting a Psychobilly band together. After all, that was my whole reason for deciding to learn upright bass at the beginning :bassist:

Is anyone else wondering how they're getting cow gut from India?:confused:

I'm sure those are sacred strings.

Cows are not sacred to all Indians.

+1

Tiplop Double Bass Gut Strings
 

This is just to correct some misunderstanding.
Tiplop Gut strings are strictly made from Sheep Intestine

Why The Tiplop Gut strings so cheap
because these guts are hand made and we are selling directly to buyer there is no middleman in between.

Our main concern is Satisfaction of our customers so if any one have any problem ,he can directly contact us.

Most of our customers praise about ous DG strings open heartedly.:hyper:
but some are unsatisfied with E and A strings:crying:
for that we want to clear that E and A strings have larger diameter and Tiplop Works make it in High Twisting manner so it increase the density of Gut in string resulting more clear sound but the disadvantage is that gut become slightly harder.

this can be fix by applying Gut oil on the string
Tiplop Works specially develop a gut coating solution specially for E and A string.
:help:And any our existing customer which have problem in E and A string can ask for that Gut coating Free Of Cost
just paying nominal postage USD 3.00:bassist:

Our Main Aim is good Quality at affordable Pricing along with High Level of customers satisfaction

Tiplop Works Team
India

Tiplop E and A Double Bass Gut String
 

Dear Mat:hyper:
Tiplop Works offer you Our Company researched product Tiplop Gut oil free of cost.
even We will bear shipping too.
you just mail me your mailing address
We will ship through Economy mail along with the instruction ,how to apply.

Tiplop Works
Nagendra Tyagi

Thank you Nagendra and I think you have already sent me the oil and it's on its way to the US - I can't wait to put it on my strings :hyper:

Good to know. It's nice to hear from Tiplop themselves. I'm starting to think about trying these strings.

I picked up a set a few months ago because I wanted to try the gut sound on my hybrid Roma. I love the tension, makes it very easy to play and the D, G have that instant classic jazz record sound.

As a rank amateur though I find these pretty much impossible to bow and the E string and to a lesser extent the A string have no tone center and are a bit too floppy. I think the strings I had before were helicores, whatever came with the bass and they always seemed a bit high-tension for comfort. I did the setup myself so take my opinions with a grain of salt as I have zero experience with any other strings.

I have no problem with the thickness of the strings, they seem pretty darn big actually, I can't imagine putting the E in the A position but that would help the floppiness no doubt. I did have to file out the bridge a bit to get the E to stay on. Probably should have done the nut too.

I think the company provides a quality product but as many on the forum suggest in the gut threads I may go back to steels on the E, A. In more experienced hands these strings probably sing and for the upper registers the sound is heaven. I just wish I could bow on 'em (understanding this is a gut issue, not a manufacturer issue).

Here's a rough demo of the pizzicato sound of the guts in a rockish/jazzish context:
http://soundcloud.com/bkbirge/bounce

Hi - your track is not available.

Should work now, thanks!

Thanks for uploading this - sounds great! :bassist:

I should put up clip of some straight-up Rockabilly and Psychobilly to show how the D and G guts sound (I have Psychoslaps for the E and A right now).

Would anyone like to me to do this?

Sure, post what you have. I'd like to hear the contrast between the 2 types of strings you have loaded.

I ordered the g and d set and they arrived last week. Yesterday I put the D on my bass. It stayed there for maybe five minutes. It was just not playable with the Evah Perazzi E and A. To make the tiplop gut work I'd have had to radically raise the action, to a point where the Evahs were close to unplayable. I liked the sound of the tiplop D, and the feels was very cool, but the difference between the tiplop and the EPs was too wide

I would like to hear some reviews from those who have tried these full string sets on the very long pre-WWII 43" - 43 1/2" string lengths found on many early Czech 3/4 basses or the plywood American Standard or King Moretone instruments.

Try just the G with the rest of the evah set. But, yeah, I can't imagine them being a good tension match with gut.