Weird String problem and a question

JoeyNaeger · #1 08-28-2006, 08:24 PM

Last Friday, I took off my Flex 92's and replaced them with a heavy set of helicores. They sound great, and my bass seems to have really woken up with the extra tension but when I unpacked my bass today, I noticed a weird problem. There were brown spots on the G-string that looked kind of like rust. The string sounds fine and holds its pitch well enough, but I've never had this happen. The string doesn't feel as smooth under the brown spots either. Should I be concerned about it or point a blind eye towards it?

Also, as I mentioned, my bass really seems to respond much better with higher tension strings on it. I was wondering for future reference what other high tension arco strings are out there. The first string that comes to mind is the original flat chromes, but will these have an appreciable increase in tension over the helicores?

**Francois Blais** · #2 08-28-2006, 09:14 PM

The Helicores are nickel wound, while the Flexocors are chromsteel.
Maybe your skin chemistry doesn't work well with nickel?

I don't think the OF have much higher tension than the Helicores.

It's easy to confuse tension with stiffness.
They're related in some way, but some strings are stiff but actually not high tensioned.

Flexocor '92s are available in heavy gauge.
Maybe that's what you're looking for?!

JoeyNaeger · #3 08-29-2006, 04:40 PM

I think you're right about skin chemistry. Back when i played violin, I used to eat through strings very quickly because of my sweaty hands...I've never noticed it having any effects on bass strings though.

Before switching strings out, I stuck a regular helicore A so it was side by side with the stark flex E. Even the regular helicore had way more power then the E so I don't think I'll be using flexecores really. I was mainly curious, I'm pretty happy with the current strings.

Michael Case · #4 08-29-2006, 04:43 PM

Do you wipe your strings down after playing?

JoeyNaeger · #5 08-29-2006, 04:54 PM

Yes, I'm quite anal about keeping my intrument clean.

Michael Case · #6 08-29-2006, 05:49 PM

Maybe if you clean the strings with a tiny bit of alcohol after playing it would help reduce the effects of skin chemistry.