What strings?

[duke13]

New bass owner/player here. I recently acquired a '39 Selmer Manhattan bass. My understanding is this is a Kay C-1 built for Selmer. I play almost exclusively bluegrass and traditional music. I have heard that the older basses like this may not hold up to steel strings. Is that true? Any suggestions for string selections?

[Alexi David]

As long as the bass is in good shape [has it gone to a luthier for a checkup yet?], you should be fine tension-wise - unless you're using something like Spirocore Starks. But since you want string suggestions for bluegrass/etc, most likely you'll wanna go with Plain gut strings or Eurosonics or the like. I can vouch for plain gut for that sound. Regarding the other synthetic gut substitutes, we'll have to wait for some other TBers to chime in with their experience.

[Steve Killingsworth]

As Alexi said, if the bass is in decent shape, it really shouldn't matter. Ultimately, string choice depends on your preference. A lot of guys in my area favor Supernil nylons--very low tension, very easy on the fingers.

Personally, I much prefer steel strings and have tried several different types. If you are looking for a darker, more mellow tone and the thump found in traditional bluegrass, Obligatos work well. I have not tried them on my current bass but on my ES-9 Engelhardt, they were THE string.

[JimmyM]

I went from Obligatos to weed whacker strings to guts on my bass. I liked the Obligatos but I play a lot of slap in my oldies band and they're tough on the fingers. If you're not playing slap, though, I would second the recommendation for Obligatos, unless you have a magnetic pickup.

[mpoppitt]

Check out Barefoot Larry's "Hillbilly slap strings". They will give you a taste of the gut sound so you can decide whether you like the gut or steel sound better without laying down big buck$.

http://www.traditionmusic.com/store.html

For $20 you can't really go wrong...