Double Bass 2024 Spirocore challenge

[Inky13]

I’ve decided to rehab the Juzek as a beater/Pizz bass. Running Orchestrals on the arco bass and played a long pizz gig the other night. I gotta say, they were easy on the hands, but no power or projection. Not terrible, but I’m going to try my beat to crap mitts. We’ll see before the inevitable experimentation. Or maybe back to the super flexies. Not a lot of love, but I didn’t hate them.

 

[TroyK]

"Orchestrals"?

 

[Inky13]

Helicores.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Helicores.

Those are some of my least favorite strings on the planet. Please don’t judge a bass on how they sound on it. I had a student who went from Helicores to Spiros, and since she had never changed strings herself we did it in her lesson. The look on her face when she played the first note on the Spiros was absolutely priceless. I wish I had taken a picture… her eyes were as wide as saucers!

 

[WG Plum]

So happy with the Spiro mitts on my Shen hybrid. The Yamahiko isn't disappointing at all either.

 

[Jay Mendoza]

What you hear when playing is not what the audience hears, as the sound is coming from below your ears and moving away from you. In a damped room/studio, you get very little reflected sound. Also, arco players always get more volume from bowing a string, but it also affects the harmonics as the string is being mechanically manipulated constantly by the bow hairs and therefore the string cannot develop it's own overtones as well as it can when plucked once and is then free to vibrate as it wants to. This then accounts for the perceptions people here talk about when playing Pizz, or Arco. As far as break-in is concerned, I have observed that a set of 3885.0W strings drop off noticeably, played or left sitting, in the first week. The overtones, volume, growl and brightness all taper off the most in the first 48 hours. They still remain, put as time goes on, you have to play them harder to to get them to respond like they did when new. My 3885.0W set was installed almost a year ago, I play Pizz mostly, some arco on occasion, and practice about 1-2 hours daily, with a 1-2 hour performance every week. Lemur had to adjust the soundpost when my bridge had been bumped and was reset, and that actually revived the strings for about 3 months before they began to drop off. All of this is my player's point of view perception, but my fellow musicians and the audience say they think the bass sounds great. I asked everyone when I got the new Spiros if they could tell by what they heard; Only the guitarist really noticed and said they sounded richer, but not louder, just more defined.

 

[crd]

No matter what strings you use, you can only play so many hours a day.

I am thinking about lower my string height a touch. I love the way the mittels sound and play but thumb position on the G string is eating up my fingers; sometimes I miss the size of Genssler's strings but the mittels sound sooo good.

Part of me is curious what a low low action stark set-up would play like but I really don't want to mess with anything until I am done with some projects I am in the middle of.

I lowered my strings heights to a reasonable height. Thump position sings. I am finally used to the size of the G string and couldn't be happier with this set-up. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I will try Starks with low action soon. The lack of dispersion is such a huge advantage. It's so great to be able to play the whole bass pizz or arco with no sacrifice in tone.

 

[AGCurry]

View attachment 5494614

So happy with the Spiro mitts on my Shen hybrid. The Yamahiko isn't disappointing at all either.

Those silks look so orange, I thought they were Belcantos.

 

[PBandJazzBass]

Those silks look so orange, I thought they were Belcantos.

And they almost look purple where they’re coming out of the tailpiece.

 

[Earl]

I lowered my strings heights to a reasonable height. Thump position sings. I am finally used to the size of the G string and couldn't be happier with this set-up. Just to satisfy my curiosity, I will try Starks with low action soon. The lack of dispersion is such a huge advantage. It's so great to be able to play the whole bass pizz or arco with no sacrifice in tone.

Thump position?

 

[crd]

Thump position?

I am still teasing my pedagocial method. Okay maybe I should reread my posts before I post.

 

[WG Plum]

Those silks look so orange, I thought they were Belcantos.

Yeah, lighting is weird. Have to say, Spiro Mitts, a Yamahiko dual element pickup, my Shen hybrid and my Bergantino Forte HP/NXT 212 rig was absolutely sublime this past weekend. I know I've never been able to be that loud without feedback before, but I've never received so many compliments on how I, and my bass, sounded. I may suck, but I sound REALLY good.

 

[Oli S]

I've ended a five-year run by switching to Aquila unwound G/D over old S43 solo A/E. The Aquila strings feel great and have opened up very quickly under tension. On my bass the G and the spiros blend very well. The D matches well for volume and is darker and thumpier, as expected. The only other gut setup I've used was Lenzner over Superflexible solo, too long ago to make a reasonable comparison with the Aquilas.

I mostly play jazz gigs and favour as little amplification as I can get away with, and almost all my practice is arco. In my experience, S42 medium get a huge, focused sound out of my bass, though they can be a lot of work. Lately I prefer 3885W as a do-everything string. But - to coin a phrase - guts on top of Spirocores are so much fun (!!!).

I'll come crawling back eventually. We all do.

 

[fdeck]

I moved to Madison with my Kay, and got some service done on it. Our local bass luthier suggested Spiro's, and installation was free, so I told him to go ahead. So far as I know, the bass still has the same strings on it, 20+ years later, since the new owner has probably not changed them. But I got a new bass in 2010 and it's presently strung with Evah Mittels.

I certainly never had any complaints about the Spiro's, though I also wasn't doing much arco work at the time. They lived up to their reputation of being long lasting and suitable for a wide range of uses.

 

[crd]

I am posting this audio file here to remind myself that I do not need the new string set that Genssler posted on his website this month. I am not even the slightest bit curious what they might sound like on my bass. I am ashamed I spent most of my life playing gut strings and I will not back track.

Whenever it gets cooler and I can cut off my window unit AC I will post some sound clips of the mittels with the bow.

hmmm... it seems like the mp3 function is broken so here is a dropbox link.

 

[jmpiwonka]

I am posting this audio file here to remind myself that I do not need the new string set that Genssler posted on his website this month. I am not even the slightest bit curious what they might sound like on my bass. I am ashamed I spent most of my life playing gut strings and I will not back track.

Whenever it gets cooler and I can cut off my window unit AC I will post some sound clips of the mittels with the bow.

hmmm... it seems like the mp3 function is broken so here is a dropbox link.

Sounds great. No need for any Sonores !!

Gonna go look on the website to see what the new offering is lol.

 

[Roxbororob]

I am posting this audio file here to remind myself that I do not need the new string set that Genssler posted on his website this month. I am not even the slightest bit curious what they might sound like on my bass. I am ashamed I spent most of my life playing gut strings and I will not back track.

Whenever it gets cooler and I can cut off my window unit AC I will post some sound clips of the mittels with the bow.

hmmm... it seems like the mp3 function is broken so here is a dropbox link.

Nice!

 

[Keith Rawlings]

I’m wondering if an alteration to the rules might apply for the impending 2025 Spiro challenge. I would love to try it, but I’m not really into the D and G string on any Spiro set. I’d love to pair my ancient Mittel E and A with my current Flexocore Deluxe D and G and still qualify for the challenge. Is there any chance of proposing an amendment to the challenge’s charter?

 

[Jmilitsc]

Is there any chance of proposing an amendment to the challenge’s charter?

Anyone can start a 2025 challenge w/ proposed rules! I’m probably switching off of Spiros in 2025 so I won’t be the one to re-start this one. Thank you for volunteering?

 

[Jason Hollar]

Was there ever a 2025 continuation or is this it?