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A Message to Bass String Manufacturers
- Thread starter akratzer
- Start date
Maybe, but who ever remembers the customer who saunters in all reasonable and polite?
This might be too aggressive though. I imagine this is being said like a mafia guy.
"Mafia guy"... That's when the string maker wakes up to a horses head in the bed. You can be sure they'll make you any set you like then!
it's a very good example.
obviously, DB strings are way more expensive in general. lots of "student" strings like helicores can be $150 for a set.
BUT-
they are actually following the business model i described. in the case of DB, if you are looking for that one less-than-standard string, you are going to be willing to pay for it. way more than an electric player would, i think. that's why its available.
sometimes i may give too much credit to certain businesses, but a lot of the time they've run the numbers and the results are based on how regular people will or will not spend a given amount of money.
For $130 I'd expect John Plant to find a sharp rock, chop something down, build a fire, and a rope making machine and go round up some cats
Wait till you see the price on these….and believe it or not gut strings are still very popular among double bassists. These are about as pricey as they get, but even a “budget” set of gut strings is about ~$400. Plus they can either last years or maybe 2 gigs…no one knows. The reason they are so expensive is that they are just labor intensive, first you have to harvest them from piles of guts from butchers, then clean them, then grade them, and for bass we need very high quality because they are gonna be hand twisted and dried and then put under pretty high tension. Then their is maintenance, as a player you need to keep nail trimmers to trim any fraying fibers and also oil to keep them hydrated and from drying out. Nobody would do it if the tone, and feel weren’t worth the price, but a lot of people still do. Also, Goat intestine is the most popular these days actually.
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WOW. Didn't expect to get this volume of response to my post. It was meant as tongue-in-cheek snark, brought on by an unsuccessful search for a high C sting to complete a set of D'Addario nylon flat wounds I was purchasing. (FWIW, I ultimately got a Black Diamond one that is a bit heavier in gauge than would make for the kind of perfectly balance set most of us would prefer.)
D'Addario is arguably the world's largest, multi-national string manufacturer with a "world" headquarters in NY, and a European headquarters in England, along with offices around the globe including in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Australia and China. Since it is not a public company, its hard to find recent figures, but in 2014 it was written up in Forbes as a roughly $150 million dollar a year concern, generating about 8% profit -- not too shabby by average corporation standards. They also create strings for other brands and have extensive OEM agreements with instrument makers like Fender.
IMHO, the fact that there appears to be no way to buy a D'Addario Nylon Tapewound C -- in a set or as a single -- from the usual channels (Just Strings, String Joy, Amazon, BassStringsOnly, StringsandBeyond, the D'Addario website, etc.) feels like a curious oversight from such a major string manufacturer considering we are now about 35 years into 6 string basses being commonly offered by a number of larger guitar makers.
For the alarmist out there, I don't believe that there is a need for anyone to lose sleep about D'Addario going out of business if they were to add said string to their line.
D'Addario is arguably the world's largest, multi-national string manufacturer with a "world" headquarters in NY, and a European headquarters in England, along with offices around the globe including in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Australia and China. Since it is not a public company, its hard to find recent figures, but in 2014 it was written up in Forbes as a roughly $150 million dollar a year concern, generating about 8% profit -- not too shabby by average corporation standards. They also create strings for other brands and have extensive OEM agreements with instrument makers like Fender.
IMHO, the fact that there appears to be no way to buy a D'Addario Nylon Tapewound C -- in a set or as a single -- from the usual channels (Just Strings, String Joy, Amazon, BassStringsOnly, StringsandBeyond, the D'Addario website, etc.) feels like a curious oversight from such a major string manufacturer considering we are now about 35 years into 6 string basses being commonly offered by a number of larger guitar makers.
For the alarmist out there, I don't believe that there is a need for anyone to lose sleep about D'Addario going out of business if they were to add said string to their line.
https://www.amazon.com/DAddario-TWB035-Guitar-Single-String/dp/B00E9SXJXE
Wait, Black Diamond makes black nylon tapewounds?
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Neglected to mention that the length I need is medium scale (32" Jaguar bass). Thanks for the link for the long scale -- may just buy one despite the single costing about half again as much as the original set of four.
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You check LaBella? I have tapewound 6-string sets from them, not sure about medium scale though
I wonder: is there such a thing as a medium-scale high C of *any* make/model?
(I see now Black Diamond makes black coated rounds, not tapewounds. Was the BD high C in medium scale, either? or did you custom-order it that way?)
If I'm right, the reason you don't find them (beside the fact that 5- or 6-string basses in shorter scales are rare) is that you don't really need them. A high C is flexible enough for it to be wound on a post without further tapering, and not break, just as guitar strings come untapered (except for very large gauges), and untapered they go on the post.
Neither do strings have to have silk to make contact with tuning posts: many strings have no silk at all. Tapes do, because they need it to hold the nylon tape in place, but one or two extra loops of unsilked, taped section of string around the post won't create any problem.
The only thing that really drives the shape of string manufacturers product catalog: A bunch of people that are happy to be separated from their money. If they don't share your preferences and tastes, you are SOL.
Anyway props to brands that offer singles. I like them. You should too.
Anyway props to brands that offer singles. I like them. You should too.
The market for medium scale tapewound C strings is likely single digits per year. Does a C string taper down above the nut?
