Alternative materials for bass strings?

[grisezd]

Strings made from a magnetic suitable (electric bass needs magnetism with pups, unless your doing lightwave bass, which may not need that), but anyway, strings made from the metal of another planet with properties combining the best of steal and nickel and elements unknown on earth. By furry bear looking critters who want that special sound of electric bass to accompany their drum circles. Lol.

See, somebody's thinking outside the box!

Actually, with the huge numbers of ways you can sense vibration besides magnetism, no metal really is needed. But it's always been the go-to, because all strings have metal in them. That's because pickups sense metal strings which we already have, because of pickups......

 

[Ken J]

I have an Ashbory, fun to play but limited

Definitely.
I'm intrigued by the silicone strings used on the Kala, and the resulting tone.

 

[AmadeusXeno]

Something I wonder about is a different string construction. I used to have a cello that I put a set of d'addario helicore strings on. They had miltipul core wires spiraled together then the outter wraps over them. I'm sure with bass it would bring the price up, but I wonder how it would change the feel and tone of our bass strings. I know that on cello compaired to solid steel core strings they were lower tension.

 

[chocodile]

I've found that the shorter the scale of a bass with steel strings the less I like the sound. And the super short scale (and low effort) silicone strings sound good but the scale is uncomfortably short for me to intonate well (on fretless). I don't know if they scale up.

So I wonder if there is some material that will sound good in a short, maybe 25in scale, and offer a reduced effort to play. There are ideal material properties that can make this work, but I'm no materials expert!

I am on a similar hunt. Is weedwacker string nylon?
Anyway, currently the sweet spot for me looks to be 22"-25" scale and polyurethane strings.
Several "Pahoehoe" string sets are available:
Medium tension - Standard set - 20" to 21" scale
Low tension set - 18" to 21" scale
Medium tension set - Long scale - 22" to 24"

 

[mastershake]

ceramic maybe?