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Bass Boomers dead G# in E string after a month

acmeseed

acmeseed

Jun 15, 2009
243
205
Mission Viejo, CA
#1
I put GHS Bass Boomers in my 64 Vintage Reissue a month ago. I liked the strings a lot, they had enough brightness and growl to get through the mix

at the church I play which as a horrific sound system and acoustics.

Thursday night I went to rehearsal and righ away noticed that the G# on the E string was dead, just a short thud without any sustain, I had played

the previous Sunday and had no problems.I have not changed anything in the bass recently.

I have read a couple of times complaints about these strings not lasting too long, I wonder what's your opinion, does it seem like a string going

bad? I understand you cannot make an accurate assertion without seeing the problem first hand, but I will greatly appreciate any feedback you can

provide.

I'll probably end up switching back to Rotosounds for now.

Thanks.

My New 64 Vintage Reissue

My New 64 Vintage Reissue

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#2
Interesting, I've had GHS boomers on my Brice for about a month now without any problems but it's good to hear about other's experiences. That said I'm planning to switch anyways to some tapers.

How does it sound after switching the string out?
 
#4
I can get about a week out them, then they lose their body to my ears, so you did pretty good getting a month out of them.

If you like the sound of rotosounds SS strings, I will suggest the diaddario pro steel series. I was a lifetime user of rotosounds, but I started getting dead strings right out of the package. After about three packages in the span of a year with dead strings, I started to shop around for a string that came close or matched the rotos, but didn't have the dead string issue. I found them in the pro steels. I've moved around, but I always find myself leaning towards the pro steels now. I've been using them for about 6 years now, and not a single dead string ever. They are about 99% what the rotos were, but have a little smoother feel to the string, which is a bonus too.

I've never endorsed a product, but I would with these if I was approached.
 
#7
I don't use GHS because of how quickly they die (and how often they come with one dead string in a pack). If your string sounds fresh outside of the one fretted note then the issue likely isn't the string. Just to be safe, I would doublecheck the string for any imperfections but you might have a fret issue.
 
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#8
I've been using GHS Bass Boomers for about 30 years now without any issues. I've never had a dead string in a package (but I've seen some bad setups that made a note or string sound poorly - either dead or overly biting).

That said, they do (as does every string I've ever tried) loose their "new-string-zing" after about 8-10 hours of playing. I clean and maintain them with Fast Fret (before and after every time I play) and Dunlop string cleaner (once every week or so) and can milk them for about 40-50 hours before they hit the event horizon and I have to change them. I'm sure there are other strings out there that will maintain longer with less babying... but I dig the sound I get from them, so I'm hesitant to change in my old age now.

If you're having issues with a single note, something is off. Bad fret, weird spot on the fingerboard, or something. I've seen dead spots show up on a bass when the set up was for different (usually drastically different) gauge strings also.

If that isn't it, I'm at a loss to help. I'd definitely recommend having a pro set it up for you... or at least go to the Fender site and get the specs they post there for optimum set up. What they recommend is pretty much dead on (I play pretty much only Fenders these days). The only thing I've tweaked a bit from their set up is raising the G string just a hair higher than they state (< 1 mm higher). Keeps the buzz off the B on the 4th fret with light gauge strings.
 
#9
I agree that it is strange that only 1 note is off, I'll have to go back and look tonight. The odd thing is that I played the same song the previous Sunday with G# all over the place and did not notice anything off, it's possible that the fret got hit and I did not notice, my son plays his short scale and stores it in the same rack, he's been known to cause havoc.
 
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#10
acmeseed said:
I agree that it is strange that only 1 note is off, I'll have to go back and look tonight. The odd thing is that I played the same song the previous Sunday with G# all over the place and did not notice anything off, it's possible that the fret got hit and I did not notice, my son plays his short scale and stores it in the same rack, he's been known to cause havoc.
Click to expand...


Good luck with figuring this out. Keep us posted. I'm really curious about this.
 
#11
Mike, I'm like the others who have used GHS for some time now and not had a problem. I don't get a few hours out of them and think them dead. They last a very decent time for me. They don't start out with a huge zing so when a little edge goes some think they are dead. They are not intended to sound like SS strings new or a couple months later. On the other hand, Rotos are clearly the fasted dying strings I've ever used.

I'm not sure what's going on but don't give up on the Boomers just yet. If you like mids--even more than Boomers and somewhat similar to the Rotos, you might try the Pressure Wounds. They lack some zing if that's really what you are after, but do have more mids. Pleasant mids, unlike DAs for me personally. But as mentioned above the DA Pro Steels are very nice.
 
#12
dagrev said:
I'm not sure what's going on but don't give up on the Boomers just yet
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply, I am not ready to give up yet, just perplexed by what's going on.

I checked this a bit last night (late night at work, not a lot of energy left). This may be a case of the nut behind the wheel, not the car ...

The symptom was definitely there, I even timed how long it took for the G# to decay versus the G & A and it was significantly less. I then dropped the string to D and the problem moved over which sort of tells me it was not fret related, I then raised the string to F# and the problem seems to have disappeared, I dropped it back to E and it seems quite better. It's odd, but it could be my anal retentiveness in place here. I am going to take it to rehearsal Thursday and see what I get.

Thanks everyone for your input.

 
#14
Glad to hear you sorted it out, acmeseed. :)


As of late, I'm a GHS Fanboy, and my disclaimer about Boomers, -and this is only my opinion, is that Boomers aren't an overly bright string, even fresh out of the pack. I replaced a set of LaBella Slappers that had been on one of my basses for years, which had been stored away in it's case, and the LaBellas were actually brighter.

If you find that Boomers aren't your cup of tea, look at Bass Strings Online's site at LaBella's Nickel Roundwounds, the price per set is amazingly low, and IMO they're great sounding strings. Rotosound Swing Bass stainless, they're not, but for a nickel plated roundwound, they're very, very good.

For me, Boomers have a pretty unique tone, lots of midrange punch, but if I were looking for a really bright sounding string, Boomers wouldn't be anywhere near the top of my list. This being said, I get pretty much the same lifespan from Boomers than I do from D'Addario XLs or Ernie Ball Slinkys.

Best regards
 
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#15
So ironically I just had this happen with my bass which also has GHS boomers.
I discovered the cause was that the strings/fretboard got knocked while moving the bass and it was enough to actually dent one of the strings over the fret. The dent was on the underside of the string so I couldn't easily see it. Because of that, whenever it was fretted near the dent in the string, it sounded dead.
 
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#16
ShadowImage said:
I discovered the cause was that the strings/fretboard got knocked while moving the bass and it was enough to actually dent one of the strings over the fret
Click to expand...

Interesting, it must be a Southern California thing :thumbsup:

I have to look at my string more closely to see if this might be the problem.

I am playing mine tonight in rehearsal, I'll see how it sounds tonight. I think Linnin is up to something with his thought that my issue might have been improper stretching. I have not had a chance to look at this again, this pesky little thing called work gets in the way sometimes.
 
#17
OK... so this happened last night and I thought back to this thread immediately. I changed strings (same GHS Boomers like I have been using for the last several hundred string changes) on one of my basses and dang if the E string was super loose and felt/sounded awful. I thought maybe the temperature and humidity changes had shifted the neck a bit, so I checked, but everything seemed exactly right. But the E was super dead, floppy, and creating way too much fret buzz for what I was accustomed to. I measured the set up height and that was dead on. And it was way overly sensitive to tuning. I thought, dang! Maybe I just got a bad string like was mentioned earlier in this thread. Would have been the first ever for me from GHS. Upon more careful examination of the set I opened and put on the bass, it had two "A" strings (75s). One of those came in the "E" (95) string envelope.

I took them off and will be going to exchange them tonight. I always have several backup packs of strings, so no biggie, but WOW! That's the first time I've ever run into that from any manufacturer. I'm sure that happens so rarely it's like winning the lottery... so once again, Karma was used for the wrong kind of odds beating for me. But I'd also be interested in seeing if that's happened to anyone else?
 
#18
Thumb n Fingers said:
OK... so this happened last night and I thought back to this thread immediately. I changed strings (same GHS Boomers like I have been using for the last several hundred string changes) on one of my basses and dang if the E string was super loose and felt/sounded awful. I thought maybe the temperature and humidity changes had shifted the neck a bit, so I checked, but everything seemed exactly right. But the E was super dead, floppy, and creating way too much fret buzz for what I was accustomed to. I measured the set up height and that was dead on. And it was way overly sensitive to tuning. I thought, dang! Maybe I just got a bad string like was mentioned earlier in this thread. Would have been the first ever for me from GHS. Upon more careful examination of the set I opened and put on the bass, it had two "A" strings (75s). One of those came in the "E" (95) string envelope.

I took them off and will be going to exchange them tonight. I always have several backup packs of strings, so no biggie, but WOW! That's the first time I've ever run into that from any manufacturer. I'm sure that happens so rarely it's like winning the lottery... so once again, Karma was used for the wrong kind of odds beating for me. But I'd also be interested in seeing if that's happened to anyone else?
Click to expand...

Shoot me a PM, and I'll get this taken care of for you.
 
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