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Best inexpensive strings

B

bassguy74

Feb 15, 2010
99
1
Washington State
#1
I am a beginning bassist, and am wondering about a brand (or brands) of strings that are relatively cheap, but at the same time good quality. I should probably include that I would rather not spend any more than $20 on a set of 4 strings (my bass will be 4 strings). Hope that price is workable for what I want! LOL

Anyway, thanks in advance for the answers. :)
 
#10
^ All personal preference. Some people have very sensitive fingers, so they go for flatwould (Smooth) strings. I personally dont care, so I use Roundwounds (conventional style strings)

Nickel is a more smooth sounding string, less harsh then stainless. I personally love brash and sharp sounding strings, so I opt for pure Stainless. (D'Addario Prosteels)

Medium, light & heavy refers to the thickness of the strings. That also comes down to personal preference. If you play "metal" you'll probably be using something called a drop tuning (meaning your strings would be looser, and thus able to hit lower notes). With thicker (heavy) strings, they allow you to still maintain the same relative tightness with that said tuning, as you normally would using a medium string on a regular tuning.
With heavier strings, given the EXACT same amount of tension as any other thickness of string, they will hit lower notes since they have more weight/mass to them. Like I say, this is preferable to people that choose to use lower tunings, as you can hit the lower notes without having to worry about your strings feeling like you're playing with well cooked spaghetti. Make sense?
Obviously light strings are on the other side of that spectrum. I usually like very tight strings so I use a fairly heavy gauge myself.

hope that helps!
 
#11
Graham Monette said:
^ All personal preference. Some people have very sensitive fingers, so they go for flatwould (Smooth) strings. I personally dont care, so I use Roundwounds (conventional style strings)

Nickel is a more smooth sounding string, less harsh then stainless.

Medium, light & heavy refers to the thickness of the strings. That also comes down to personal preference. If you play "metal" you'll probably be using something called a drop tuning (meaning your strings would be looser). With thicker (heavy) strings, they allow you to still maintain the same relative tightness with that said tuning, as you normally would using a medium string on a regular tuning.
Obviously light strings are on the other side of that spectrum. I usually like very tight strings so I use a fairly heavy gauge myself.

hope that helps!
Click to expand...

Awesome! Thanks for that info! That gives me a much better idea what strings to get, considering the type of music I know I'll be playing. Thanks again sir. :)
 
#12
^ No probs, I just re-edited my post for better clarity... even though it seems you've understood it quite well. I wasn't too sure if what I said would be well-construed. I'm glad you got it though.

And while you're starting out, please experiment LOTS, as you never know what you'll like until you've tried a barrage of different strings.
I personally never use cheap strings, because they stretch and go out of tune quite easily. An extra $5-10 a pack goes a *very* long ways I've found. To me thats well worth it, because I'm sure you'll find as well; that you wont be going through strings nearly as often as most people do with guitars.
 
#13
Graham Monette said:
^ No probs, I just re-edited my post for better clarity... even though it seems you've understood it quite well. I wasn't too sure if what I said would be well-construed. I'm glad you got it though.

And while you're starting out, please experiment LOTS, as you never know what you'll like until you've tried a barrage of different strings.
I personally never use cheap strings, because they stretch and go out of tune quite easily. An extra $5-10 a pack goes a *very* long ways I've found. To me thats well worth it, because I'm sure you'll find as well; that you wont be going through strings nearly as often as most people do with guitars.
Click to expand...

OK cool! Thanks Graham. :)
 

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