Do Stainless Steel Roundwound Strings Still Eat Frets?

[Groove Doctor]

No fretwear on any bass in 35 years of gigging. Rotos on my '69 P the last 12 years and not a sign of wear.

I've developed a soft & nuanced touch. Let the amp do all the hard work.

lay what ya like. Kinda like worrying about the rubber pad on your gas pedal imho

Gold !!

 

[Root 5]

I don't know "still", but they did. Used them in the late 70s and early 80s, and have the luthier's bill to show for it.

That was at a time when softer 12% fretwire was more common

 

[GIBrat51]

Well, they don't eat my bass's frets; because I don't give them the chance. Only one of my 27 basses wears round wounds; TI Jazz Rounds on my Gretsch Broadkaster. But, they're nickel wounds - and almost as smooth as some flats. When I bought my '78 Fender P-Bass in 1988, the original owner had stainless Roto 66's on it; bragged that the bass had never worn anything else (although it did come from the factory with Fender's Squier-made flats); and urged me to never use anything else. When I went to bed that night, it had Roto RS77LD's on it - over the mostly missing frets. OTOH? My played-nearly-to-Death '73 Rick 4001 came to me wearing flatwounds (and, from their condition, they may have been the factory Maxima Flats, too); and, from the condition of the frets? I seriously doubt it ever had a set of rounds on it. And, it still doesn't...
However... while it may take longer than it used to? Yes, stainless rounds will eat frets. But, so will any metal strings - eventually. Steel is still harder than nickel-brass frets, and rounds are still pretty much the equivalent of a dull file... How long it takes, though is pretty much up to you...

 

[Pier_]

I've been using Rotosound Swing66 since 2008 on most of my basses, they are my go-to rounds.

check these pics: https://photos.app.goo.gl/4iLAWKGr8ZUijJu96

this is the neck of a Precision I owned years ago, after 5 years using Swing 66 45-105 or 50-110, and being my only bass, so a lot of playing hours.

the myth of the Rotosound eating the frets it's only related to the soft nickel alloy of the Rickenbackers back then.
I have a Yamaha Attitude II since 2021, always used with Roto BS66 (the bass is from 1999, only used with rounds, except a month with flats by the last owner before me), hard-played, with heavy hand, tapping, bending and every "wearing" technique you can imagine, and it doesn't show nothing but typical roundwound wear I have on nickel-strung basses.

my Aria SB1000 from 1980 have been used only with Rotosound Swing66 since the first day by the previous owner, and never seen a fret dressing: https://photos.app.goo.gl/3nMgRC8daR5cNK7G7

this one I owned a few years ago is a SB1000 from 1979: https://photos.app.goo.gl/XGrLBbeSR3rV5MC96
always rounds, mostly Rotosound.

this Thunderbird from 2006, owned by a friend of mine, have been used with Rotosound for many years (I then switched to Ernie Ball nickel): https://goo.gl/photos/Vr18E2jNPexyGRLZ9

Gibson frets are probably made of adamantium I've had a '78 Ripper that didn't even show the typical signs of roundwounds, and the same with three other Thunderbirds and two SG...

 

[Arthur U. Poon]

Short version - interested in hearing others recent experience with using stainless steel round wounds on newer issue basses. Trying them on a newer Player P I bought new about a year ago, don't want to destroy the frets and have to deal with all of that.


Longer story version - Back in the day I had a new '74 Ric 4001 (same one in my avatar) that I used RotoSound stainless steel strings on. Because I wanted that Chris Squire Ric sound and thought that was the ticket. What I really needed was more talent, but anyway...

Over the course of about two and a half years and three fret jobs the damn thing was practically fretless due to how the strings destroyed the frets and I finally just sold it off. Now, I've read that "soft" frets was an issue with that era Ric's but since that day I've never used SS strings on another bass being worried about how much fret damage the SS strings might do to another one.

So I have a slightly used set I took off another recent new purchase (SS Sadowski strings from a new Metro Express) because it was TOO bright and put some NYXL's on it, which that and a bunch of tone tweaking finally got me where I wanted it to be with that one tonally. Put those Sadowski strings on my year old Player P as a test just to see if it would wake it up tonally and it did, in spades. But now I'm concerned about leaving them on long term, don't want to go through that again. Liking how they sound on the P but worried about premature fret damage.

Stainless Steel Rotosound Swing Bass 66's chewed up the frets on my '76 Rickenbacker 4001 too. As I understand it, Rickenbacker used a very soft fret wire at that time.

At that same time I was also regularly gigging with a hammered early 70's Fender Precision. The guy who owned it before me said he used nothing but Rotosound SB66's. And I continued using them on it. Those frets held up completely fine.

I think if the player had a very heavy fretting hand, they might see some fret wear, but I believe a nickel plated steel roundwound would cause fret wear as well for a player with a heavy fretting hand.

Today's stainless steel Swing Bass 66's have a smoother feeling outer surface than they had in the late 70's/early 80's, IMO. I typically use them on my Precision Bass, and I've had zero problems from using them.