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DR Black Beauties

I bought them for this bass years ago. Looked fantastic. Sounded decent for a while then they just kinda went flat and lifeless after a couple weeks. I never bothered with colored/coated strings after that.
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They look cool That's for sure. I tried a set once on my jazz bass, nice contrast against the maple neck. I was in a punk band at the time and was about 65/35 finger/pick, I remember the pick did a number on the black in no time, and I was expecting the long life of elixir or cleartone, but they did not hold their tone like that, not a whole lot longer than uncoated dr. I was a long time user of dr, mainly hi beams, I would even boil them to get some more time out of them. Not a good idea to boil coated strings, in fact I once killed a near new set of cleartones by cleaning them with a Lysol wipe of some sort. A mistake I won't make again.

I could get several months to even a year out of elixirs and cleartone, when I broke a string (usually the a) that was when I would change them. The Black beauty was a disappointment since I was expecting similar long life. They were great when new of course, and I probably got 2 months at best out of them. I remember not buying another set though.

Next string I am trying is the Dunlop Marcus miller because I got 2 sets for $30, generally less than the cost of one set of DR. And I trust Marcus, and was impressed with dunlop guitar strings.