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DR Silver Stars are ghastly!!

#26
GTHintz said:
Instead of dumping on this guy for his typing we should be appreciative of his posting on how these strings treated him so others aren't spending money on something that we can't even play. I hope DR gets back to you and sends you some free sets of their other strings. I never tried coated and I don't plan to unless I got it free. Lol I know the Fat Beams and Lo Riders are good strings and so are the pure blues for the nickel fans. Hopefully they hook you up!
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Why would DR send him free strings? They weren't faulty, they didn't break, he just didn't like them. DR owes him nothing.
 
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#27
I'm aware of similar complaints with tapewounds, though I've never had the issue myself, and I don't recall ever hearing about it with coated strings, but it's possible that the coating is isolating the strings from ground and causing your issues. Usually the strings still get grounded because the ball end is touching both the bridge and the string core and therefore grounding it. However, there are threads on this very forum where people have had similar issues with tapewounds. I believe at least one person solved it by scraping the nylon off where it crossed the saddle to ground it. Seems like a bad idea with tapes, but since you've already tried sanding them, a little scraping the coating off at the saddle can't hurt to see if that gets them grounded properly. Best of luck.
 
#29
mmbongo said:
Have you ever tried any of the colored DR strings? If so, then you have tried Silver Stars, just in a different color.
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Nightman said:
I've installed and played these strings and never experienced any issues with them. I still have two new sets!
It was far harder reading and digesting the contents of the original post.
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I use DRs on most of my basses - they're all the K3 coated kind, like the Silver Stars. I just like neon red better :)

Never had any issues, they're my favorite round-wound strings :thumbsup:
 
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#30
I got a set of those neon green DRs once.
They lasted two songs. I switched to my backup bass and after the gig took them off. The tone suck those strings produced was palpable.
I wound up sending the strings to Johnny Green as a gift. He is an actor/bassist/bandleader who wrote the 1966 Batman theme song. He played one of the Jokers henchmen on the show.
Old dude still dyes his hair green. I figured he would love them.
Buy silly strings, win silly prizes
 
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#35
Sean Sweeney said:
I didn't realize I was getting CUTE strings... I read the hype on the package and usually I don't and usually I don't even pay attention to that stuff but I thought CO stuff but I thought coded strings if they sounded good might actually sound did Mike actually sound better longer so I didn't think very long I didn't think very long about it and grabbed them.... 1st thing I noticed was when I cut the extra bit of string off it was like cutting butter. They didn't snap or pop they just kind of squeezed like solder wire. Then I tried them out and all that came out of my amp was noise. I thought that the wire to my bridge had come undone so I actually sottered a small piece of wire from the bridge to my output Jack... But it was still there and it was obnoxious and it was high pitched and low pitched and everything in between. I didn't attribute this to the actual strings, but the sound of the strings was bad as well. I'm used to playing this bass and I know what good strings sound like and they have bass... these don't have bass! They sounded rubbery and full of mid range but almost no bit range but almost no base! The rig that I play the rig that I play is actually very very much a direct amplifier and is a direct amplifier and does not have anything in the way of EQ. I use the EQ on my base and on my other process I bass and on my other processing but the amplifier is just a straight is amplifier is just a straight amp and speaker... But that noise wouldn't go away! And as I played for a while it got worse! The covering or coating was so thick that the strings were completely insulated and made no actual contact on the bridge or my fingers! What I imagine to be were cracks or small pinholes where the salt it was where the solvent our coating had cracked add cracked the strings actually made some strings actually made some brief contact with my fingers which sounded like which sounded like a high pitched crackle as I slid my fingers over as I slid my fingers over the strings. I was kind of at a loss of what to do so I tried to scrape a little bit off at the bridge and see if that made a difference but it made almost none. I sanded the strings to try and get the covering off of it but in the end it was just horrible and nothing sounded good coming out of those strings. I've seen hundreds of people talking about the same exact situation on their amps. And I see a lot of people erroneously telling them their basses aren't grounded properly or shielded... I can assure you mine is... there's something going on with these and the coating... some kind of bizarre capacitance issue.... and also strange instances of static in the strings that discharges when you FRET them... They are literally the 1st strings that I ever returned and the store would not even and the store would not even give me credit for them and and I don't know if the company will or not. It seems like a lot of people have been returning them and I think that these were discontinued at the store I shop at. If you want a cute set of strings that only have visual updates if that only have visual appeal and maybe we'll glow in the dark we will glow in the dark then these are the strings for you as long as you don't have to actually play as long as you don't have to actually play them.
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Hang on a minute....

Musicians! (rambling on Nashville C.L.)
 
#36
MG Wolf said:
"I'm gonna go get the papers, get the papers." :bag:
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#38
And as far as them sending me a set of strings, yea... that would be in order... some basses with pure active electronics would maybe be ok, but mine is hybrid, with Bartolini line buffer at the end, so it usually sounds great... the grounding issues with these were a deal killer, but the tone besides, was also horrendous... it was like having the growl of new strings, but almost zero bass!! Like there was a kind of rolloff on them that I couldn't even EQ out of them. The only way I could see them working, would be on a peizo pickup, maybe! Maybe boil them... in vinegar... and dig a hole and bury them for a few months, like I used to do with my new cymbals when they were too bright... or... not dig them up...
 
#39
My experience with these strings (I've played the silver stars as well as several of the neon colors) is that they sound and feel and play exactly as I expected.

The coating gives the strings a slippery feel and the tone is a bit subdued, with more midrange and less high end than similar uncoated strings.

I liked them for what they were but I always go back to the DR high beams.

I can't speak to the "ghastly" issues the OP tried to express, but I didn't experience any problems.
 
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#40
Well, apparently I can't edit the post... I was going to try, because I think it makes it look kind of amateurish... I'll probably delete it out of shame in a day or so... I'm not that shamed yet! lol... and it could save someone some money, since my store wouldn't refund, but they "said" they'd tell them of the issue... I think the problems I had and a great number of other people had (if you google the colored and coated strings by these guys) May be with some strings that were coated too heavily or older basses with primarily passive electronics, which mine was, aside form the Bartolini line buffer... but the grounding and everything is the same on all of them and it sounds great with a set of regular gauge Ernie Ball's on them... I just couldn't get past the lack of bass in them, as well... when I bought regular gauge, or whatever was closest to that... plus they were cheap! lol... When you think about it, though, if they are entirely coated, it's just like magnet wire, and they will make no contact with the bridge or your fingers... the string ball will likely ground on the bridge, but if nothing else does and you have any RF floating around, say from a dimmer, computer monitor, TV or flourescent lights, which is pretty much all of them now, then you will pick up some buzz... and my rig is full range, with a tweeter, so it was like a chainsaw cutting through a snare drum! lol
 

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