Elixir

I recently purchased a btb405qm which came with the elixir strings. I found the tone a little different sounding myself but for me it was a good thing. The elixer strings right away (when new) sounded like broken in regular strings. There were none of those sickening overtones you get when a new set of regular stings haven't broken in yet. To get a solid sounding tone, I set my amp (fender bassman 100) eq almost flat, with maybe just a little treble boost and a tiny bit of mid boost. On the bass, I left the mid knob and balance knob centered. The bass knob stays around center and I have to always boost the treble to some degree in order to get a crisp sounding tone. The elixer strings to my ears, go through many stages of tone changes as they age just like any other string, but I have noticed that it does change at a slower rate than a regular string changes. If you havn't already, play a while on them,...I think they sound better after they break in, again, just like a regular set. You can get some really cool tones out of that bass as well by turning up the mid knob a bit and then messing with the mid shift ring. The mid shift doesn't do anything unless you actually have moved the mid knob off from the center indent. You can get some really "snarling" tones by moving the balance towards the neck pickup as well,........Again, all this is with my experiences and for what tones I want and for the music I play,...(Praise & Worship every Saturday night (service)) I am guessing that the tone you are after, IS, in there somewhere once you find the right settings on your bass, but if you just can't quite get there, then I would try one of the string sets you have been used to in the past. Well I probably havn't told you much that you havn't already found out for yourself there on the Ibanez 5 stringer but thought I would chime in with my experiences.

Take care,.....

Doug