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Eucerin Skin Cream Kills Strings DEAD!!!
- Thread starter JimmyM
- Start date
Hey Jimmy,
I have a question about the Eucerin treatment that you should be able to answer, given your extensive experience with "things strings":
How does treatment with Eucerin compare with "natural" aging of strings? It is plain that Eucerin will deaden bass strings very effectively, and that it's possible to control the effect using sequential treatments, but how would a new set treated with Eucerin sound compared to the same brand/gauge aged, say, after 5 years of regular use?
Pretty close?
And also, have you ever had "Eucerized" new strings get TOO thumpy and dead after regular use? Does the aging "compound"?
Thanks!
I have a question about the Eucerin treatment that you should be able to answer, given your extensive experience with "things strings":
How does treatment with Eucerin compare with "natural" aging of strings? It is plain that Eucerin will deaden bass strings very effectively, and that it's possible to control the effect using sequential treatments, but how would a new set treated with Eucerin sound compared to the same brand/gauge aged, say, after 5 years of regular use?
Pretty close?
And also, have you ever had "Eucerized" new strings get TOO thumpy and dead after regular use? Does the aging "compound"?
Thanks!
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Good questions all, Ken.
After 5 years of regular use, Eucerin will be useless. But depending on the strings, I've found I can get up to what I estimate is about 80% dead on new strings with the Eucerin. This varies by string type and brand, but on the whole, that's what I can usually get. Metal fatigue combined with your hand goo and sweat over the years takes care of the rest over time, so your strings will always have "room to grow." Still, 80% dead is good enough for me to gig with.
And yes I have gotten strings too thumpy. There was once I just wanted to make a set of rounds just lose a little bit of edge, like new rounds slightly played in, and put too much on them. I was able to clean them up and restore them a bit with an alcohol wipedown or two. I gave up trying to make the effect subtle after that. Nowadays the Eucerin is reserved for instant death
Just did some Eucerining on a couple of my basses with rounds and got a direct comparison with a year old set on a PJ bass killed the hard way and a new set on a PJ killed with Eucerin as dead as I could. The strings in question are my beloved Dunlop Super Bright Nickels, gauges 40-100.
I did it so I could start using my Hammersmith PJ with the new blues/jazz band. It's considerably lighter than any of my other Fenders or FSO's, but the strings were really bright. Not entirely new, but still way too much zing, and this is not a zing band. This is a thud band. I have been using flats up until this past Sunday, and they've loved them, but I really wanted to use the Hammersmith and didn't want to change it out to flats. So I did 5 overnight coats of Eucerin on them before I stopped getting any more thud out of them. First coat was like they just barely broke in a little more. But progressively, they got less and less zing till the 5th coat, which was the point of critical Eucerinic mass for these strings.
I would say that the E string got about 75% of the way to total one-year thudland with the G string achieving maybe 60% at best, probably a little less. All of them still have more top end response than the year old set, but the G string has a good bit more than the others. And as expected, the thinner the string, the lesser the results. But it was still good enough to totally get over with the thud on my gig, and the guys in the band noticed I was using rounds without me saying anything, but said it sounded just as good, maybe even better in some ways. I thought it was a little edgier and aggressive, too, which suits me just fine. We're pretty quiet volume-wise, but we have balls
So now I'm going to do that to the set of SBN's on my booteeky neck-thru 5-string with EMG actives, which adds a 120 B. Would never use that bass with the blues band, but I do have a couple gigs coming up with another band where I need it. I finally got around to putting Dunlops on it last year, and still haven't played it enough to do anything but slightly break them in. Done one coat already with the same results. But as much as I love dead SBN's on Fenders, I've never tried it on my booteeky active neck-thrus. Them I've always kept live strings on because I never liked dead roundwounds before the SBN's, and folks kind of expect a little zing with those types of basses. But I love dead SBN's and never tried it on one of them so it's worth a shot. Plus the other active can't use Dunlops because the Sperzels on it always break the E string due to the fat part getting wound around the post.
Just thought you all might enjoy a little actual science in action.
I did it so I could start using my Hammersmith PJ with the new blues/jazz band. It's considerably lighter than any of my other Fenders or FSO's, but the strings were really bright. Not entirely new, but still way too much zing, and this is not a zing band. This is a thud band. I have been using flats up until this past Sunday, and they've loved them, but I really wanted to use the Hammersmith and didn't want to change it out to flats. So I did 5 overnight coats of Eucerin on them before I stopped getting any more thud out of them. First coat was like they just barely broke in a little more. But progressively, they got less and less zing till the 5th coat, which was the point of critical Eucerinic mass for these strings.
I would say that the E string got about 75% of the way to total one-year thudland with the G string achieving maybe 60% at best, probably a little less. All of them still have more top end response than the year old set, but the G string has a good bit more than the others. And as expected, the thinner the string, the lesser the results. But it was still good enough to totally get over with the thud on my gig, and the guys in the band noticed I was using rounds without me saying anything, but said it sounded just as good, maybe even better in some ways. I thought it was a little edgier and aggressive, too, which suits me just fine. We're pretty quiet volume-wise, but we have balls
So now I'm going to do that to the set of SBN's on my booteeky neck-thru 5-string with EMG actives, which adds a 120 B. Would never use that bass with the blues band, but I do have a couple gigs coming up with another band where I need it. I finally got around to putting Dunlops on it last year, and still haven't played it enough to do anything but slightly break them in. Done one coat already with the same results. But as much as I love dead SBN's on Fenders, I've never tried it on my booteeky active neck-thrus. Them I've always kept live strings on because I never liked dead roundwounds before the SBN's, and folks kind of expect a little zing with those types of basses. But I love dead SBN's and never tried it on one of them so it's worth a shot. Plus the other active can't use Dunlops because the Sperzels on it always break the E string due to the fat part getting wound around the post.
Just thought you all might enjoy a little actual science in action.
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Nice. You DO know there's a handy way to prevent the fat part from getting to the tuner? I've had to do it with flats here and there-the old 'old string ball end down the new string to space it off the bridge' trick? Good trick. Makes the string shorter. Some don't like it for some reason or another.Just did some Eucerining on a couple of my basses with rounds and got a direct comparison with a year old set on a PJ bass killed the hard way and a new set on a PJ killed with Eucerin as dead as I could. The strings in question are my beloved Dunlop Super Bright Nickels, gauges 40-100.
I did it so I could start using my Hammersmith PJ with the new blues/jazz band. It's considerably lighter than any of my other Fenders or FSO's, but the strings were really bright. Not entirely new, but still way too much zing, and this is not a zing band. This is a thud band. I have been using flats up until this past Sunday, and they've loved them, but I really wanted to use the Hammersmith and didn't want to change it out to flats. So I did 5 overnight coats of Eucerin on them before I stopped getting any more thud out of them. First coat was like they just barely broke in a little more. But progressively, they got less and less zing till the 5th coat, which was the point of critical Eucerinic mass for these strings.
I would say that the E string got about 75% of the way to total one-year thudland with the G string achieving maybe 60% at best, probably a little less. All of them still have more top end response than the year old set, but the G string has a good bit more than the others. And as expected, the thinner the string, the lesser the results. But it was still good enough to totally get over with the thud on my gig, and the guys in the band noticed I was using rounds without me saying anything, but said it sounded just as good, maybe even better in some ways. I thought it was a little edgier and aggressive, too, which suits me just fine. We're pretty quiet volume-wise, but we have balls
So now I'm going to do that to the set of SBN's on my booteeky neck-thru 5-string with EMG actives, which adds a 120 B. Would never use that bass with the blues band, but I do have a couple gigs coming up with another band where I need it. I finally got around to putting Dunlops on it last year, and still haven't played it enough to do anything but slightly break them in. Done one coat already with the same results. But as much as I love dead SBN's on Fenders, I've never tried it on my booteeky active neck-thrus. Them I've always kept live strings on because I never liked dead roundwounds before the SBN's, and folks kind of expect a little zing with those types of basses. But I love dead SBN's and never tried it on one of them so it's worth a shot. Plus the other active can't use Dunlops because the Sperzels on it always break the E string due to the fat part getting wound around the post.
Just thought you all might enjoy a little actual science in action.
Nifty trick, but this bass has a Kahler whammy bar (hence the Sperzels), and there's no room for a second ball end. But still a good tip, so thx anyway, David!
Thanks! I was concerned that if I treated a new set of strings with Eucerin they would become TOO dead (assuming that is possible...) after a few years of natural aging. I guess I won't worry!
I thought that was you playing on Rockwell’s first album!
You dulled your strings... with science!
Wondering if Eucerin threads should be in Strings, Accessories, or perhaps since it’s such a BFD it should have its own category? Hmm. Maybe it’s a sticky at a minimum...it is kind of sticky anyway
Strings. It affects the strings, so it's the best place to find it. I do agree it should be stickied. My scienterrific discovery was brilliant.
Wondering if Eucerin threads should be in Strings, Accessories, or perhaps since it’s such a BFD it should have its own category? Hmm. Maybe it’s a sticky at a minimum...it is kind of sticky anyway
It could also be posted under “Bassists”. I found this old photo of Mr. Jamerson with his trusty jar of Eucerine by his side. Historians claim that his ancient strings and unique index finger playing style were responsible for bringing the funk to the Motown tone. But Talkbass now has definitive proof that the real secret to his tone was this magical tub of deadening elixer.
