Double Bass Gut Strings: Are They Worth It To Try? (part I)

[samriley]

2 rehearsals and a midnight trio session leave me with the following conclusions.

- LaBella and plain Gut combo are an interesting match. Gauges are close to each other due to LaBella's thickness. However, the character of the LaBellas is too strong.

Possible Solution: Woke up the next day and tried on Helicores.

- Gut is REALLY HARD TO PLAY! All the lines i used to play on Steel/Nylon strings keep getting messed up. This is partially due to the feel difference between the Gut and the Nylon. Gut tends to catch my finger particularly transitioning from the D to the A. Hopefully i'll get used to this problem with time.

- Gig at Cleopatra's Needle tomorrow, will use it then. Current setup is Helicore Hybrid E and A. Plain Gut G D.

Sounds great when listening to someone play the bass. Actually, they sound wonderful...

hmm

what plain guts do ya have on the top 2?
i dont rekon the steel A & E would be a balanced match with the plain guts. surely the tensions would be too different..
guts need a higher action.
DD plain gut G & D are the best strings i've played. along with the wound gut kurschner A and recently discovered the pizzicato wound gut E is good too. maybe give those a try?

check out john webber & neal miners setup & action, especially johns. thats how you play guts.

 

[Francois Blais]

<snip>Pirastro (alas, my favorite, Pirastro Pizzicato, has been discontinued).

Really?
They're still in the catalog.
Was this confirmed by Adrian Mueller?
You can email him at [email protected] and he's usually quite fast at answering.

 

[Bobby King]

Really?
They're still in the catalog.
Was this confirmed by Adrian Mueller?
You can email him at [email protected] and he's usually quite fast at answering.

You know, I didn't confirm this with Adrian, and it may be incorrect. I heard this from a luthier in Dustin Williams' shop in Nashville. He works on Dennis Crouch's basses and Dennis had been using Pizzicatos and Gamuts.

Personally, I think the Garbo A works just fine with Gamut upper strings. I didn't like the Garbo E on my bass but the Anima works too. Many gut-heads seem to be OK with Velvets on the E&A, Dennis Crouch is pretty hardcore though.

 

[Francois Blais]

I'm firing an email to Adrian.
I'll let you know his answer.

 

[Mark Perna]

- Gut is REALLY HARD TO PLAY! All the lines i used to play on Steel/Nylon strings keep getting messed up. This is partially due to the feel difference between the Gut and the Nylon. Gut tends to catch my finger particularly transitioning from the D to the A. Hopefully i'll get used to this problem with time.

Gut sounds great but you've discovered that after playing on steel, playing on gut can be likened to running in quicksand. You'll get used to it. You have to have good right hand upright jazz pizz technique. You really can't fall back on anything resembling EB right hand technique to get by (unlike with steel strings). Keep practicing and the first time you play a really fast burner and you're barely keeping up and you're thinking to yourself how much easier this was with steel strings, just remember how great the strings sound.

Even if you go back to steel strings, the time spent on gut will make your right hand that much better on steel.

mark

 

[Phil Rowan]

Kev, you might try the old "string thru tailpiece w/ ball facing out" method to add a bit more tension to the D/G. They'll still be loose, no doubt, but a little less so.

 

[Kevin Hsieh]

Keep practicing and the first time you play a really fast burner and you're barely keeping up and you're thinking to yourself how much easier this was with steel strings, just remember how great the strings sound.

Even if you go back to steel strings, the time spent on gut will make your right hand that much better on steel.

mark

Don Sickler (my combo director) counted off La Villa (tune that Max Roach used to play) at a blazing tempo... ouch

 

[Alexi David]

Don Sickler (my combo director) counted off La Villa (tune that Max Roach used to play) at a blazing tempo... ouch

GREAT tune. Got an interesting Sickler arrangement of it that I can have a copy of?

You don't have to have them 2 inches off the fingerboard. I tend to use thicker guts that have higher tension, and I keep them pretty low. And I still get a huge sound. It'll really work your Right hand technique. The way I have it set up doesn't give you that full-on 1945 sound, but that's not what I'm going for.

You may want to try the Charlie Haden thing, which Mark Helias hipped me to. Guts on top, Spiro reds on the bottom. On my bass (and Charlie's) it works surprisingly well. He uses the Tynex wrapped Golden Spirals on top (great pizz, completely unbowable - but Charlie doesn't really do arco). Mark thinks that Charlie must have bought up every existing set of Spirals before they disappeared.

Definitely only use very high quality guts....Gamut, Dlugoleckis, or NOS. I bought 2 1/2 sets of Artones off of Ebay for next to nothing (one set was $70)- in fantastic shape. Best guts ever. Keep an eye out. Ask cats like Ari, Neil Miner, etc. if they have any they want to part with. I also might have some used stuff for you, email me.

If you wanna try out my bass, I have a gig at Smalls on the 15th - with Eyal Vilner's Big Band. At that gig you can hear them without an amp.

Also, get some old-school wound E and A's........painfully unwrap the silver and voila! Nice D & G plain gut strings. Cats often give these things away. I love the arco on them, but for pizz they're a pain in the ass.

 

[Kevin Hsieh]

I can definitely feel my right hand technique adapting to the response of the guts. It's impossible to play them the way that I play steel, they require a bit more finesse to blossom (and lots of trust that the sound that everyone else is hearing in front of you is big).

Current Setup:
Unknown plain Gut G and D
Helicore Hybrid E and A

string height is medium low. as Alexi said, I don't get that 1945 sound, but it isn't what i'm looking for anyways.

I loove the sound.

Will probably look into getting a pair of Gamuts Dlugoleckis or NOS sometime if I still like them.

About Charlie, from what Mike (one of the guys at David Gage's) told me, is that they stopped mass producing them, but Charlie convinced them to make them especially for him.

Gig tonight at Cleopatra's Needle. Will report back.

Alexi, I'll drop by on the 15.

 

[Alexi David]

I can definitely feel my right hand technique adapting to the response of the guts. It's impossible to play them the way that I play steel, they require a bit more finesse to blossom (and lots of trust that the sound that everyone else is hearing in front of you is big).

I have the reverse problem these days - you give me a bass with thin steel strings touching the fingerboard and my groove goes out the window! I'm gonna keep steels on my incoming EUB, which will take care of that problem!

About Charlie, from what Mike (one of the guys at David Gage's) told me, is that they stopped mass producing them, but Charlie convinced them to make them especially for him.

OK, that cracked me up!

Alexi, I'll drop by on the 15.

Cool!

 

[Jeff Kissell]

Kevin,
I'm so glad you're giving this a real shot, ultimately you'll find out a lot about yourself and your voice in this process, whatever you end up with on your bass.
Use the energy of the strings, the bounce, as propulsion with your right hand. It's kinda zen but there is more speed and articulation there than it seems at first. You mentioned the blossom or bloom of the note; you're discovering that gut has more snap and steel is more springy. The good news is that you really can't over play the strings (but you will work your @$$ off for a while )
-J
update- string height confirmed at 7mm - 10mm

 

[Kevin Hsieh]

Gig last night was great. Bass sounded nice and full. Didn't use an amp, but had a little assistance from my Sm57beta into the house system.

Bass keeps getting easier and easier to play, right hand and left hand. My thumb position is adapting to the strings as is my right hand technique. We played a burner last night and it was a breeze.

However, I have to remind myself to tune more often...

Gig tonight and a session tomorrow so I might have some sound files for compare and contrast.

cheers

edit: POSTING IN CLASSIFIED FOR USED GAMUTS, DLUGOLECKIS, NOS, ARTONES, GOLDEN SPIRALS. Help a brother out

 

[Bobby King]

I'm firing an email to Adrian.
I'll let you know his answer.

Did you find out anything, Francois?


I have today off and so the devil has made work for idle hands

With all these current gut string threads on TB, it made me jones to put the real deal back on my Strunal. First I put my plain Gamut G&A with the Anima E&A -- pretty decent. Then I switched out the Anima A for a Garbo A -- better. Like I said, idle hands, so off went the Velvets and back on went my Pirastro Pizzicatos.

No sweeping conclusions, no epiphanies. Basically, I like them all! Switching to the plain guts you get those thick punchy notes on top, and great slap (if you go for that sort of thing) but you lose the clarity on the D string as you go up the neck and you lose any semblance of of singiness or mwah (if you go for that sort of thing).

As far as the bottom strings, the Garbo/Anima actually have a darker tone than the Pizzicatos, which goes well next to plain gut, and their tension is very well matched, but the gut core of the Pizzicatos has more of a cutting midrange "knock", or attack, which is a quality that the plain guts also have. The Pizz's have a little more tension than the Velvets.

The Pizzicatos are very good strings (I'm an idiot, I had some new ones that I sold), but they're not the Holy Grail. They sound like a cross between roundwound gut and Spirocore. I still think that there's plenty of other good options to use as E&A with plain gut uppers -- roundwound guts, Velvets, Eudoxa, Evah Pirazzi, Super Silvers, or even mixing plain gut and steel (if you go for that sort of thing).

Currently I've been working with Bluegrass/Americana artist Donna Ulisse (Byron House was on her two CDs, great player!)
and the funny thing is, in that band they all like it when I play my Shen with Spirocores! I have one of those Genz-Benz Shuttle amps, and using a Full Circle and Spiros, I'm getting a great sound from the DI out of the amp!

So, who knows? I guess you've got to be fluid about this stuff, exploring different set-ups. Depending on your attitude, it can be torture or it can be fun!

...end of blog

 

[M Ramsey]

Gig last night was great. Bass sounded nice and full. Didn't use an amp, but had a little assistance from my Sm57beta into the house system.

Bass keeps getting easier and easier to play, right hand and left hand. My thumb position is adapting to the strings as is my right hand technique. We played a burner last night and it was a breeze.

However, I have to remind myself to tune more often...

Gig tonight and a session tomorrow so I might have some sound files for compare and contrast.

cheers

edit: POSTING IN CLASSIFIED FOR USED GAMUTS, DLUGOLECKIS, NOS, ARTONES, GOLDEN SPIRALS. Help a brother out

Who knows if you'll be a gut player the rest of your days? But, you DID experiment, you DID give them a bit of time, you DID learn that you have to adapt your technique, and you, yourself have said that YOU like the sound.

Now, it was some effort on your part, but you can make a decision as to what you want to do based on EXPERIENCE rather than the blather you may or may not read here. It's good to read to get info, but much better to experience the differences, rather than trying to read through everyone's opinions.

Not trying to incite a riot or anything, but we all are individuals and that's why we don't have just one choice of strings (or string types) when we begin searching for "our sound."

Not Ray Brown's sound, or Red's, or Bob Moore's or Mike Ramsey's, or Uncle Toad's, or Jason Sypher's, or.....but Kevin's.

Press on young Jedi.

 

[Kevin Hsieh]

Who knows if you'll be a gut player the rest of your days? But, you DID experiment, you DID give them a bit of time, you DID learn that you have to adapt your technique, and you, yourself have said that YOU like the sound.

Now, it was some effort on your part, but you can make a decision as to what you want to do based on EXPERIENCE rather than the blather you may or may not read here. It's good to read to get info, but much better to experience the differences, rather than trying to read through everyone's opinions.

Not trying to incite a riot or anything, but we all are individuals and that's why we don't have just one choice of strings (or string types) when we begin searching for "our sound."

Not Ray Brown's sound, or Red's, or Bob Moore's or Mike Ramsey's, or Uncle Toad's, or Jason Sypher's, or.....but Kevin's.

Press on young Jedi.

+1

while it is nice to read the experiences of those that have traveled the path before me, now i can say that I've done it for myself and can decide whether or not to continue on gut with my own experience.

this is the same message that has been prescribed to many young bassists in the "Bass" forum when they ask about certain makes of basses.

TRY IT YOURSELF!

back to gut:
gig tonight. round 2! Wish me luck!

 

[PaulChambersFan]

Kev, you might try the old "string thru tailpiece w/ ball facing out" method to add a bit more tension to the D/G. They'll still be loose, no doubt, but a little less so.

Wow! Does it really work?

 

[Francois Blais]

Did you find out anything, Francois?

Well, I sent the email friday, and it was probably already evening in Germany.
I don't expect an answer before monday or tuesday morning.

 

[Phil Rowan]

Wow! Does it really work?

I guess it might depend on just how low tension a string is to begin with, but yeah, IME it makes a difference. Even some bassists who use steel/synthetics for orchestral playing have done this, namely with the occasional E string that could use just a bit more tension. I believe it has to do with the angle of the string when it passes over the bridge. By putting the string in with the ball facing out, you decrease the angle by a little, which adds a little tension.

 

[JoeyNaeger]

Just to clarify, this wouldn't actually change the tension of the strings, just the amount of that tension that gets transferred into the top.

 

[SAlcott]

Hey Kevin, just remember to think ahead regarding where your bass is gonna be, temp and humiditywise. You'll want to tune down a bit if you're heading to a dry place from a wet one.