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Double Bass GUTS ARE SO MUCH FUN!!!

#1,142
Sam Dingle said:
I'm having a hard time getting into this gut thing. The novelty is slowly wearing off (plus I've been checking out a ton of steel players and the growl and sustain isn't there in the guts). I may abandon ship...but I do have two basses...
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I did the same thing, but before you decide, read these words of wisdom from another thread about gut strings:

Jason Sypher said:
Have you read War and Peace? Well, you're about to. I've had them all and extolled the nature of most of them. Guts are a glorious sounding, primitive feeling, readily achievable connection with the history of the double bass and the sound of pre-1960's jazz.
Playing guts will teach you a new way to play the bass and show you how the fore-runners created the beautiful music they did. I highly recommend spending a period of time on guts and you might as well go for the gold and get yourself a full set of Gamut strings with the roundwound E and A and the medium gage D and G (varnished). They will be totally strange at first and you will have to adjust your bass accordingly (widen the bridge and nut spaces to accomodate the larger widths and adjust the bridge height to allow for a full healthy rotation of the string). Things will happen to you while you play the guts, you will focus on them as though you are taking care of someone's cat (which you are) watching them change, being in tune with their little quirks. You will play faster and sound more like the old bassists you love and learn a lot about note fundamentals, intonation and projection. It will likely completely take over your life and you will talk incessantly about them to your loved ones and anyone else who will listen. You will be, in short, in love. This period may last a lifetime or just a year. You should stick with this relationship for at least a year to make sure these are 'the ones'. At the end of a year you will be either evangelical in your praise or you will be exhausted and feel defeated. No one can tell you what to do, you just need to live from the 'gut' for awhile and find out if it's you. I played guts for many years, and then I played hybrids and then steels....then guts....then steels...then...STOP! After thousand of dollars had been spent I put on an old set of Spirocores and never looked back. You must take your own journey. You will learn a lot.
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- Steve
 
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#1,143
bassfiddlesteve said:
Interesting.

I use Zyex lights and I recently had gut on one of my basses. I wouldn't think Zyex would pair well with gut....but then again some people pair gut with Spirocore.

- Steve
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And you are right. The Zyex are lovely in their own and amplify through my FC very well. But the Gut D&G just punch too hard. Makes the Zyex sound so warm and tame. So now off the come.
Broke my 7yr old Spiro mittel so ordered an express replacement from Gollihur. Put in on with my old mittel A. Now I know hear it! The Spiro's and Gamuts sound and feel great on my bass. At home. Unplugged.
Gotta try them on the gig tomorrow night. Amplified. Maybe do the first set unplugged...
 
#1,144
Gig report. Gamuts & Spiro Mittels sounded beautiful. Particularly the lower positions on the Pistoy D. I kept hitting that E when available and wow. Fat warm punch. Now just gotta get the other 72 or so notes sounding like that! The Mitt E and A spoke with authority. Need to learn to control the envelope better to match the guts, but the attack and volume matched up well in a band mix. The G was less authoritative. Always is on my bass regardless of the string.
That's it for now.
 
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#1,146
Following suit of a local bass monster, I'm trying out Oliv E/A with plain gut D/G (in my case Evah Pirazzi Slap Gut).

The gut is back ordered right now from string emporium so while I wait I had the Olivs with a Spiro solo D and Evah slap synthetic G. Not as weird of a combination as you might think.

The thing about the Oliv E is that in the practice room it's total dudsville, almost no note definition, all boom.

But on the gig that boom is intoxicating. The Olivs are just huge and have such a wide spreading sound acoustically.

The E keeps sounding better, I think it's a combination of settling in and me learning how to get more out of it. They definitely seem to require a different approach.

With the amp the E fits much better with a typical jazz sustain sound, probably due to my use of the overly exaggerated sustained sound of a BP-100.

Can't wait to get the plain guts!
 
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#1,150
I went with what I heard a bunch others say hereabouts...heavy Lyon G and Med Pistol D. Any D i have tried has been the best of the set on my bass, and this Pistoy D sounds huge and punchy. I went out of my way to play as many of the D, E, F 's as I could ...I'm not sure the G speaks as well but will need to have someone play my bass while I listen across the room. acoustic and w amp.
Arco is different. Spiro Mittels for E and A are smooth and warm compared to the guts which sound kinda raspy? I think that is normal for plain guts. My bass is a ply btw.with a full circle pickup.
 
#1,151
PaperbackRyder said:
I went with what I heard a bunch others say hereabouts...heavy Lyon G and Med Pistol D. Any D i have tried has been the best of the set on my bass, and this Pistoy D sounds huge and punchy. I went out of my way to play as many of the D, E, F 's as I could ...I'm not sure the G speaks as well but will need to have someone play my bass while I listen across the room. acoustic and w amp.
Arco is different. Spiro Mittels for E and A are smooth and warm compared to the guts which sound kinda raspy? I think that is normal for plain guts. My bass is a ply btw.with a full circle pickup.
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Plain guts indeed have a kind of a raspy sound on their own but blend in great in a band setting.
As if the sound of the guts would soak into the surrounding instruments and sounds.

Hard to put to words but "you'll hear it" as someone might say...!
 
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#1,152
Guts are back on partially due to some issues with my bass, but also in preparation for some recordings coming up. Sand, oil, back to life!

IMG_20161129_203728.jpg
 
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#1,159
got those new red d/g strings from gamut. i miss my artones. for those wondering they are higher tension than the plain guts but sound nice. If they last a long time I'll keep them around (maybe with the E and A?)

What are peoples thoughts on gut E/A strings now?

Help me understand this. How do I get that sustain on guts that you hear on those old recordings. is it mainly technique?
 

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