It's one thing to decide which brand or type of string. Base it on the sound you want, etc. But each string comes in several gauges. How do you decide which?
It's a little tough to just try them out since switching gauge can mean readjusting the bridge and truss rod. (Plus the expense). More work than just trying a different brand in the same gauge or tension.
I know. The bass string industry, is a puzzle and a maze, and it's almost incomprehensible to sort it out in one go. Unbelievable djungle out there!
Don't get me started. I've been in to too much debate and flame wars with another TB member by now. I think basically like this: ANY MAJOR BRAND WILL DO. However, since I have nickel allergy I have to make choices, and selection that is not always available on the spot when entering any music shop (provided regular tuning EADG):
1. Gauge is important, should it be able to chose the same brand that I've used before. 045 - 105 usually, for a 34" scale bass.
2. Stainless steel, roundwound is just as important as number one really.
3. They have to be: non tapered, non open core.
4. Scale.
5. Definitely non red silk anywhere on any string. Still beats me to this day why they insists on keeping it (Hey Rotosound and others! shape up!).
6. No coated strings ever on me. Elixir, EXP, and the likes are totally out for me. If someone pointed a gun to my head, and the store just had one brand coated on the shelves, it's
Cleartone I would choose. Then it wouldn't matter if they came in nickel or stainless steel.
7. Round core if I can get that, but it's not THAT important. Very few makes them today, DR and Newtone are just some. I can do well with hex cores too. On my headlesses (!?) with double ball ends, it's most definitely round cores, since they lock in both ends without you having to be wary of kinks and bends when you put them on.
8. If another UNKNOWN brand, I would make sure I got information on tension, and
core/wrap ratio first. If this changes I have to readjust neck relief, and intonation, string height, even if it's the same gauge I used before.
...
10... or lower, is the actual brand. And even lower down in the list, price.
There's a couple more. I've forgot surely. The reason I can't choose the lightest gauge is that they don't hold up for long. The G-strings snaps sooner. And as I don't do any kind of funk, slap, thumb anymore I don't use 30-90 sets anymore. I can get emergeny G-string as 040 if I have to make the gig through, as a spare, but nowhere ever never buying it. The thick E on a 34" scale bass I don't - by and large - want to go under .100 and not past 110. Very rarely 110. .107 gague is probably maximum for me, as a low E string. Around 105, 103, 104 are usual gauges for me. They usually go up in gauges by an added .020 ... each string.
045-065-085-105. That's a general rule of thumb mark I base my string gagues choices around. Brands and prices do come last. I tend to avoid Elixirs, and Ernie Balls for some reason though. It has to do with longevity. EB sounds and feels the greatest when they're fresh, but after a week, they die a thousandfold more than any other string that has been on the bass for decades. I don't MIND TI, DR, D'addario, Newtone, LaBella, GHS, but frankly I couldn't care less. If you have to do a lot of downtuning, all these examples of gauge is going out the window, and your guess is as good as mine. It's only EADG tuning, and at regular scale 34".
This with tension and/or stiffness should be of some concern, but not the most important. People often mix up stiffness/tension which is totally independent of each other. Tension is a set in stone measurement that can be measured in Newtons. But stiffness is a feel thing, that is only "measured" or perceived by the player. Feeling hard to press down strings? Well, yes but so it is at the gym too. That 15 lbs dumbell doesn't feel as heavy anymore while you've been working out a couple of years, that it felt when you visitied the gym for the first time of your life. And when someone besides you goes "ohhh...it's so heavy" you yourself can NOW lift that 15 lbs dumbell with your pinky and it doesn't feel heavy or "stiff" at all. It is exactly the same with strings. The same gauge/tension strings that you once felt were way too stiff, are a breeze these days, and it can very well be felt "very stiff" by another player used to the lighest gauges, while you who're grown up with a 55-120 set will feel a 045-105 set not stiff at all. So stiffness is more or less always a player feel moreso than anything. Same with scale thing. Of course a 35" scale will "feel stiffer" than same gauge on a 34".
It's just feel. What feels stiff for you doesn't feel stiff for me and vice versa.
