Ibanez Black Carbon Coated Bass Strings

[SBassman]

Anyone try these yet? I'm intrigued. How do they sound? How do they feel?

Are they stiff - meaning they can't be cut to a short length?

[Thinking of trying them on a 26 3/4" scale bass.]

 

[bholder]

There was just a thread on them recently with a link to an ebay seller, I'll see if I can find it again...

Edit... couple-three posts in here...
Acoustic bass fetish club Part 2

 

[SBassman]

There was just a thread on them recently with a link to an ebay seller, I'll see if I can find it again...

Thank you. I tried to find a thread on it and failed.

 

[bholder]

Thank you. I tried to find a thread on it and failed.

Just a few posts hidden in the ABG fetish thread.

 

[bholder]

I think general discussion of these strings should continue here, just posted the other thread for the ebay link.

 

[SBassman]

There is no YouTube video of these strings, and no online dialog that I can find. Interested to learn more about them.

Ibanez has solid body bass and acoustic bass versions of these strings.

 

[SBassman]

I wanted to go ask in a Mikro megathread. I figured Mikro owners would be interested and would have tried them already. Only - there was no Mikro megathread. I was surprised. I used to have a Mikro, and I think those are great basses. I remember reading plenty about them here, but I guess all the dialog is just in a short scale megathread? Kind of surprised there is not one main thread dedicated to the Mikro. Ibanez has sold a ton of those.

 

[ardgedee]

Sounds like you should be the person to start a Mikro Club thread, @SBassman!

 

[SBassman]

Nah - I'm saving myself. I was the sub-short guy, but it wound up representing too wide of a range of instruments, IMHO. I recently started a Guitar Scale Acoustic Bass thread, and if an upcoming experiment works, I'm going to start a Guitar Scale Solid Body Bass thread. Loving the small basses, but not interested any more in the uke bass stuff.

 

[Aidenn7]

Can't wait to try them on my p bass

 

[AuBassMan]

"Official" Mikro Bass Club Part 3

 

[SBassman]

"Official" Mikro Bass Club Part 3

The search must be messed up. I did try to find major Mikro threads, and they didn't come up on the search.

 

[michael_t]

The search must be messed up. I did try to find major Mikro threads, and they didn't come up on the search.

Did you use the TalkBass search function?

It works better if you do a general Google search by entering "talkbass mikro club".

 

[SBassman]

I Did use the TalkBass search function.

 

[SBassman]

So, whatever happened. What's the story on these black carbon coated strings?

 

[bassist4dalord]

Resurrecting an old thread here. I have a set on its way to me from Japan. I’ll be installing them on my Ibanez AEB5E acoustic bass and I’m really excited. I honestly didn’t know these strings were available outside of buying a new bass that had them. I can’t find them on the Ibanez USA website, or any USA retailer. I found them on Amazon while browsing for some tapewound strings.

Last I checked they had landed in Los Angeles, so we’ll see how quickly they arrive. I am genuinely very excited to try these!

 

[TomB]

Is there an explanation of “carbon-coated” somewhere. It sounds like it would make your fingers black

 

[bassist4dalord]

Is there an explanation of “carbon-coated” somewhere. It sounds like it would make your fingers black

I have to assume the packaging is poorly translated from Japanese. They still haven’t arrived yet (ordered 8/18, ETA is 9/4 ).

I’m fairly certain they are a black nylon tapewound. I’m really not sure where the carbon comes into the picture. In fact, the Amazon page also says something about bronze, so it’s really anyone’s guess as to what these strings are made of haha.

 

[HaphAsSard]

Is there an explanation of “carbon-coated” somewhere. It sounds like it would make your fingers black

I have to assume the packaging is poorly translated from Japanese. They still haven’t arrived yet (ordered 8/18, ETA is 9/4 ).

I’m fairly certain they are a black nylon tapewound. I’m really not sure where the carbon comes into the picture. In fact, the Amazon page also says something about bronze, so it’s really anyone’s guess as to what these strings are made of haha.

Probably some sort of carbon-added Teflon, a variant of the usual string film-coating fare:

Carbon Filled PTFE | AFT Fluorotec

The addition of Carbon Fibre to PTFE increases the compressive strength and wear resistance.

www.fluorotec.com

What I'm curious about is whether the coating is applied onto the wrap wire prior to winding, as is the case with most coated strings, or the entire, finished string, like with Elixirs and D'Addario XS guitar strings. The small oval diagram to the upper right of the packet sleeve

would seem to support the latter, but it's too stylised to infer too much from it.

 

[bassist4dalord]

So I installed these strings on my Ibanez AEB5E on Wednesday night. Initial impressions are very good! They are essentially a bronze roundwound string with a very thin black nylon winding over the outside of the string. They feel similar to my recollection of Elixir Strings. They feel great! The sound is that of a slightly subdued nickel roundwound. They’re not shrill like phosphor bronze.

I can see these staying on for a while. I was skeptical about the 40-95 gauge as I’ve not played anything that thin for a long time, but the tension/stiffness is really perfect for this bass.