I play smith rock masters "half dead" pretty much exclusively. Less than two weeks of heavy play is too bright. Somewhere between 4 to 8 months they start to flop out, and I change em.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Kinda dead roundwounds, anyone like 'em?
- Thread starter BusyFingers
- Start date
-
- Tags
- dead roundwounds
Aged, zingless nickels have been my favorite sounding type of strings (specifically, DR nickel Lo Riders). After a month or two they start to sound best to me and I'll leave them on until they finally hit the point where they sound "too dead" to me. With Lo Riders, that can be 2-3 years.
Roto' s nightmare: Bassplayers that love dead strings?
who will buy all those strings they produce???
Wise(b)ass
who will buy all those strings they produce???
Wise(b)ass
- Jan 12, 2011
- 4,578
- 2,460
- Disclosures
- Artist, Trickfish Amplification Bartolini Emerging Artist, MTD Kingston Emerging Artist. Artist, Tsunami Cables
- Jun 6, 2012
- 4,837
- 6,859
- Disclosures
- I don't wait 30 minutes after eating, to go swimming.
Negative, Ghost Rider! I love, love LOVE brand new steel rounds right out of the package!!! If I could find strings that sounded like that forever, I'd be in heaven. So far Dunlop Super Brights seem to last the longest for me.
DR Fat Beams (previously known as Marcus Millers), got a set in a trade from a fellow TB'er and I've had them on multiple basses since. Definitely not dead but a few years nicely worn in, so far my preferred sound on a P and P/J.
2 main responses to this thread:
-Yep
-Nope
The thought of rounds right out of the package is like nails on a chalkboard to me.
-Yep
-Nope
The thought of rounds right out of the package is like nails on a chalkboard to me.
I like strings to be "dead", but if they get too far gone I just loosen them up one at a time and pop / slap them for a bit up and down the string, then wipe the crud off, then wind them back up to tension.
I've heard of people putting strings in the dishwasher, boiling them, etc. I just wouldn't, sounds kinda wrong to me I guess.
But I got into the habit of wiping strings after I play them, just using a regular old washcloth. That, and like your mother taught you as a kid, wash yyour hands before playing instruments. Lol as a wee piano student I never saw the value of that lesson, save the visual aesthetics. But with a string instrument like bass I can very much see how you get better life out of strings that way.
I like a darker, but not lifeless, sound.As to the clinkety clank of new strings, woodshed a hell of a lot just to break them in, your technique will thank you and your ears be happier once they've settled. That's how I do it, at least. I've just been changing strings a bit more often than I'd like recently, only to find a set that really works with my bass and where I'm going with it these days.
I've heard of people putting strings in the dishwasher, boiling them, etc. I just wouldn't, sounds kinda wrong to me I guess.
But I got into the habit of wiping strings after I play them, just using a regular old washcloth. That, and like your mother taught you as a kid, wash yyour hands before playing instruments. Lol as a wee piano student I never saw the value of that lesson, save the visual aesthetics. But with a string instrument like bass I can very much see how you get better life out of strings that way.
I like a darker, but not lifeless, sound.As to the clinkety clank of new strings, woodshed a hell of a lot just to break them in, your technique will thank you and your ears be happier once they've settled. That's how I do it, at least. I've just been changing strings a bit more often than I'd like recently, only to find a set that really works with my bass and where I'm going with it these days.
To me, the best strings are 10+ years old, and like they said in the Princess Bride, they can't just be MOSTLY dead, they have to be ALL dead. At that point, rounds are as good as they'll ever get.
That's pretty much exactly what I do too.
They need about 10 or 15 hours of playing for the harshness to go away, then they are really stable sounding for a long time.
I used worn rounds for years on a P-bass when I was playing mostly blues and soul. When I dialed back the tone control, I could make them sound like flats, but with the tone control all the way up there was still a bit of zing ... I found it to be very versatile.
With any set of roundwounds, I remain happy if they lose their new-string brightness evenly across the set.
If one or two strings retain their new-string brightness after the other strings have mellowed significantly, then I have a problem. It sounds wrong when there's too much tonal difference across the set.
I typically resolve uneven tone across the set by replacing them.
Roundwounds that share the same mellowed tone across the set can provide splendid tone for years.
Until they go dead, they're keepers 'til one breaks.
Back before bass amps had tweeters, I liked an active bass with the freshest roundwounds I could afford, and I'd frequently clean the strings with alcohol in an attempt to preserve treble. I'd get things as close to my taste as I could manage with my gear and then I'd beg and plead with the sound person to mic my cab instead of using a DI.
Nowadays, I've made peace with amps that have tweeters, by getting my tone before it hits the speaker. Part of that is that I leave strings on for a year or three depending how often I play that bass. Part of it is that I favor somewhat darker-sounding instruments (current fave: 1992 passive Gibson LPB2). One happy result is that I now like my (post-preamp) DI tone and never have to argue about it with a sound person anymore!
Nowadays, I've made peace with amps that have tweeters, by getting my tone before it hits the speaker. Part of that is that I leave strings on for a year or three depending how often I play that bass. Part of it is that I favor somewhat darker-sounding instruments (current fave: 1992 passive Gibson LPB2). One happy result is that I now like my (post-preamp) DI tone and never have to argue about it with a sound person anymore!
I used to play keys in a band with a guy who liked dead rounds. He played a nice old MIA Fender P. He'd sometimes hand me the bass for a song at a gig. I would roll the tone knob back from zero to 10, disengage the fuzz on his fender rumble amp, and try to ignore the rusty spots on the strings.
