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Mismatched silks

#22
Chrisk-K said:
I don’t get the silk shortage thing. There must be more than 1,000 silk shops in China that can produce the silks needed for bass strings.
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You’d think so...

Best analogy I can give is that it’s akin to getting a bolt at Lowe’s. There’s an entire aisle dedicated to this, but when you take into account the thread type, head size, length needed, your options suddenly become very small. Factor in how many of these bolts you actually need, and now you’re left with 1-2 options.
 
#23
Still trying to decide if I should sell this bass, so I decided to record it a little bit. I've been playing 95% pick so went with that. Played along with an old drum track by my friend Greg DeGuglielmo that I have, just improvising, this is the third take or so. Volume and tone all the way up, into CAE V-Comp tube compressor, Boss PQ-3B Bass Parametric Equalizer, Cafe Walter Audio HA-1A headphone amp (that's what I've been using to practice with, thought it would be interesting to have it in the signal chain), Radial Pro D2 DI box, MBox2 Pro into ProTools on my old MacBook Pro. Oh yeah, purple Dunlop Tortex 1.14 mm pick.

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Can't even tell the silks are mismatched in the pic! What do your ears tell you?
 
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#24
Sounds great Harry! I’d keep it. I’m the guy that almost got rid of my Alembic EVH Signature Deluxe but was saved by trying it with the picks I recently bought for my P bass. It was a happy accident. With a healthy boost of mids my Alembic can get a decent P tone, but sometimes the real thing is just so nice.
 
#25
droberts444 said:
Sounds great Harry! I’d keep it. I’m the guy that almost got rid of my Alembic EVH Signature Deluxe but was saved by trying it with the picks I recently bought for my P bass. It was a happy accident. With a healthy boost of mids my Alembic can get a decent P tone, but sometimes the real thing is just so nice.
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Fancy meeting you here! Thanks for listening. I think you're right - I don't need to sell it, I should look for other things to try and sell first.
 
#26
I don’t think you need any more encouragement...but I believe the P somehow inspires the player to approach note selection and dynamics differently than on a bass with 2 pickups and/or active electronics. If you have the chops (which you do) it just works so well in its beautiful simplicity. Meanwhile I played my Alembic for about 6 hours this weekend until your sample inspired me to bust out my P. Thanks!
 
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#27
droberts444 said:
I don’t think you need any more encouragement...but I believe the P somehow inspires the player to approach note selection and dynamics differently than on a bass with 2 pickups and/or active electronics. If you have the chops (which you do) it just works so well in its beautiful simplicity. Meanwhile I played my Alembic for about 6 hours this weekend until your sample inspired me to bust out my P. Thanks!
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Glad I could be of assistance! :D

I definitely hear you about playing differently on different instruments. I've been playing a couple of short scales mostly for the past few months, so going back to the P took a little while to get used to. Maybe I'll put this one back in the rotation for a while...
 
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#29
armybass said:
I’ve experienced this twice in the past month with Ken Smith and LaBella strings. No biggie.
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Not surprising that the impact may be industry-wide.

I've been playing this bass with these strings some more. I wanted to run my old Moog MKPE parametric eq thru its paces - it did a nice job of fattening up the P-Bass like I thought and hoped it would. Used it again tonight - played along with some Meters, Robert Palmer (the Sneaking Sally triumvirate), and some Brian Auger, with my fingers this time. Started playing along with someone of my old band's recordings, one needed to be played with pick and discovered that I needed to boost a different frequency, the ones that were previously being boosted weren't there with the pick - interesting, gonna dig into this more (maybe in a separate thread).

I think the best thing about the GHS Precision Flats is the evenness of sound and tone between the various strings, especially the E. Tension-wise, they are on the higher side, which I personally like, especially with the .105 E. I have basically decided to keep this bass too - I think it's worth it to have a Precision Bass strung with flats - just in case! :D It's the basic, classic sound that so many recordings were made with.
 
#30
Interesting topic. Check this out

3050m set I bought in summer of 2019
Screenshot_2021-01-21-03-02-03-0349029311_EDIT_1.jpg


3050m set I bought a few weeks ago
IMG_20210121_033314.jpg


I like the new darker shade better.
Btw your bass sounds great, definitely keep it!
 
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#31
Groovy Luca said:
Interesting topic. Check this out

3050m set I bought in summer of 2019
View attachment 4136529

3050m set I bought a few weeks ago
View attachment 4136531

I like the new darker shade better.
Btw your bass sounds great, definitely keep it!
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I think I assumed the lighter color was newer - can't remember what the old set I had looked like, but now that you mention it, the lighter shade comes to mind. I really thought I had a picture of it but can't find anything.

Also, I picked it up last night after playing my short scale roundwound-strung Alembic 5-string with a pick for a while - then I had the urge to play along with some Meters so picked up the DDD and it sounded and felt great!

Thanks for listening to the clip, the bass isn't going anywhere for now.
 
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#32
My '71 Les Paul Triumph Bass got some short scale GHS Precision Flats!

50871864098_6b3d644423_o.jpg


I think this purple looks great on this headstock - previously it wore LaBella flats which have to be old - I think I might have restrung it once during the 2010s. On the LaBellas, the low E always seemed to lack the higher frequencies that the other strings had (not an uncommon issue with LaBellas...), but the G string on the GHS set doesn't quite seem to have the oomph that the LaBella one did. I still have them, might mix and match - something I would normally never do but this thread may have actually opened me up to the idea!
 
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#35
bassdude51 said:
Just saying, you could take a Sharpie and color up the silk. Go black.

I get very irritated at some of the stupid colors of silk used on strings! They can really clash and go against the color scheme of a bass.

IMO, there only 2 allowable silk colors. Black and silver. They match everything. Red silk is almost acceptable. No silk at all is OK but it can scratch up the tuner posts.

I'm sorry about your miss matched silk. Shabby!
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Sorry, but I have to differ. Sometimes, it's a plus if the silk colors do clash with the bass. Take my '94 Gretsch Broadkaster, for example. I'm sure there's something that wouldn't clash with all that Gretsch Orange, but I can't think what it would be. So, I just embraced that clash, and put a set of TI JR 324 Rounds on it. The bright green silks at the tuner end make the Gretsch look like a carrot - and I really like carrots...:D
 
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#39
Jon Moody said:
I'm sorry that's not the answer you were hoping for, but that's the literal answer.

Believe it or not, but there are very few places that make the silk that is used for the ends of strings. About a year or so ago, one of the two (you read that right) went out of business. We - working with DR - scrambled to find a place that would make the silk we need. And we did. That's the first part.

The second part of that equation is whether or not the colors they offer will match what we currently use. This isn't a paint store; I can't just bring in a swatch of color I want and have them put it on their computer and match it. It's a "This is what we have, period" situation.

And for MOST of the silks we use, there was a very close match. Some, there weren't, which also meant that I spoke with all of our Private Label customers that were affected.

That's also not taking into effect that different dye lots can be different. Again, this isn't an exact science in dyeing thread. If it looks "red" to the QC and is close to their control group, it's fine.

And, when either of these things happen, I sit down with our staff and look into how we can minimize the situation that you have. Because the strings are trimmed down at the final step, this isn't something that we can just "take the old silk off and put the new on." It doesn't work that way.

So, all that background to say that, sadly, it happens sometimes. I do the best I can to minimize it when it happens (which thankfully, is not often).
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I’ve seen this with LaBella and D’Addario silks too so it’s not just your company.
 
#40
droberts444 said:
Sounds great Harry! I’d keep it. I’m the guy that almost got rid of my Alembic EVH Signature Deluxe but was saved by trying it with the picks I recently bought for my P bass. It was a happy accident. With a healthy boost of mids my Alembic can get a decent P tone, but sometimes the real thing is just so nice.
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Hubba hubba! I love the look of the Alembic EVH model!
 
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