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Double Bass New Evah Pirazzi slap strings from Pirastro!

#201
Just an update: my honeymoon is over and while these are great strings (specifically the D/G), the 5-10% differences from these and Olivs is becoming a larger and larger gap by the day.

I wanted these to be Olivs that stay in tune but they're not. They're their own thing. Probably a great alternative to plain gut but Oliv (to me) don't sound like gut but a true hybrid between gut and steel. I think instead of trying to find an Oliv substitute I should try to find something else entirely...
 
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#204
I bought a complete set of the synthetic Evah Slaps last week to replace my unwinding 18 month old Velvet Blue, and strung them up before a busy gigging weekend. I was never in love with the Blue the way I was with Animas, but funds were tight and they worked well enough. I did a mixture of amplified and unplugged gigs, and gave the strings a pretty good workout pizz, arco, and slap on the new strings. As a guy who has played pretty much exclusively gut, nylon, and Velvets for the last 5 years, I think these might be the all-arounders I've been looking for.

These strings are very loose, very thick, and very dark, particularly the lowers. They aren't dead like orchestral strings and I can get a little growl from them, but if you are into a bright, modern pizz sound there are better options (like the Blues!) For an old school Leroy Vinniger type tone, or for swing and bluegrass, I think the boom and quicker decay works really well. They weren't as loud or mid-focused as the blues from the drivers seat, but my bandmates all commented on how good the bass sounded, and that it seemed to them I was getting a bigger sound overall. I had used obligatos in the past, and was worried they would kinda "give up" in the same way, but despite the low tension they seem to have the same solid sound the rest of the Evah line does. When I had another bassist play my bass, I found this to be true as well. I also found that they amplify really well with a bridge wing pickup straight into my GK MB150S.

The slap feel and tone is absolutely glorious, and it's clear that Pisatro really put a lot of thought into this aspect. I can play stuff I couldn't play cleanly before, and I'm a pretty advanced slap player. No more of the clankiness from the Velvets, and the smoother wrap is going to be nice for the fingerboard. Nothing is quite as great as plain gut for slap, but for a wrapped string, these are amazing. It has that nice satisfying "clack" as opposed to the "click" you can get from most wrapped strings. A really big upgrade over the nylon innovation slaps and the like, IMHO.

The main reason I pulled the trigger on these as opposed to buying another set of Velvets is that my newish main gig requires a good bit of arco work, and I'm about to start studying with a classical teacher as well. I have never really used a real arco string, but I can tell you that these bow of hell of a lot more consistently than the other slap-able stuff I had used. They don't roll around like the obligatos did, and start in the way you'd expect a steel-wrapped string to start. I'm definitely kind of a hack arco player at the moment, but I'm very happy with these and I'm looking forward to improving on them.

In short, these are the hybrid strings I've been dreaming of. I'll post back if I fall out of love, but for now I'm super stoked to have my string issues settled and focus on music!
 
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#211
I officially threw in the towel and went back to all gut. The Evahs were nice, and the only synthetic that have stayed on my bass long enough to give gut a run for the money since I converted some time ago. Once I swapped the gut E back on, it wasn't long before I wanted the A back on as well. There really isn't anything negative I can say about the strings though. In the end I guess I'm just a gut person.
 
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#213
Just put a fresh, new full set on...
I was getting more and more frustrated with the Obligatos, not because they are bad in any way but I was just missing something in the way I played. I've gotten good at getting a "gut like" sound using steel or synthetic but it's tactile as much as anything and ultimately the physical characteristics of the strings themselves (diameter, excursion, etc) are what I realized I was missing. I play differently, and I think, more honestly with those big ol', slow, clunky, sublime hunks of sheep under my hands. Granted, the E & A from this set have dinosaur cores but they're pretty damn close and I really do love the way they sound under the bow.
-J
 
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#215
Jeff Kissell said:
Just put a fresh, new full set on...
I was getting more and more frustrated with the Obligatos, not because they are bad in any way but I was just missing something in the way I played. I've gotten good at getting a "gut like" sound using steel or synthetic but it's tactile as much as anything and ultimately the physical characteristics of the strings themselves (diameter, excursion, etc) are what I realized I was missing. I play differently, and I think, more honestly with those big ol', slow, clunky, sublime hunks of sheep under my hands. Granted, the E & A from this set have dinosaur cores but they're pretty damn close and I really do love the way they sound under the bow.
-J
Click to expand...
All synthetic or D/G Evah Slap gut?
 
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#218
I can weigh on this one, have these on a bass going on year and a half. Tuning stability was quite quick for me, but I do live in Honolulu with relatively stable humidity and consistent weather. Arco tone does improve, but it requires consistently playing it that way to remember the feel that produced the best sound ( so if I play on my other bass for a while with sonores wrapped guts, I need to make adjustments for the Evah Slaps - like any other situation of changing bass and strings). And I don't think they will ever bow as well on my bass as Gamut Pistoy does.That said they are excellent strings with improvement over time, and great for pizza/arco requirements.
 
#220
SamuelHarris said:
In that case Jeff, can you give your experience with the evah slap gut D/G? I just put on the evah slap gut G with an otherwise Spiro solo set. Wondering how long until relative tuning stability? And if the plain gut arco tone will ever get any nicer?:bored:
Click to expand...

So far so good, the D & G settled in about 4 days for me. I personally like the Pirastro gut better than the Gamut gut by a little bit but I still think Damian Dlugolecki makes the best gut strings I've used.
As far as arco is concerned, my experience with these Evah strings is really positive. Bowed gut has a unique and different quality so the idea of it getting "nicer" is a hard thing to quantify. I personally really love the grittier, more organic sound but so much of the voice of a bowed bass is in the bass and bow. For my bass (laminated) these strings speak really well and give it a deeper, more dynamic sound with the bow. The one thing I can say is that the bowed sound won't fundamentally change that much so if it's not working for you, either the sound you have in your head will adapt and embrace the differences or you'll become more frustrated with the strings. It's really the dilemma of gut, some see the inherent qualities as something desirable and others see them as limitations.
-J
 
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