Double Bass New Evah Pirazzi slap strings from Pirastro!

[Feral Feline]

Many thanks @Clarkybass for the clarification, continued assessment and 2nd clip.

I'm with HateyMcAmp: Please let Pirastro know we're interested;

And they can send me a set for testing in humid environ here*.


*Happy to pay for it, and shipping!

 

[Sam Dingle]

I emailed pirastro about strings and they kindly offered to send me the synthetic D/G. @Clarkybass any idea if these will work with my Spiro Medium E/A? They were wondering about that mix and so am I.

 

[lowEndRick]

I know these strings haven't been around very long, but does anyone have a sense of the life expectancy of the E&A?

 

[Clarkybass]

I emailed pirastro about strings and they kindly offered to send me the synthetic D/G. @Clarkybass any idea if these will work with my Spiro Medium E/A? They were wondering about that mix and so am I.

I haven't tried this mix. There will be a fairly large tension mismatch between theSpiro Medium E/A ( close to 70lb if I recall corectly) and the Slap Set synthetic D/G (I am guessing in range of 50-55 lb). Tone wise it would be fine (but obviously there is way less growl on the Slap synthetic D/G as you can hear from videos)

 

[Jay Corwin]

I've been toying with the idea of going back to synthetics on E and A for a while....this might be the ticket.

 

[lowEndRick]

I have a Cleveland with Spiros and a '40 Kay with the Chorda Carlos Henriquez set (they actually belonged to Carlos himself so they are a little beat up). I love both but sometimes I wish I had a set that was a mixture of both the E&A Spiros and the Carlos D&G. I went to see Dorado Schmitt recently and got to chat with his bassist Xavier Nikq. He plays a 5/8th French hybrid with Spiro E&A and gut D&G. He let me play his bass for a while and I was convinced I should at least experiment on my Kay. Arnold Schnitzer discouraged from trying this combo because he said they wouldn't match well and wouldn't be good for the health of the Kay because of tension imbalance. Then my gut D on the Carlos set got wonky on me and wouldn't stay in tune. So to address all of this, I ordered just the E, A, and D Evah Slaps. I figure they should go just fine with my Carlos G. Should have these strings on my bass by this weekend. Will report back.

 

[lowEndRick]

I've had the E&A Slaps on for 2 days. They are settling in nicely. As others have said they match really well with plain gut. Low tension and very gut-like tone. But, they sustain just a bit more than actual wrapped gut and they have more definition. They are as smooth as glass and very comfortable, a welcome relief from the rough round wound feeling on the Carlos Henriques set. It's probably not fair to give a full assessment after just 2 days, but the A seems more powerful than the E. I am hoping the E begins to sound more like the A in terms of volume and power. Then again, I'm a Spiro guy and my expectations may be too high. I installed the plain gut D yesterday and so far it sounds fine. Maybe a little brighter than the Carlos D. It's got a lot of stretching to do but so far I am very happy.

 

[Sam Dingle]

I came back from Holiday in Massachusetts and when I got back to new orleans the synthetic D/G that pirastro sent me were here (along with a new belt I ordered ). I'm gonna hopefully get up early tomorrow and put them on. I'll record a video so you guys can hear the difference between a full set of Spirocore Reds and the spirocore/Synthetic slap mix. My plan is to just play a standard, maybe walk a blues and then bow something (with the 7 lessons I've takin arco). Expect a video by tomorrow night.

 

[martinc]

I came back from Holiday in Massachusetts and when I got back to new orleans the synthetic D/G that pirastro sent me were here (along with a new belt I ordered ). I'm gonna hopefully get up early tomorrow and put them on. I'll record a video so you guys can hear the difference between a full set of Spirocore Reds and the spirocore/Synthetic slap mix. My plan is to just play a standard, maybe walk a blues and then bow something (with the 7 lessons I've takin arco). Expect a video by tomorrow night.

bskts: sounds good!
I would be especially interested in how you think the EP synthetic slap D and G compares with the Zyex G and D mediums or lights.

 

[Sam Dingle]

Unfortunately I haven't used those on my bass enough to make a fair comparison. I'll be comparing them to

Evah weich and medium
Oliv D/G
Innovation super silvers

 

[Sam Dingle]

Ok so the strings are on and I recorded my first impressions. Here is a quick video of my bass with all spirocore mediums. I play a blues, a quick transcription and a section of the Eccles sonata with my less than beginner arco skills. I did the same thing in the next video with the synthetics on.

 

[Feral Feline]

Thanks for the vid.

I'm really curious now how a fully synthetic set of the slaps would compare to my downtuned Evah solos.

 

[Sam Dingle]

The video with the synthetics is having a hard time uploading to YouTube. I'll post when it's there.

 

[Sam Dingle]

ok here is the video with the Evah D/G. The arco is...horrible haha so be warned. I think these would be good for occasional arco but they aren't as good in my opinion as the evah weich or mediums. I'll post reports after the week is over.

 

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

Roughly what I expected. How radical is the change in feel when you move from the Spiros to the Slaps?

 

[Reiska]

Very cool bskts, thanks for posting. I quess that the difference between Spiro mittels and EP slaps tension is approximately same that Spiro weich / plain guts?

 

[Sam Dingle]

Ok so right away the tension isn't horrible. It feels maybe less tension than the transition to olivs with spiro mediums. It makes the spiros a little more flexible. I will say these sound and feel like the gut I've played on before. With that said I don't like it. It's a little hard to hear the pitch when playing and the D/G require a different "technique" in the right hand, and I have had a little trouble with the left hand in terms of missing the string every once and a while. Same complaints I had with plain gut strings. I think these are great synthetic guts and if I was into that. Perhaps I like the higher tension of spiros or evahs. I have a set of evahs on the way that I'll probably put on and replace the slaps. I will give it a few days to complete my assessment but already know it's not my thing. I will be happy to send these to someone else who wants to try them.

 

[Sam Dingle]

Also tuning is stable after an hour of play for those wondering. Not as stable as spirocores but better then the velvet animas

 

[Reiska]

Thanks bskts. I think it`s bs that Pirastro doesn`t offer the actual information about the strings tensions on their homepage. Just go to Thomastik - Infelds or Velvets or D´addarios and it`s all there, why on earth not theirs? Even when it`s all very relative. I went thru 20 pages of EP megathread yesterday without success. Someone got the info from Pirastro anyway, I remember. EP reqular, medium tension, EP weich light tension? EP reqular " soft feeling under fingers " or whatever, does somebody there actually play a double bass? Sorry for this anyway

 

[DoubleMIDI]

Someone posted the Evah Weich tensions he got from Pirastro here on Talkbass.
I'm currently collecting the lost information and references for the big string table that went away some time ago.
I will have a look tomorrow if I already found it and give you a link.still one or two days of work, I think, then anybody here can get a corrected table of strings (some values were wrong there).