They are having a black Friday sale - $210 plus shipping. I just caved!
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Double Bass New Gamut Red Diamond Gut Strings
- Thread starter Earl
- Start date
Very tempting, but I have concerns about the bow-ability of the nylon covered strings and I'm not sure that I want metal wound gut on the bottom. If I try gut again I'll probably opt for the Evah Slaps with the plain gut D & G. That configuration seems the most practical to me.
- Steve
- Steve
I just ordered a set, 25% off is too sweet a deal for me to resist. I hope they'll be reasonably stable in the manic Canadian weather. My pistoys are off and EP slaps synthetics are on for that reason right now.
My new Red Diamonds are in and just installed on my Shen 3/4 hybrid. So far I like them alot!
The Nylon tops are going take a bit of getting used to, they have a bit more finger noise than the plain guts, but they seem to have that complexity and focus that I'm looking for but found lacking in the PSG synthetics. Acoustically they are pretty loud at 8mm and 10mm. They feel allot like pistoys.
I'll be breaking them in for awhile and looking for the right eq on my LR bags pre. IME guts are pretty thin until they stretch out for a week or 2.
The big question for me is: how stable will they be? Canada is hard on plain gut strings and going from a cold car to hot pub makes for a lot of retunes if youre playing on gut. I hope this set is it for me.
The Nylon tops are going take a bit of getting used to, they have a bit more finger noise than the plain guts, but they seem to have that complexity and focus that I'm looking for but found lacking in the PSG synthetics. Acoustically they are pretty loud at 8mm and 10mm. They feel allot like pistoys.
I'll be breaking them in for awhile and looking for the right eq on my LR bags pre. IME guts are pretty thin until they stretch out for a week or 2.
The big question for me is: how stable will they be? Canada is hard on plain gut strings and going from a cold car to hot pub makes for a lot of retunes if youre playing on gut. I hope this set is it for me.
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I'd expect that the tuning would be slightly less stable than plain gut but not as wonky as metal wound over gut, while being less prone to hairs and other deterioration.
Steve - The tops bow just fine. If you've ever bowed plain gut, its pretty much the same thing. I'm not a big arco player so I am happy if start quickly and don't squawk on me.
They start just fine under the bow and have a sweet musical quality, maybe a bit nasal but these are very new and I expect them to mellow a bit once fully stretched. They definitely are a better arco string than the Velvet Garbos I used to use. Starting a garbo is like starting a lawn mower.
I have a year old set of Gamuts (Med silvers on the bottom, light + pistoy D and medium Lyon G) on my Czech 7/8 so I can go back and forth between them to compare. They sound very close. The tops feel like they have more tension than the plain guts but the bottoms sound pretty much like the silvers. The $ difference is pretty substantial (especially with the black Friday sale), sound and feel are pretty close to the Gamut academies.
They start just fine under the bow and have a sweet musical quality, maybe a bit nasal but these are very new and I expect them to mellow a bit once fully stretched. They definitely are a better arco string than the Velvet Garbos I used to use. Starting a garbo is like starting a lawn mower.
I have a year old set of Gamuts (Med silvers on the bottom, light + pistoy D and medium Lyon G) on my Czech 7/8 so I can go back and forth between them to compare. They sound very close. The tops feel like they have more tension than the plain guts but the bottoms sound pretty much like the silvers. The $ difference is pretty substantial (especially with the black Friday sale), sound and feel are pretty close to the Gamut academies.
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How do the low two strings stay in tune? I'm probably gonna get the set and just use the D and G on my plywood.
Bskts - too early to say how well they'll stay in tune. Every time I pick up the bass all 4 are flat, as expected. Maybe not as bad as it was with my set with the silvers and plain top. I'm taking the bass out on Wednesday and then again on Monday. I expect to tune often this week.
How's the D string going up the neck? Thuddy like a normal gut D in the transition area, or a more like a Pistoy?
Its pretty thuddy at around B on the D string +/-1 a semitone. Other than that the string is pretty full sounding.
Those look good. That looks like either a very thin layer of nylon, on the uppers, or nylon disguised as gut. And the roundwound wrap on the lower 2 seems to have a somewhat thinner diameter than traditional strings, making it come closer to flatwound. For comparison, a set of traditional strings (somewhat cheaper, at the time).
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Gamut has these strings on 20 percent off sale till December 20th. Just ordered my set.
