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Double Bass Olive G lovefest
- Thread starter Greg Clinkingbeard
- Start date
I too love the Olive G, but the Olive D was too thumpy and not a good match. So you think the Eudoxa D is the solution?
that was my experience too. I was told here that the Eudoxa D is a great match hence I wanted to try it but it's not a cheap experiment.
I found the Oliv (and other gut strings Iv'e tried took a week or so at tension to open up tonally. But maybe that's just my ears adjusting.
For most of the past year, I have used Anima E,A and D with the Oliv G - the combo is well balanced. I only bow at home for practice and found the Animas to be OK with arco.
I love the Oliv G. In my climate, bass and hands, a new one takes a month or two to settle in and sing it's best- the extra attention to tuning is worth the sound and feel IMO. I just put on an Oliv D, previously Genssler 2018 AP, Eudoxa prior to that. So far Oliv D is thumpy and duller than G, fairly thick. Gensslers glorious, but not when playing with full spectrum amplified guitar, or loud drums. Eudoxa - love the sound - heavier tension though and the silver winding does not feel as good as the Oliv Chromesteel feels. I wish I could combine qualities of all my favorite strings... I'm sure it's a common wish.
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I have to stand corrected. I checked my files and the Oliv G is on its third year. Two years and three months at the moment and sounding glorious. It looks brand new and sounds great. I have to slightly tune it almost every day but then it stays in tune for the whole session.
You might have missed that Fran lives is Spain, not in the US. So less drastically climate changes. So wound gut strings survive longer in Europe than in the US.
And if you kill a Spiro after three years you must either play ever day for at least eight hours or have acidic sweat that kills the string. Well, or you you think a Spiro is done when it is well played in.
Correction I change them after 1 year haha. At least I did with the last 2 sets. They just loose punch and sustain, but I also complain about how much sustain they have right now. I’ll be experimenting soon...
And I haven semi acid hands, always forget to wipe them down, and play 6 gigs a week on top of maybe 3-4 hours of practice...sooooo
Yesterday I tried an Olive G on a friend's bass, on top of Spiro mittel e-a-d, and I have to say the G is really something special. Incredibly fat sound, great sing without any zing... and it bows beautifully as well. Needs more weight than the Eudoxas I'm used to playing.
Not to nitpick, but it's actually sterling silver. The feel takes some getting used to, but the sound... it's "The Queen Of Double Bass Strings" as Pirastro says. But the Oliv G is such a great string, it makes me wonder how it'd feel matched with Eudoxas an the lowers.
Best
Sidecar
Not to nitpick, but it's actually sterling silver. The feel takes some getting used to, but the sound... it's "The Queen Of Double Bass Strings" as Pirastro says. But the Oliv G is such a great string, it makes me wonder how it'd feel matched with Eudoxas an the lowers.
Best
Sidecar
...and you tell me not to go that route
With them
- you'll learn how to wish for a string to last long enough to even remotely justify its price... at the same time you'll pay that price in a heartbeat.
- you'll seriously consider taking a day job to have enough cash on hand, should you need a replacement before you saved up enough
- you'll get into a serious crisis every time you try a bass and it sounds good with spirocores or, even worse, d'addario strings- going home and practicing excessively is the only cure for that crisis
Just kidding/making it up. As long as you're not near any dramatic and sudden changes in humidity, they'll hold up ok and boy do they sound sweet!
Best
Sidecar
Resurrecting this thread due to recent developments...
In march, I had to temporarily change practice spaces due to the pandemic. The new room soon revealed itself as being too dry-aired, which I noticed after having left my bass there for two nights in a row. My Eudoxa D and G never really recovered from that- the inner cores got thinner and the windings came loose, causing them to move around on the core. Even though I moved the bass back home, and the cores got to their normal thickness, the windings were now unevenly distributed and probably not really solid anymore, and that causes an effect that is comparable to that of a chorus pedal. Very prominent on most of the G string and three spots on the D. That was really annoying playing pizz (well, but arco as well) and with a studio job coming up, that had to change. (The A and E are still fine, approaching a year of age).
Long story short, instead of replacing them with new Eudoxas, I thought I'd try Oliv D and G, and how that would work with the other two. A hair cheaper than Eudoxas can't hurt either.
-The G string is (as I sort of knew from other basses, and as this thread suggests) the absolute gold standard of G-strings across the whole spectrum of core and outer materials. There is just nothing quite like it. Arco and pizz are equally excellent, singing, powerful, and clear- and I like it even a little better than Eudoxa G. For both pizz and arco.
- I had never tried the D, and that one is a keeper as well. Even though it's about as thick as the Eudoxa A, it matches quite well, bows like a dream, has tons of power without nasty overtones, and all this translates to wonderful pizzicato sound on my bass as well. Without a doubt better than the D before, and at the moment I just slightly prefer it over Eudoxa. Makes me curious about the Oliv A, though I believe that's where things get muddy. And I really wonder about the seismic activity that may come from playing Oliv E arco... Maybe some 100% classical players who play full-set Oliv can report on how THAT experience is.
Under the bow, there's one aspect where these remind me of Spirocore Stark, in that they NEVER choke out. No matter how much power you put into them, they respond with more powerful sound, across the whole fingerboard length, that is! Their ultrasoft/pp is really easily controllable, and their superloud/ff is just "one louder" than anything else I tried- all this while keeping the beauty.
There you go. I'm hooked. Damn, a great combination.
Best
Sidecar
In march, I had to temporarily change practice spaces due to the pandemic. The new room soon revealed itself as being too dry-aired, which I noticed after having left my bass there for two nights in a row. My Eudoxa D and G never really recovered from that- the inner cores got thinner and the windings came loose, causing them to move around on the core. Even though I moved the bass back home, and the cores got to their normal thickness, the windings were now unevenly distributed and probably not really solid anymore, and that causes an effect that is comparable to that of a chorus pedal. Very prominent on most of the G string and three spots on the D. That was really annoying playing pizz (well, but arco as well) and with a studio job coming up, that had to change. (The A and E are still fine, approaching a year of age).
Long story short, instead of replacing them with new Eudoxas, I thought I'd try Oliv D and G, and how that would work with the other two. A hair cheaper than Eudoxas can't hurt either.
-The G string is (as I sort of knew from other basses, and as this thread suggests) the absolute gold standard of G-strings across the whole spectrum of core and outer materials. There is just nothing quite like it. Arco and pizz are equally excellent, singing, powerful, and clear- and I like it even a little better than Eudoxa G. For both pizz and arco.
- I had never tried the D, and that one is a keeper as well. Even though it's about as thick as the Eudoxa A, it matches quite well, bows like a dream, has tons of power without nasty overtones, and all this translates to wonderful pizzicato sound on my bass as well. Without a doubt better than the D before, and at the moment I just slightly prefer it over Eudoxa. Makes me curious about the Oliv A, though I believe that's where things get muddy. And I really wonder about the seismic activity that may come from playing Oliv E arco... Maybe some 100% classical players who play full-set Oliv can report on how THAT experience is.
Under the bow, there's one aspect where these remind me of Spirocore Stark, in that they NEVER choke out. No matter how much power you put into them, they respond with more powerful sound, across the whole fingerboard length, that is! Their ultrasoft/pp is really easily controllable, and their superloud/ff is just "one louder" than anything else I tried- all this while keeping the beauty.
There you go. I'm hooked. Damn, a great combination.
Best
Sidecar
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