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Double Bass Plain gut E

#21
timobee4 said:
I
swingingoodtime said:
OK, an update: I fitted the strings last night after about 20 hrs in the almond oil.

I tuned them up a whole two steps and left them to stretch overnight. This morning, they’d dropped somewhat; the E was now at F# & the A was at B. So I’ve tuned them back up to the two step gap to keep the tension on them until the stretching stabilizes.

I am sure you meant to say that you tuned up two whole step not whole two step! ;) By the way this is a fascinating thread, I use Gamuts when gut sound required but used many different brands of gut strings in the past 30 years and never thought or heard of soaking stings in oil for 20 hours let alone winding it up two whole steps to stretch them! Once I wiped my strings but could never bow those strings again, a friend stretched my D string up about two whole step and it Never sounded and felt right after, so I don't think I will ever try either methods but sure makes interesting reading!
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No, I tuned them up from E to Ab & A to Db; sounds radical, but I found that they drop in pitch anyway if you tune to E/A and that you're constantly tuning them back up (at least two whole steps and hence increasing the tension on them anyway) for ages until they stabilise, so why not pre-empt that (not to mentioned speed things up a bit) & let them come down to pitch? And being guts, it's not like I'm tuning a steel string up that high :eek: so I reasoned that the neck could take the tension. As they stabilise, then I reduce the amount of tuning up until they pretty much stops dropping in pitch and everything stabilises (-ish) at pitch.

Here's my theory behind the oil: the objective is to make them more supple. When they're completely dry, they're very, very stiff. As such, they'll have a high resonant frequency and will be highly damped at frequencies below that. Trying to tune the string to below that frequency will result in a floppy string that speaks & rings very poorly (a bit like try to play below a speaker's resonant frequency; even in a tuned box, output will be less than optimal). By making them more supple in the oil, you allow them to resonate at a lower frequency. As that resonant frequency drops you also lower the frequency above which frequencies are able to speak/ring undamped (does that make sense? Ah heck, let's do a picture (attached; although the numbers are EXAMPLES only, just to illustrate the point!)). Once they're more supple, a little dryness on the outside removes the damping effect of the oil on the attack of the note.

OK, so it's just my theory, and even if I haven't explained it properly, it makes sense to me. It was born out of what I learnt in my speaker building hobby, though, so it's not all imagination. And it also seems to work... :)
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#22
OK, did the gig tonight. Was running through the ATM350 via a Samson Phantom Power box up to a Yamaha Stagepas 300 speaker/amp (stock speaker replaced with Eminence Beta 8a) at ear height on a speaker stand. Sounded pretty good! Another bass player in the crowd later told me that it sounded very acoustic, rather than an amplified sound, which is great. The only problem was a lack of fine tuning EQ, which would have helped with the low B resonance bouncing around the room.

It was a bit hard to hear the E compared to the other strings; at the end of the day, it's a deep sounding string that's pretty quiet on the overtones, so you don't get a whole lot of feedback on what's going on. I forgot to ask the other bass player what the low end sounded like, so I'll have to get back to you all on that piece of info, but it would appear that it was audible in the audience. With the new string height it was also pretty hard work on the up tempo songs; my fingers kept getting hooked under the strings which caused me to miss a few notes here & there. The height also made for a little more work under the left fingers, so I'll play with the height & see if I can bring it down any.

On the plus side; I barely had to touch the tuning throughout the whole gig. There was a little bit of a shift, but I'm assuming that's because they're yet to fully stabilise. I also got a few comments on how good the bass sounded. And, acoustically, it's an absolute cannon!

So, pretty happy with the first outing; may need to tweak a few things here & there, but looks like I'll be sticking with this set up for a while :)
 
#23


Interesting theory - whatever the reason I have to concur that the supple string rings w more true tone and in the lower registers especially. I don't bow but I can see how oil may present a problem for that technique. My question is this - am I too understand that you guys generally don't use oil on gut strings at all? Doesn't the string's condition degrade? I find that the fine "hairs" of the wrap start to unravel? Also I find the strings tuning is more unstable w/o the conditioning? Also I like your idea of tuning up and letting the string come down to pitch! Idk if i'll tune that high!! But a great idea
 
#24
Ruuumble said:
Interesting theory - whatever the reason I have to concur that the supple string rings w more true tone and in the lower registers especially. I don't bow but I can see how oil may present a problem for that technique. My question is this - am I too understand that you guys generally don't use oil on gut strings at all? Doesn't the string's condition degrade? I find that the fine "hairs" of the wrap start to unravel? Also I find the strings tuning is more unstable w/o the conditioning? Also I like your idea of tuning up and letting the string come down to pitch! Idk if i'll tune that high!! But a great idea
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No, I do oil them, but sparingly/infrequently as required. Maybe once every 2 months, if that (in our climate). The aim is to keep them some what translucent, so 'moisturised' inside, but not soaking wet on the surface. The oil in my skin helps the sections where I regularly play, but the other areas will eventually dry out (like skin in dry weather), so if it's starting to look like it needs it, I'll do it. A good going over with an oily rag works well, followed up with a dry wipedown the next day. For the bow section, I give it a really thorough drying wipe over a couple of days before bowing. I twist a small piece of cloth tight around the string & run that up & down the string in both instances (wet wipe & dry wipe), so the only thing to be careful off is that if you're too aggressive with the drying wipe, you can cause hairs to peel out from the string.

Yeah, the strings will be more erratic if I let them dry out too much, but we're talking 'dried out', not just dry on the surface.

And I'd never use the tune high approach with steel strings; there's no real need.

: )
 
#25
OK, here's where I'm up to with the strings:

Because I'd bought a full set of plains, I decided to change my older D & G guts for the new ones, so that the whole set was now on the bass & hopefully more consistent in terms of age, feel, 'new string tone' etc. The newer D & G were much thinner than my originals, but other than feeling thinner under the fingers, they've ended up sounding pretty much the same (maybe a tad less volume as they lack the same mass to transfer energy into the top); they sound good and, overall, no complaints there.

I wasn't happy with the A; even with tweaking the soundpost, I couldn't get it to ring quite like the D & G and it lacked some overtones, attack & presence. Fortunately, another prior purchase provided me with another, slightly thinner gut A (2.7mm vs 3.1mm), which went on. Much better. Less damping, better attack & more overtones. Better matched volume to the D & G.

Similarly, the E just wasn't going where I wanted it to; it's a massive string & the excess mass was damping out the ringing & overtones so that it was largely quiet & mostly just fundamentals. Again, however, one of my other purchases provided a slightly thicker than normal* gut A (3.5mm vs my previous 3.1mm A) which was thinner than the E (4.1mm). Again, a better result; rings more with more overtones. Arco is still a tad tricky, but much better than before.

The balance across the four strings is now much better; you can hear the E far more clearly than before and the new thinner A has better attack & presence too. So the thicknesses now are:

G- 2.1mm
D- 2.4mm
A- 2.7mm
E - 3.5mm

So, progress is being made. I was pretty happy with them at a rehearsal today, to the point of not thinking about string deficiencies & just focusing on the music.

In light of this, my thoughts are that if anyone is interested in trying the all-plain gut sets out there, avoid any where the E is more than about 3.5mm. There's a mob in the UK that sells a very similarly sized set on flea-Bay (Link Removed; G - 2.0mm, D - 2.6mm, A - 2.9mm & E - 3.6mm.

I'm now even tempted to see what the 3.1mm A is like as an E. Could be good, or may lack enough mass to produce decent volume; will keep you posted, although we're doing some recording next week so I'm a little reluctant to stuff around with it too close to that. Regardless, I'll try to get some sound clips so that you can hear what they sound like, too.


*(It would appear from the various second-hand sets that I've procured that the Indian guts are highly variable in terms of consistency of thickness. I have another E that's 4.4mm! Ridiculous. Not having tried others, I can't comment on mid-price brands like Clef/Efrano/Lezners but I'd expect the higher priced brands like Gamuts etc to be right on the ball with sizes/quality control etc).

Peace :cool:
 
#26
OK, I couldn't resist; the 3.5mm 'E' (A) was a step in the right direction compared to the 4.1mm string, but still not a perfect match to the other three strings. Good enough for the rehearsal, but not great. So I pulled it off & put the 3.1mm A on in its place. Much better! I was correct in my guess that the decrease in mass would affect the volume, although only just slightly (I also stuck my wound E on in between changes for a comparison. Oh, the volume! The sustain!). *However*, what it picks up in overtones and sustain compared to the thicker plain E's actually makes it seem a little louder in some respects, as I can now hear more of the frequencies and for longer. As such, it’s now a much better match for the other three strings in those departments.

It has a slightly loose feel to it, as it lacks the stiffness of the thicker strings. I was worried that this might make it a bit floppy (it is compared to steels, or even the wound E), but unless I’m careless & overplay the string, it’s still very manageable. I also think this the factor that contributes to the improvements; it vibrates more freely & for longer overall, so I reckon that the gains to this outweigh the negatives.

The good thing is that this string was already largely broken in, so I don't need to wait too long for it to settle in. I might play with the soundpost a little to see if any further benefit can be gained there, but it’s pretty good right now. Hopefully I'll have some recordings shortly, too.

:)
 
#28
heavytrash13 said:
My unwound E Clef string on my Jan Krimil seems to work just fine!!Although I need to dig in at a different angle to pull the notes..i ve had them almost 2 years on this bass now--I just oil them once in a while.
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Cool; how thick is your E (and what style to you play, btw)? It's always interesting how different things work for different instruments as well as styles; I guess I should really caveat all of my previous posts with YMMV... :)
 
#29
OK, here are the recordings; sorry for the delay! These are two track-clippings of songs that ended up on an EP (the remaining tracks are available to hear at [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]; these all feature the gut set-up I was running at the time, as described above.

Two things I must caveat:
1) I've since changed to Helicore Orchestrals, mainly because I was getting a bit tired of having to wrangle the lower strings' massive amplitude when trying to play fast. Possibly because my bass has had playing time on it & possibly because I've had gut-playing experience under the fingers, but the Orchestrals are working out pretty well and not choking my bass like before (although I've also been tweaking the soundpost a bit too); it's not that wonderful gut sound and it's a bit harder under the fingers, but there are positives that I'm happy to stick with for now.
2) That's not me playing arco on 'Sunset Dreaming' (on the website); I wish it were, though!

I hope you enjoy these! Incidentally, tracks 1 & 3 on the website feature wound-gut E & A, as they were recorded some months earlier, and there's some awesome pedal-steel playing on track 3 ('Sean Connery is Bond') :hyper: Unfortunately our player, Mike, wasn't present for the other tracks; apparently he's fixing some kind of flying machine over in Roswell or something... :eyebrow:
 

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#32
I'm at the 2-3 week stage with my Clef unwound set, so ... some observations in case anyone's interested.

Yes, the E string seems to be getting a little better - I can hear G# fairly clearly on it, for example. It isn't as much bigger, compared to the A, as I might have expected. The A is fine, was OK from the start. My bass drops off noticeably below A anyway. I've thought about digging up a high C string somewhere and moving the compass of the instrument up a fourth, but so far it looks like I might be able to get along OK with the E.

I haven't put any oil on them, and so far am not tempted to. After reviewing all the different stuff people put on under the name "oil", it didn't add up for me.

They're nice feeling strings. Dark, reasonably smooth. Really a pleasure to play, after years of metal strings. I think some of the `playing in' has been in my fingers, as opposed to the strings. In some way the involvement between my fingers and the strings seems to be of a different nature than with the preceding Velvet Blues, maybe more complex. Haven't made any serious effort to play them with a bow.
 

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