Double Bass Prices going up, up, up...

[MollyKay]

Thanks everyone…this has been a great exchange of information, at the same time depressing on the current state of the USA economy. What goes up must come down and most things are cyclical.

Bob…your current string prices are better then my vendor’s price…I am so sorry I did not check your web sight first…but I also did not expect a price increase this rapidly for me to check other vendors. Your service and delivery is always stellar. I’ll be in contact; I need a bulk order of bridges, end pins and some other restoration needs.

As far as the other choices for strings…I have tried the Labella black tape nylon and did not like those. I think I might try a non-steel string like the super silvers or the Innovations…but most likely will come back to the Thomastik weich as my steel string of choice. My old plywood basses seem to like this string. I have found if you can keep a lighter tension string on the old plywood basses the sound can bloom…this is why the 1930’s and 1940 basses do well with guts. Also with the thin Kay necks it helps keep the necks from warping. It is amazing the amount of tension the top of a bass can with stand.

Thanks for the lively exchange. It helps lighten the day.

 

[Marcus Johnson]

Molly, the thing that I failed to notice initially is that you're stringing up a bunch of basses versus one or two like most of us. It's relatively easy to pull the trigger on a set of Gamuts when there's only one dance partner (no offense meant to Dan Larson).

I still think that Spiros are a great investment. They torture you a little bit with brightness at the beginning, but they age so well. I haven't found any other strings that improve over the years to that degree.

 

[Damon Rondeau]

I still think that Spiros are a great investment. They torture you a little bit with brightness at the beginning, but they age so well. I haven't found any other strings that improve over the years to that degree.

...and I would have thought Super-Flexibles, being kissing cousins to the Spiro, would perform similarly but I was wrong. Mine died a terrible, terrible death after about 3 years and 200 gigs.

 

[Marcus Johnson]

...and I would have thought Super-Flexibles, being kissing cousins to the Spiro, would perform similarly but I was wrong. Mine died a terrible, terrible death after about 3 years and 200 gigs.

I've never tried those, always wanted to. I guess you have to address longevity by how much you play as well. 200 gigs gets me through August/September of any given year.

What was the terriblex2 death?

 

[Damon Rondeau]

Well, as usual, MJ, I can't resist a bit of exagerration. Maybe it was only a x1 terrible death. But by the end they lost all their sustain and, worse, they had a hard time making a well-defined pitch -- you could put the string on a tuner and watch it do all kinds of crazy stuff. Very different from a Spiro of the same age and use -- very different. When they were new, though, I loved 'em -- they've got a scratchy, grainy sort of sound -- and they were considerably cheaper than Spiros. I checked 'em out because Arnold recommended them -- he was right, but the ride definitely had an end to it.

I'm onto EP's now and I'm really digging them a lot. Solved my amplification problem with some different EQ settings, that's all. Every now and then, even acoustically, I hear a little bit of distortion, some breaking-up kind of thing going on right after plucking. Not a buzzing thing, but a faint kind of distorting-speaker sound....

 

[Marcus Johnson]

I like the EPs a lot. I would like to have them in "the drawer" in the future. I just can't get past the fact that I just play better **** on Spiros. It's not exactly my favorite sound, but it's absolutely my best conduit to the music in my bass. The instrument disappears when they're installed.