Double Bass Pro Arte strings

[Istar]

My girlfriend play’s cello and she has these beautiful warm and full sounding strings : D`addario Pro Arte strings. They have such a warm and full tone on her cello both arco and pizz I always was a little jealous of her that they weren’t available for the Bass. That was until about5 minutes ago when I found out that d`addario did actually make them for the Double Bass but discontinued them in `99.

Does anybody have a clue as to why they stopped making them, and does someone have experience with them ? Where they really so warm and beautiful sounding on a bass as I imagine or is my girlfriend just lucky that they sounds so good on her cello ?

 

[Francois Blais]

I had a D and G in my hands for a month in 1998 (I think) but had no bass at that moment to try them. (had sold my old Ampeg Baby Bass and was waiting for my BugBass)
The diameters were quite big, they were using a monofilament nylon core, and they seemed to be wrapped with a cheap metal, maybe aluminum.
They discontinued them after they launched the Helicores, and my guess is that they were not popular and maybe even cheap quality.

 

[Istar]

The A string is indeed wrapped in aluminium but the rest of the set is wrapped in silver. of course I don’t know if they changed the setup since then.

 

[Francois Blais]

You seem to be talking about the cello strings.
I'm talking about the bass ones.
Silver is usually used for the bottom strings and alumimum for the top strings, with the cello.
(this is what you found out I think)

 

[Istar]

Yep.

Sorry forgot to mention that.

 

[ctxbass]

About ten years ago I had Pro-Arte strings on my bass. I played them for at least a year. At one point I broke the G. It was then that I decided to try Dominants since they are also wrapped nylon. When I did, the whole band thought the Dominants had much less sound, particularly missing the fat low end. We were leaving for Florida, so I had Lemur send a Pro-Arte G ahead and I changed out the set on the road.

I still have the E,A, and D (I broke another G). They were marketed as "...an easy to play string with a warm gut sound at a greatly reduced cost.". I remember them as being a lot of work to play (pizz), but with a really big sound.

The packages say the E&A are pre-stretched nylon monofilament core, a special thread underlay, a round copper underlay, and a flattened nickel outer wrap. The D (and probably the G, but I don't have that package any longer) is nylon monofilament with a special thread underlay and a round nickel wire wrap.
They are quite large in diameter as Francois noted.