Double Bass Silver Slaps Tension

[ERIC A]

Anybody else out there found the silver slaps to have a looser feel than guts? I have put them on my bass in the past and they seemed insanely loose. I was hoping to use them for pizz and some slap. I Definitely liked the sound, but just couldn't deal with the tension. I Tried both the super Silvers and the rockabilly strings and ended up putting my gut D and G back on my bass. Any Info would be greatly appreciated.
Strings.... love them and hate them

 

[DoubleMIDI]

The Silver Slaps have a very comparable tension to my Efrano Elite Medium set. I once mixed the naked Efrano G and D with the Silver Slaps A and E and they mixed well tensionwise.
I once or twice played on a bass with Super Silvers at a jam session and didn’t like the relative high tension of them.
Do you need numbers?

 

[Jay Corwin]

I've mixed Silver/Golden Slaps on/off with gut a few times over the years and found the tension matched well to gut. I'm surprised to hear someone call them loose compared to gut, as they always played "stiffer" for me compared to gut, at relatively close tension.

Also - I thought Super Silvers and Rockabilly were HIGHER tension than Slaps....so how those still felt looser than gut on your bass is baffling to me.

 

[Earl]

I've mixed Silver/Golden Slaps on/off with gut a few times over the years and found the tension matched well to gut. I'm surprised to hear someone call them loose compared to gut, as they always played "stiffer" for me compared to gut, at relatively close tension.

Also - I thought Super Silvers and Rockabilly were HIGHER tension than Slaps....so how those still felt looser than gut on your bass is baffling to me.

The new GHS versions are a lot looser on my bass.

 

[Jay Corwin]

The new GHS versions are a lot looser on my bass.

That would make sense. I had tried them after the switch and thought they felt quite a bit different myself from the original, but I was replacing an old set with new - and not comparing them to gut.

 

[elmer]

The new GHS versions are a lot looser on my bass.

This is true also on my bass with the Super Silvers. There is already difference in tension between the old (barrel end) and newer (wheel end) UK versions the latter being much looser and thinner. GHS version is close to the last UK version.
Unfortunately the only new SS string I can use is the G. I know we aren´t the only ones who have noticed this. Maybe GHS could do something to increase the tension a bit. Or make a "stark" versions from the sets...

 

[ERIC A]

I just had a conversation with a sales rep and he told me that there seems to have been some changes based on reports hes heard from customers. That said, he told me the innovation rep told him that nothing has changed. It sounds like I might be better off with a new set of Super Silvers

 

[Jay Corwin]

I'm trying to remember the time line now for all the changes with Innovation. At one point, the original company had to source a different core material I think - which changed the string. At the time I was playing on an original formula set, and ordered a brand new set to discover the change. There are probably threads about it.

I did order one set after GHS took over, as mentioned above. In addition to the feel changing, they shed a fine white dust all over my board for the first week. Not the biggest problem in the world, but clearly a difference on finishing the string before packaging it.

To summarize though, the original slaps died a long time ago. The new ones, both from Innovation than GHS are just not the same.

 

[Don Hergert]

It'd probably be helpful to hear from GHS' @Jon Moody about this... He has helped with this discussion in other similar threads.

My current SilverSlap E and A are ca. mid 2018, pre-GHS, so I can't really address the tension and feel since the acquisition. I also have 2 sets of new period-similar SilverSlap E and A replacements for those strings whenever the time comes, and the originals are showing no wear, so I won't be in the market for the newer GHS/Innovation SilverSlaps for quite some time. But I like my SilverSlaps, so I'm curious about this discussion for whenever in the future I need to replace them with new GHS/Innovation SilverSlaps (or whatever GHS/Innovation Slap string I would need for the same tension and feel).

In advance of Jon joining us here in this discussion, my recollection of what he has mentioned in other TB/DB threads in the past is that GHS has meticulously worked to duplicate the string recipes that were provided to them by UK-Innovation, but a lot of those recipe details were less than exact. What is intentionally different now is that some of the manual UK-Innovation production processes have been replaced by automated processes, so theoretically now there should be more consistency of the strings produced within one string type.

That said, I suspect that the tension and feel differences that people are experiencing based on pre-GHS comparisons are because of unintentional variations that occurred within the UK-Innovation shop due to manual processes and material changes. For me, that may mean that when purchase time comes, instead of SilverSlaps I may need to get SuperSilvers or another higher tension synth/slap GHS/Innovation version. Given my current E and A longevity that may be decades in the future, but I hope I can find those strings when I need them.

Other string makers do come to mind if necessary. Among those, Eurosonic strings have a similar feel and a good variety of tension selections; to me they sound a little more metallic then I prefer, but they might work out for E and A strings in a similar mix to what I'm currently using (with SBW Dirty Gut D&G). And then also, the new Aqula string selections -- both gut and synthetic Golden Spirals and Red Springs -- really also have my eye.

 

[Jon Moody]

It'd probably be helpful to hear from GHS' @Jon Moody about this... He has helped with this discussion in other similar threads.

Not sure what else I can add; you summed it up fairly well.

I know we aren´t the only ones who have noticed this. Maybe GHS could do something to increase the tension a bit. Or make a "stark" versions from the sets...

If there's another forum where people are mentioning this, please pass those links my way. Or, have those people use the "contact us" form on our webpage; it goes directly to me. They may be talking about it, but if I'm not hearing it, or only hearing one or two concerns (when there are dozens), I can't make changes effectively.

 

[DoubleMIDI]

As far as I know the UK Innovation company was afraid to loose the original core supplier to any of their strings (except the Honeys which have a different type of core) and looked out for a replacement.

They found one but then the original cores were available again and they didn’t need to change their production. But they liked the new core.
I think my prototypes which I got under the label “New Braided” (but also called “Studio” in the email exchange) were the Braided receipe (with some changes) with the new core.

From there they developed the Polychromes (unfortunately for me from the lower tension D and A strings from the prototype set that I didn’t like) with the new core, but all strings developed before kept their old cores.

Maybe some sets of the old string sets were made with the new core, but if at all, it couldn’t have been many.

They told me once that they couldn’t measure the tension of the strings themself (so no quality control in that respect was possible) because they didn’t had any device to do that.

At that time I already had my string tension measurement device (basically a one string, no fingerboard, long underlength non-electric double bass stick with a digital weight measuring device in the underlength and a wheel at the bridge to avoid friction).

But since then they had a lot of work to do and the problems they had summed up.