I've always followed this and I hate how it's not the standard for major brands. Having to buy custom gauge sets is a pain. Ernie ball and d'addario have way too much tension on the second and third strings and not nearly enough on the 5th. Instead of 45-65-80-100-130, it's really supposed to be 45-60-80-105-140. DR is even worse, their 3rd is 85 and 5th 125, so the tension is even further off balance. How Alex Webster from cannibal corpse uses a .125 hi-beam set for G# is beyond me, I can't stand a .125 for even just B. Hit it too hard one time and it's already out of tune
Balanced tension vs. balanced tone... As a former "balanced tension enthusiast" I learned "balanced tension" doesn't always guarantee "balanced tone". I've found a low B bigger than .130 didn't sound all that great on my 34" scale Yamahas. I would sacrifice tension balance for tonal balance any day, and that usually means the low B with a slightly lower tension than the rest.
"Usually" or "for you, with those particular <130 strings, on that particular bass"?
I've definitely seen reports by people using ≥140 low B strings, and being satisfied by
both their tension and their
tone.
(In fact, this led me to hypothesise something like a "sour spot" centered around .135", but I've never pursued it further.)
A couple assorted musings:
- Webster likes his 125 G#'s, Pinnick his 100 low A's (!). Obviously, we're all different and what works for one doesn't for another
- what I would reasonably expect to objectively change, with a significant increase in gauge, is a worsening of tone (in terms of both a darkening and an increase of inharmonicity)
up the neck. Tone of a single string is not the same across the (literal) board, regardless of gauge, but a stiffer string will probably sound subpar (inharmonic, chorusy) at a lower spot (i.e. closer to the nut) than a more flexible one
- the above is of course moot if one only rarely ventures past the 12th fret, if at all, on one's low B
- a 4-string bass tuned to BEAD, compared to a G-string equipped four- or five-stringer, has inherently worse access to high notes,
- which implies the tuning's target audience (besides a common aversion to 5-string basses) is either 1) players, typically (but not exclusively) metal ones, that are content with staying relatively close to the nut; or 2) players who need to use the entire board and, specifically, to spend a lot of time in the mid-neck region (if subbass passages are occasional, and there is a more frequent need for constant back and forths between the conventional bass register and treble notes)
- the first group, in turn, may gravitate toward low-gauge low B strings (110~125) for reasons of tradition (a lot of non-standard, drop or standard C~D tuning metal features relatively thin, 100~110 gauge strings as the lowest in the set, which distinctive tone many players will want to translate to BEAD tuning
- however, a break from the aforesaid 'metal downflop' tradition may open the same set of players to the benefits of a 140~150 gauge low B (a clearer, more aggressive tone, albeit confined to the first 5~9 frets)
- conversely, the 'mostly midneck' group, who only occasionally need access to the B~Eb region, and tend to fret their F1~D2 notes on the B string rather than on the E string, may want to reassess string flexibility (ergo low-inharmonicity) as a priority vs. tension (or, more exactly, resistance to the plucking hand), precisely because they have a higher need for the 10th~15th fret region of their low B not to suck than a 5-string player has
- I would expect the latter group to benefit more from either thin gauges or unconventionally-flexible (thin core, roundcore, rope-core) strings.
Uhm, tl:dr -> it all depends? ^^
