String type mystery

[Phaidrus]

You don’t need to be crazy to misremember something. A thing happens, and you remember it. Next time you remember it, you’re remembering the memory of the thing that happened, not the event itself. Then decades go by. We fill in spaces. We unintentionally make things up. It happens to all of us.

Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory (1931)

 

[Sam Dingle]

I remember those square bass strings back in the mid 80’s. They were made by a small company called S&M in the Netherlands. They had two other types if I remember correctly, one was the “Barbed Wire” bass string and the other was called the “Poison Ivy” bass string. Bass players didn’t really catch on to the concept of their product so the company went belly up after about a year.

wow glad OP isn’t crazy

 

[tpaul]

Square strings wouldn't work.

Now does that mean you didn't see them? Not necessarily. I've seen lots of strange things. Maybe some art student made them as part of a metalworking project. The strings and the bass they were on might have been dropped off at the pawn shop after the semester was over and the artist was on his or her way to Cancun for the summer. Stranger things have happened.

 

[JW56789]

Jaegermeister, it's rough.

 

[RoketRdr]

I am 100% positive they existed. I had them.

Nope

 

[devnulljp]

You bought this thing in a pawn shop? The guys running the place replaced the rusty strings with some kind of fencing wire or something.
Never seen square strings, can't imagine they'd work. That would be so impractical in so many ways.

 

[Thumpin6string]

I think I found the answer.

 

[biguglyman]

What's the best shaped string for metal?

 

[dkelley]

Square strings wouldn't work.

Now does that mean you didn't see them? Not necessarily. I've seen lots of strange things. Maybe some art student made them as part of a metalworking project. The strings and the bass they were on might have been dropped off at the pawn shop after the semester was over and the artist was on his or her way to Cancun for the summer.


Stranger things have happened.

Have they, though? really?

 

[2tonic]

You bought it at a pawn shop, right?
Perhaps the previous owner took an angle grinder to his strings in response to a moment of clarity.......an epiphany, if you will, in his ceaseless quest for the fabled, ephemeral T~O~N~E!?
Surely disappointed with this effort, he quickly "disappeared" the evidence.

 

[Kubicki Fan]

Jaegermeister, it's rough.

In small quantities it is medicinal, in large quantities, therapeutic.

 

[Diminishedfilth]

Square strings sounds about as comfortable as a wooden stripper pole.

 

[onda'bass]

hex core yes, square wrap....mmmmm nope

 

[BobDeRosa]

Where is @Jon Moody when you need him? I'll bet he could clear this up.

 

[foolforthecity]

There's no way. When you install strings they turn of their own accord, and they HAVE to be allowed to or you get "twists" in your string. Yes I know, if it's that shape you'll be able to tell if they twist when you put them on, right? I GUARANTEE you that it wouldn't work.

I think, back in the 80s, you were enjoying the local herbology a little too much.....

Back in the 80’s?

 

[Jon Moody]

Where is @Jon Moody when you need him? I'll bet he could clear this up.

Clear up what? An idea that would've been implemented - if at all - in the 80s, nearly 30yr prior to me even working at a string company...?!

To the OP, if you think this through logically, you gotta see that it would be impossible. A square string would have edges on it that, when you're playing the instrument and sliding up/down the neck, would be akin to drawing your fingers across razor blades.

And that's if you installed them correctly. As many have mentioned, the chances of twisting a square string are huge, making that whole "rip up your fingers" thing even more guaranteed.

 

[dkelley]

Back in the 80’s?

"Well anyway I’ve spent the last 35+ years thinking..." quote from the first post. Am I wrong?

 

[CBRXJ]

What kind of bass was it?

 

[JTE]

Huey Lewis and The News...

 

[iiipopes]

There were some oval shaped strings from one manufacturer a few decades ago, but they didn't catch on. Their marketing slogan was easier on the fingers when aligned with the flat oval to the fingerboard.