Currently using GHS tapes on a P-Bass (stainless steel frets, Fralin p/u) -- they feel good, but wondering which tapewound might be the least "woody" or upright-sounding of the lot, for warmth short of flatwounds. Open to all brands.
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TapeWound Club~Anyone?
- Thread starter .BumeStik.
- Start date
If by less wooden you mean brighter you can try La Bella's White, Copper White and Gold White tapes, theyt all have the tape feel but way more mids/highs.
AllI play now is fretless,and it's the black tape D Adderio's for me.I want the double bass sound.I love these strings.
I highly recommend the regular Whites if you want the sound of broken in rounds and the feel of tapes. I tried the Gold Whites and Blacks and I didn't like them.
La Bella black tapes and a pair of Bartonlini Original series are getting installed in my fretless on the recommendation of Martin Keith. This particular bass has been a bit of a thorn in my side since arrived and given its unicorn nature and weight I'm not likely to ever be able to sell it for any kind of decent money, so I keep experimenting with it. Hopefully the Barts/tapes combo does the trick.
I had an active filter pre so added a battery box. If it's still lacking I may try a different onboard pre.
you may not need to. Barts and the tapes give a great sound. Audere is fairly neutral.
That's definitely my hope, I'm tired of putting money into this bass.
I stumbled across labella black nylon tapewounds a few years ago when playing a friend's bass. I was totally blown away!!!!
I have since installed them on both of my fretless basses, and installed white nylon tapewounds on one of my acoustic/electrics and plan on installing the same on my other acoustic/electric.
I have since installed them on both of my fretless basses, and installed white nylon tapewounds on one of my acoustic/electrics and plan on installing the same on my other acoustic/electric.
Agreed completely on the Barts and tapes. Great combo.
As to the Audere preamps, they're completely neutral (to my ears) when set flat, but have a very wide range of sound-sculpting abilities. Great rigs.
Hot diggity! The Bart Originals, black tapes, and going back to passive was absolutely the right move. What a lovely sound!
A Frankenbass fretless of mine: Black D'Addario tapes and Bartolini pickups. All passive.
Edit: For anybody who's curious, that's not a defretted fingerboard but one piece of ebony. The position markers are custom-placed, not "between the frets", but right on the position you would play fretlessly to get the indicated pitch: e.g. the two dots are on the fretless octave. Had the neck made this way years ago before I was really comfortable on a fretless. Still serves me well on occasion, though.
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These two oldies are the ones strung with tapes in my small collection...
1970 Les Paul Bass on the left just got a set of Pyramids (55-112) and keeps thanking me profoundly for saving whatever amount of original fretwork that's still there...
1972 Les Paul Triumph Bass on the right has been wearing a set of La Bella White Nylons (60-115) for a few months now and seems content with them...as am I...
Although very similar in many respects, these two basses always sported very different sound(s), feel and personalities to begin with. Using vastly-different-sounding-strings on them underscores these differences even more profoundly.
1970 Les Paul Bass on the left just got a set of Pyramids (55-112) and keeps thanking me profoundly for saving whatever amount of original fretwork that's still there...
1972 Les Paul Triumph Bass on the right has been wearing a set of La Bella White Nylons (60-115) for a few months now and seems content with them...as am I...
Although very similar in many respects, these two basses always sported very different sound(s), feel and personalities to begin with. Using vastly-different-sounding-strings on them underscores these differences even more profoundly.
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I have been shopping around for a fretless, and one bass that I find very intriguing is the Weir Anarchist headless bass. The Luthier, Dave Weir recommends not using round core strings. His experience has been that his headless string fastening system sometimes has slippage issues with round core strings.
My all time favorite bass strings, which I pretty much have used exclusively since I discovered them about 20 years ago are the LaBella 760N tapewounds…absolutely love them. However they might not work on the aforementioned Weir headless bass.
What can you fellow tapewound cognoscenti recommend in the way of Hex core tapewound strings?
My all time favorite bass strings, which I pretty much have used exclusively since I discovered them about 20 years ago are the LaBella 760N tapewounds…absolutely love them. However they might not work on the aforementioned Weir headless bass.
What can you fellow tapewound cognoscenti recommend in the way of Hex core tapewound strings?
uhh… give the 760s a 90 degree bend then cut. Kink should help with slippage…
I haven’t tried anything other than labella tapes after loving them….
I have used and liked both D'Addario and GHS black nylon tapewounds - the former sound to me a little brighter (not zingy-bright, but clear-sounding in general) and scooped in the mids; the latter are darker but have a mid presence that help them sit audibly in a mix.
I don't know of any tapes that are round-core. There might be some, but I've never heard of any. So, whatever problem you may have with installing tapewounds, they may equally apply to all of them.
A question for my tapewound bretheren...
I recently made a La Bella black tapewound go 'ping' (long story short, I was a distracted idiot)
It is a resonably new set & I don't feel like spending $AU99 on a new set just to get one string.
but I can get a single GHS 3060 Black Nylon string for $US15
My question is, how different are those strings?
Am I going to have a bass that looks like it has a set of strings but sounds like arse?
I recently made a La Bella black tapewound go 'ping' (long story short, I was a distracted idiot)
It is a resonably new set & I don't feel like spending $AU99 on a new set just to get one string.
but I can get a single GHS 3060 Black Nylon string for $US15
My question is, how different are those strings?
Am I going to have a bass that looks like it has a set of strings but sounds like arse?
I don't know about the GHS, but D'Addario also sells singles... but I found all tapes I've tried (D'Addario, La Bella and Pyramid) to sound and feel different from one another.
I haven't played GHS nylons, but my understanding is that they're the only tapewounds where the core is an actual flatwound, as opposed to a roundwound on La Bella, D'Addario etc. I'd presume that the new string would sound quite differently from the rest of the set. Whether that would yield a good or a bad result I have no idea.
My $0.02 only...
Good luck.
