A bit of history. I've been playing upright for about 3 years and took up electric during the pandemic and have played saxophone for about 42 years (god). I started on spiro weichs on my Eastman VB95 Hybrid bass and while great for pizz not a great string to learn how to play arco. I love jazz players that arco on bass and I wanted to explore the classical repertoire so the search began. The first arco strings I tried were D'addario Kaplan Mediums and love them they work well for me and they became my litmus for arco and trying to find a string I could do both with. I tried spiro mittels which I liked more than the weichs and I combined obligato d and g with the spiro mittels e and a but didn't really like the obligatos. I tried the Eva weichs and didn't like them as a hybrid string. I just couldn't make them work for me. I tried Kaplan solos tuned to orchestra and they arco very well but on my bass dark and just not a great pizz sound to my ear. I just bought some D'addario Hybrid Strings, mediums, and I have to say so far for me they work for both arco and pizz. They aren't as brilliant spiros or have as much sustain or mwa as spiros but they do possess those qualities. They are surprisingly arco friendly. I also tried the D'addario pizzicato strings which are NOT arco friendly. The hybrids aren't perfect but they are better than anything else I've tried that does both well and allows me to execute faster passages with a range of dynamics while not having to think of my bowing hand. They have a pleasant sound out of the box, aren't as expensive and a couple players I admire like Christian McBride (mediums) and Phillip Morris (lights)use them. I was just wondering if anyone else has had any experience with these strings?
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