The Comprehensive List of Black Nylon Tapewound Strings!!!

[markjazzbassist]

Any one had experience with both LaBella Black Tapes & Pyramid Black Tapes? Thanks!

yes I put the pyramids on last night. The pyramids are a lot more tense than most nylon tape wounds, no wet noodles here. Also they don't have the plastic-y feeling or sound, no gloss either. They are the smoothest feeling which isn't a surprise cause their flatwounds are hand polished and super smooth too. The pyramids don't have the clicky plastic thing some tapes have, there is treble content and high end like most tapes but I would say these are more on the mellower side. They are sounding great on my hollow body very upright type tone which is what I wanted.

 

[Midwesterner]

I very briefly had an experience with LaBellas. but, my E string broke as I put it on. but, I do have a ton of experience with Pyramid and have been using them for several years.

I'd love to hear more about your experiences with them! Thanks in advance for your time!

 

[Midwesterner]

yes I put the pyramids on last night. The pyramids are a lot more tense than most nylon tape wounds, no wet noodles here. Also they don't have the plastic-y feeling or sound, no gloss either. They are the smoothest feeling which isn't a surprise cause their flatwounds are hand polished and super smooth too. The pyramids don't have the clicky plastic thing some tapes have, there is treble content and high end like most tapes but I would say these are more on the mellower side. They are sounding great on my hollow body very upright type tone which is what I wanted.

Since these will be going on a short scale (30.5"), higher string tension would be welcome. I had a pair of the LaBella BNT's on a 30.5" that had the .115 E and while I liked how they sounded, the low tension took a lot of getting used to and not something I loved. These will be going on a bass with a good deal of chambering and I, too, am after an upright tone.

If you have any more thoughts to share in the coming days as you get more playing time in, I would be eager to hear it. Thanks in adavance!

 

[WannaBeatle]

yeah, the Pyramid set probably has a more treble sound due to the fact they use a stainless steel string underneath the nylon wrap. I'm not sure what other manufacturers use for their nylons.

but, they're still not as bright as a regular stainless steel string - my least favorite string material.

here's a couple of horrible pics I took of my Pyramid set a couple of months back. the string didn't break, but, after years of use, the nylon wrap became loose and I peeled back the nylon curtain to see what was underneath.

 

[Midwesterner]

yeah, the Pyramid set probably has a more treble sound due to the fact they use a stainless steel string underneath the nylon wrap. I'm not sure what other manufacturers use for their nylons.

but, they're still not as bright as a regular stainless steel string - my least favorite string material.

Here's a couple of horrible pics I took of my Pyramid set a couple of months back. the string didn't break, but, after years of use, the nylon wrap became loose and I peeled back the nylon curtain to see what was underneath.

Thanks for the "inside" info! Not something you get to see very often.

I think with them being BNT's that a little extra treble is a welcome thing. I think lots of people who try to get a upright sound out of electric often focus on rolling the tone control off to make it darker or turn up the bass on their amp. Uprights have a lot of "air" in their tone and can cut right through. I find the way I pluck with my finger(s) and playing over the fingerboard gets me a lot of the way there. I want my pickup and strings to have good articulation across the sonic spectrum as I find that combination gives me as much of the upright sound I can reasonably expect from an electric bass.

 

[shoulderpet]

Thanks for the "inside" info! Not something you get to see very often.

I think with them being BNT's that a little extra treble is a welcome thing. I think lots of people who try to get a upright sound out of electric often focus on rolling the tone control off to make it darker or turn up the bass on their amp. Uprights have a lot of "air" in their tone and can cut right through. I find the way I pluck with my finger(s) and playing over the fingerboard gets me a lot of the way there. I want my pickup and strings to have good articulation across the sonic spectrum as I find that combination gives me as much of the upright sound I can reasonably expect from an electric bass.

Yes, a lot of the time when people try and get an upright tone they roll of their tone control, when you hear an upright bass it is not swimming in treble but the articulation is there, when you roll off the tone on a passive bass you usually end up with a big low mid bump as well as less treble and often a lot of mud.

The most convincing upright tone I have got is probably from a Hofner with flatwounds, Bass slider in the "Off position" and neck pickup on and bridge pickup volume all the way down, both pickups on is a great tone but the mids get a little more quacky than I associate with an upright.

 

[Midwesterner]

Went ahead and pulled the trigger on the Pyramids. The bass they'll be on should be complete and to me around February. I will be sure and post my impressions!

 

[SuperMutual2900]

Hey there, had a Hofner Ignition Club with La Bella black tape wounds on it as my first bass but sold it to fund my next one, a JMJ Mustang. Love it, but completely different feel with flats and I'm craving the tapes once more. I don't yet feel like I've got this bass under my fingers.

Would it be totally necessary to modify the nut if I went for the Pyramid 648 Rooftop set? If so, I probably wouldn't buy them which leads me onto my next question; how do D'Addario tapes and La Bella's compare? Other than the price difference! Yikes!

 

[HaphAsSard]

Would it be totally necessary to modify the nut if I went for the Pyramid 648 Rooftop set? If so, I probably wouldn't buy them

Get the cheapest roundwound single strings of the same or similar gauges to the Pyramid black nylon tapewound set, i.e. 55-75-95-112. For the thinnest two, a 056 and a 074 for guitar will suffice and be cheaper:
Ernie Ball P01956 Stainless Steel Wound Electric Guitar .056 Guitar Single strings
Rotosound NC074 Rotosound Nickel Wound Electric .074 Guitar Single strings
As for the fattest, a 110 will have to do:
Ernie Ball 1695 Nickel Wound Electric Bass String Single .095 Bass Single strings
Ernie Ball 1399 Stainless Steel Electric Bass Strings Single .110 Bass Single strings
If they fit through the nut slots (you don't even have to install them) the 648/RT tapes also will; if they do not, you'll have to either file the slots wider, or pass on the Pyramids.

 

[srayb]

Hey there, had a Hofner Ignition Club with La Bella black tape wounds on it as my first bass but sold it to fund my next one, a JMJ Mustang. Love it, but completely different feel with flats and I'm craving the tapes once more. I don't yet feel like I've got this bass under my fingers.

Would it be totally necessary to modify the nut if I went for the Pyramid 648 Rooftop set? If so, I probably wouldn't buy them which leads me onto my next question; how do D'Addario tapes and La Bella's compare? Other than the price difference! Yikes!

I haven't tried the Labella tapes yet (they seem to have supply issues). But I've played the D'Addario tapes on my 30" Gretsch G2220. They sound good, but are very low tension. I found I liked them a lot better when I tuned up a step to F#. But it depends what sound and feel you prefer. At standard tuning, they still sound good, but tuning a bit higher brings more definition. They are worth trying out, hope this helps.

 

[SuperMutual2900]

Get the cheapest roundwound single strings of the same or similar gauges to the Pyramid black nylon tapewound set, i.e. 55-75-95-112. For the thinnest two, a 056 and a 074 for guitar will suffice and be cheaper:
Ernie Ball P01956 Stainless Steel Wound Electric Guitar .056 Guitar Single strings
Rotosound NC074 Rotosound Nickel Wound Electric .074 Guitar Single strings
As for the fattest, a 110 will have to do:
Ernie Ball 1695 Nickel Wound Electric Bass String Single .095 Bass Single strings
Ernie Ball 1399 Stainless Steel Electric Bass Strings Single .110 Bass Single strings
If they fit through the nut slots (you don't even have to install them) the 648/RT tapes also will; if they do not, you'll have to either file the slots wider, or pass on the Pyramids.

This seems like a good idea. I'll look into this! The nut sort of seems to cradle the strings rather than surround them so I don't see why they shouldn't fit but hey, you don't know if you don't try!

I haven't tried the Labella tapes yet (they seem to have supply issues). But I've played the D'Addario tapes on my 30" Gretsch G2220. They sound good, but are very low tension. I found I liked them a lot better when I tuned up a step to F#. But it depends what sound and feel you prefer. At standard tuning, they still sound good, but tuning a bit higher brings more definition. They are worth trying out, hope this helps.

The LaBellas are quite low tension too or at least IME which I find a trade off as your right hand can't get too vigorous when you're chugging some eighth notes on the other hand (literally) I loved how easy they were to play and finger style, they just seemed to want to ring.

I think the D'Addarios are about 12€ more than the LaBellas but Labella don't make a specific set for string thru mustangs and neither do D'Addario but at least they don't tell you not to string them thru body

 

[WannaBeatle]

The Pyramid nylon tape wounds are also low-tension. I haven't tried the Roto set since the war....the clone wars! So, I can't recall what they were like.

 

[SuperMutual2900]

I'd sort of already discounted the rotos for being the low E being a whole .003 larger than the pyramids

 

[HaphAsSard]

[...]
Back in 1981, I bought my first basses. The second was an acoustic bass guitar with tape-wound (non-magnetic) strings: an Eko Chetro. Great instrument, but I wanted it to sound like (in my present-day terms) a short-scale upright bass, for use in trad. jazz sessions. The music store sold me an acoustic stick-on pick-up (Dean Markley Artist Transducer). That did transmit the sound (to the PA-mixer), but it lacked bass. (Only now do I realize that I could have used the Tone controls on that mixer...) As a substitute for a magnetic sound-hole pick-up for bass, the store sold me one for western guitar (a Schaller, probably type 10-46S). Plus a set of the (magnetic) flat-wound strings that I had already fitted on my (first) solid-body bass (Ibanez MC-924).
The other month, I released the Eko (and the Ibanez) from a closet. I have removed those pick-ups, and reinstated the tape-wound strings.
[...]

As an aside - I've taken the liberty to quote your post here in this other thread, so that Old Ozzie Guy's discussion doesn't get cluttered - could you tell me more about those nylon tapewounds?
What is the silk colour? Are they long-scale? Have you got a caliper so as to measure their gauges?

Are they really non-magnetic? Do they produce no sound at all when mounted on an electric instrument?

Oh: have you got any pics you can share? One or three showing the Eko Chetro in its entirety would also be appreciated...

Thanks in advance!

 

[Prodigus Filius]

I saw a few mentions in this thread in relation to Rotosound Trubass 88 and that they are higher tension than other nylon tapewounds. The 065 as G has particularly high tension compared to other strings in the Trubass 88 serirs.. I don't do E standard, but a work around for lower tension is to downtune to D standard with the 5 string set, 65-135 or buy the singles individually if available.


DGCF Tuning

Frequencies
D 36.71hz
G 49hz
C 65.41hz
F 87.31hz
Gauges 065 075 100 135
D1/.135/42.92lbf
G1/.100/37.34lbf
C2/.075/34.78lbf
F2/.065/41.07lbf
TT = 155.21lbf

I find this approach of skipping the string normally associated with E e.g a 110,105 or such works well and see no reason doing so with Trubass 88's, with the gauges mentioned, wouldn't either. Obviously a nut job is called for. Ya can't beat a good nut job

 

[Prodigus Filius]

I bit the bullet and ordered a set of Roto Trubass 88 65-135's.
I've been messing about with BEAD for some time and BEA lately. One thing that has irked me on bass is even a 65 gauge D string feels too thin to me. I've been using a 75 chrome and a 73 La Bella for D2 and I had hoped to try a Roto77 075, but that purchase fell through. But one thing in the trade off between going for a fatter D is obviously the tension increase. Had I got the Roto 88 set, the tension of the 75 is 70 lbf. As it is the Chrome 75 used as a D is similar humungus tension, as is the Orig 54's 073..
So I'm thinking I want to try tapewounds anyhow because I've never tried them, and they have the advantage of providing a big gauge but without the hefty tension. E.g the Roto 88 075 has 23lbsf less tension than the Roto 77 D string 075. And so on and so forth with a bigger A and E gauge. I was thinking of getting the D'addario ETB92-5 set, but the 075 for D in the Roto88 set was the clincher. Plus they were on special and the price was the same as the D'addarios. Looking fwd to giving them a whirl. Could be what I'm looking for in my restless bass journey.

 

[markjazzbassist]

Can anyone detail what the string under the nylon is for the following sets:

rotosound trubass
Pyramid (it seems someone above believes they are stainless steel rounds)
Labella 760N black nylon

 

[HaphAsSard]

Can anyone detail what the string under the nylon is for the following sets:

rotosound trubass
Pyramid (it seems someone above believes they are stainless steel rounds)
Labella 760N black nylon

Roundwound (unclear if nickel, steel, nickel-plated steel) for both the first and the third:
Black Nylon Tapewounds

As regards Pyramid Black Nylon Tapewounds, my only source is indeed post #203 above. TB user's still active, you could ask him directly.

 

[HaphAsSard]

A new-to-me (not sure how recently introduced) nylon tapewound, the Eclipse Bajo Electrico Nylon Plano Color:

Tapewounds I didn't know of: from Mexico City, Eclipse Nylon Plano Color (yes, they come in colours!)

 

[Prodigus Filius]

That didn't take long he he