The best way to age Spirocores is to simply mount a set, then play them. And play them. And play them....
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Double Bass Time for a Dead Spiros Club
- Thread starter iiipopes
- Start date
One can cook them, like I used to do with my EB string. Cook them, perhaps with a bit of dish detergent (proper word?), and give them a whirl to dry them (don't hit anyone). Then they would sound like new for maybe 50% of the time since you bought them, do it again, 25%, etc. But it is more cumbersome with DB, because you do not want to take off all strings at once, etc. And is it not against the idea and spirit of old spiro?
It may have been because of the language. I am very aware that I have to count on your mother-tongues-mind good will to achieve making my points here, but nevertheless try to ...(... snipp ...) I thought if there was a effective way for pre-aging Spirocores? Burying them feels a little extreme
Edit: Seems like I`m on the other side of issue here, didn`t quite get the point. I can always blame the lanquage
So the question was as inversed as your intuition was implying, not about artificial aging but rejuvenation: zombie-style: the undead living Spiros ...
What are the approved measures to make them sound as good as the possibly can.
Aha, so they can be cooked with soap. I knew that procedure from my guitar-days, when I was still in school with very very little money. Has anyone here really tried that on Spiros? Or what are the other concepts for their (post-)terminal care?
As 'iliipopes' [/humor on] a.k.a. the Spiro-Whisperer [humor off] correctly states, we should be able to get the most positive knowledge out of the first-hand-users-database.
No sir, you made yourself very clear, all my fault. Thought about this for another second and no, I don`t want to take the zombie-Spiro-route. You know this plastic-artificial quality of things first made looking like road-worn, antiqued, pre-aged, whatever. They just doesn`t compare to the real thing, since there`s no history and process involved. As the Spiro-Whisperer recommended, Spirocores should be " killed " only the natural way.
This conversation is conjuring too many images of Mayhem's Dead burying his clothes before gigs, and not enough images of ramen noodle eating bassists getting a lump in their collective throats, over the realization that Spiros have jumped in price almost $100 since they started playing 8 years ago :/
Membership is great - we need to have 5, 10, and 20 year milestones too, maybe. Then things will really get swinging here
Membership is great - we need to have 5, 10, and 20 year milestones too, maybe. Then things will really get swinging here
bskts: Also....rubbing the string very hard with the oiled cloth for a few minutes until it gets hot will help. In addition to getting rid of the stuff left over from the manufacturing process, the heat generated seems to also help remove the intitial harshness of the sound.
No worries.
It sounds too nice. So I resist collecting flowers for a cross referencing authorship (e.g. a borrowed one). But maybe, as being the master mind of this great great thread, you may be of help redirecting its flow ...
#9s' (yep, that's me) inquest was about the contrary of aging strings. Something like spinning a [*(-1)] in the Spiros life circle. A Botox kind of secret recipe ... Think life sustaining measures. Yes, we all know that nothing is eternal, that everything has to vanish, but modern technology proofs well that organic matter can be helped to endure. And aren't strings to be considered to be organic, a living matter, having a personal sound, even if they are not?
So what stories do you tell, opposed to just watching your love fading away?
OK, I have two answers. The first is boring and technical: any tool or item made of stainless steel, manufactured properly with enlightened technical development and quality control in the manufacturing will do its job well and will last a long, long time.
But then again, we are musicians. I like to think of Spirocore strings on a bass in the same way I think of the "Blue Guitar" by Wallace Stevens:
On Pablo Picasso, The Old Guitarist, 1903
Excerpt from The Man With the Blue Guitar (1936)
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green
They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."
The man replied, "Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar."
And they said then, "But play you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are."
...
A tune beyond us as we are,
Yet nothing changed by the blue guitar;
Ourselves in the tune as if in space,
Yet nothing changed, except the place
Of things as they are and only the place
As you play them, on the blue guitar,
Placed, so, beyond the compass of change,
Perceived in a final atmosphere;
For a moment final, in the way
The thinking of art seems final when
The thinking of god is smoky dew
The tune is space. The blue guitar
Becomes the place of things as they are,
A composing of senses of the guitar.
But then again, we are musicians. I like to think of Spirocore strings on a bass in the same way I think of the "Blue Guitar" by Wallace Stevens:
On Pablo Picasso, The Old Guitarist, 1903
Excerpt from The Man With the Blue Guitar (1936)
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green
They said, "You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are."
The man replied, "Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar."
And they said then, "But play you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are."
...
A tune beyond us as we are,
Yet nothing changed by the blue guitar;
Ourselves in the tune as if in space,
Yet nothing changed, except the place
Of things as they are and only the place
As you play them, on the blue guitar,
Placed, so, beyond the compass of change,
Perceived in a final atmosphere;
For a moment final, in the way
The thinking of art seems final when
The thinking of god is smoky dew
The tune is space. The blue guitar
Becomes the place of things as they are,
A composing of senses of the guitar.
[QUOTE="ctrlzjones, post: 16633464, member: 246211Aha, so they can be cooked with soap. I knew that procedure from my guitar-days, when I was still in school with very very little money. Has anyone here really tried that on Spiros? Or what are the other concepts for their (post-)terminal care?[/QUOTE]I think it should work, because they are all metal, like EB strings. But it will cost you your membership of DSC.
No, it won't. Once dead, always dead. At least for purposes of this thread. Now, Spiros have a really tight wrap, as opposed to some electric flatwound strings, like GHS Precision Flats, which are really open. Gunk doesn't get into the interior of the strings as badly. I simply think that anything more than just a conventional wipe down with a soft cloth when a gig is over is all that is required.
No, that's actually true to a certain extent. Pretty much any steel string will recover some of its' initial zing, albeit temporarily, if you detune them completely for a while and bring them back up to pitch. Damned if I know why.
The very first set of Spiros were by far the oldest and crustiest I've ever had...I think I mentioned them in my first post in this thread. The boiling an soap breaks up some of the finger oils, dead skin and other ick that gets into the windings and dampens the string. Don't let the silks get wet. That's no good at all.
The very first set of Spiros were by far the oldest and crustiest I've ever had...I think I mentioned them in my first post in this thread. The boiling an soap breaks up some of the finger oils, dead skin and other ick that gets into the windings and dampens the string. Don't let the silks get wet. That's no good at all.
I was referring to membership in the "Dead Spiros Club," no matter what someone does to try to resurrect a string. Once a member, always a member, unless you forsake them totally, and even then, nothing is past "redemption." Sorry I wasn't clear in my post.
I agree that getting rid of gunk will help extend the life of all strings, and since Spiros have both a stainless wrap and a stainless core, they are amenable to the various home remedies to eliminate gunk and therefore extend string life. I agree that strings, when loosened for awhile, tend to "rebound" both in tone and in needing to tweak their tuning again, but not as bad as a new string. And I don't know why, either.
There is one thing to add: acid. Some folks' hand perspiration is acidic. Even the best stainless steel will eventually corrode to acid. So make sure the strings are completely dry, both after a gig, and if they are cleaned in any manner. I've even heard of putting them on a tray in an oven at 250*F for a couple of hours, after cleaning them, then turn off the oven and leave them be until they cool down, to make sure any residual moisture is evaporated.
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Just an update: I had a set of Evah Pirazzi mediums on my bass for about 2 months and because of this thread kept thinking about that Spiro E so I threw it on. Pizzicatto it sounds even. I found (maybe strange) that the spiro is a little stronger than the Evah E and because of that (my logic) puts more pressure on the top of the bass which makes the entire bass louder (across all strings). The pizz tone is pretty even (I think its just me knowing when I play that spiro vs evahs) but the arco tone is still out. The E is very much brighter playing with the bow than the evahs. The Evahs just sound mellow and warm where the spiro has that bright scratch which i love, but when its consistent. I may need to put that Evah back on or get a full set of spiros (Or beat the hell out of the E)
