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Double Bass Tuning double bass half step lower

E

El Loco

Feb 13, 2012
8
0
Bologna - Italy
#1
Hello everybody,i'm a electric bass player fell in love with double bass a year and half ago.
i'm looking to get a gig in a band,they play many styles,most electric bass,sometimes acoustic,they play everything tuned half step lower.
When i tried to tune half step down my Slap King double bass with Innovation Silver Slaps on it,it seems that the tension is too loose,on E and A strings in particular,it's hard to have a precise pitch.
There's someone who can recommend a brand or a gauge of strings for double bass for this particular problem?
Suggestions are appreciated
Thank You
 
#2
El Loco said:
Hello everybody,i'm a electric bass player fell in love with double bass a year and half ago.
i'm looking to get a gig in a band,they play many styles,most electric bass,sometimes acoustic,they play everything tuned half step lower.
When i tried to tune half step down my Slap King double bass with Innovation Silver Slaps on it,it seems that the tension is too loose,on E and A strings in particular,it's hard to have a precise pitch.
There's someone who can recommend a brand or a gauge of strings for double bass for this particular problem?
Suggestions are appreciated
Thank You
Click to expand...

If you want to stay with the sound and feel of the Innovations, the Super Silver set has a little more tension but the best bet would be the Psycho Slap set.

You will need to re-cut the nut and bridge slots to accommodate them (they are FAT strings!) but they will handle the semitone drop much better.

Or you could try Spirocore Stark. ;)
 
#3
I would think Super Silvers are a good idea, if this is not enough probably Ultra Blacks.
I have no idea of the Psycho slaps, Jake has seen a lot of basses, so his opinion might be better than mine.

Silver Slaps are about the same tension than some lower tension gut strings, so a bit more tension is needed in original pitch to tune down and still like to play them.

BTW, Jake's Spiro Stark was a joke, but when I had to play with baroque recorders in lower pitch, I had to tune down my Spiro Mittel (which always felt to hard for my hands during this time) by about a halftone and they sounded soft and were really nice to my hands then.
So, it really depends on the string if tuning down gets a nicer or a more worse experience.
 

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