I'm apparently more particular than you. If I had absolutely no choice but to use a 120 for an E or B, I'd do it to get through the gig, but that string would be off there as fast as I could get it off afterwards. That's completely theoretical, as I carry spare strings in all my gig bags, so I'll never face that kind of situation. A 120 at B would be too floppy for me to be at all happy, and at E, it'd be way too tense for me to play it well.
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Tuning UP three half steps
- Thread starter Greenman72
- Start date
You may be more particular than me, but I still think we're in agreement. Other than the two specialized situations I mentioned, I would generally prefer a NPS roundwound .125 or .130 for B0 and a .095 or .100 for E1 on a typical 34" scale bass guitar, but could make a .120 work for anywhere from B0 to E1 in a pinch, such as the situation @Greenman72 originally posited here.
I'm surprised as anyone that I like that .110 Ernie Ball Cobalt flatwound down in B0
The thinking was that since I play fretless so seldom, one instrument could cover the CGCF tuning I mostly used at the time, but could also go down to BEAD occasionally. As it turns out I like it better in BEAD, and use it it that way more anyway 
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Apparently, the late, great Peter Steele used 110-90-70-50, and the whole band was tuned to B-standard.
(Type O was playing in B before playing in B was cool.)
Source: CrankyGypsy
I tried a La Bella original 110 as B and it was too floppy, for me at least. And that 110 is one of the stiffest, (Roto 77 110 another stiffy) if not the stiffest. In the end, all that matters, is that your gauge choices works for you I guess
Yeah, that was probably the heaviest four-string set he could easily get thirty-odd years ago. I had just started playing around that time and if you wanted to tune low back then you just accepted the lower tension, or even learned to like it, because you didn't have the internet telling you not to, and you probably bought your strings from the limited selection at your local store. Obviously it's doable, whether or not it's ideal.
I love the options we have now and certainly avail myself of them, but I do have to smile and shake my head when I read threads on here with people fretting over "the right strings" for Drop-D or Eb standard
any given set can accommodate a decent range of tunings if the player accepts that the feel will change a bit. Different strokes for different folks, of course, and again, great to have options.
