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using full length of your string,not trimming them,is better for it's core, true?

#21
They are after all just strings. Nothing you do with them that works for you is foolish. Cut them or not. Wind them artistically around the headstock or trim the excess to length to make antennas for your Amateur Radio transmitter, it really doesn't matter. But cutting them does absolutely no harm, the manufacturer has not only already cut them, he has also designed them so that you can safely trim them to the lengths required by your headstock.

Ken
 
#22
Azure Skies said:
If cutting the core changes the tone, then the manufacturer has already ruined the tone for you. They don't mold these from molten steel, they are cut to length. Cutting another 5 inches changes nothing.
Click to expand...

heh heh, yes, that makes a lot of sense,
the entire concept is ridiculous..

I remembered where i saw it.
I'd gotten out an ancient copy of Bass player the other day,there were different pro bassists giving little bits of advice on tone, how they get good tone..etc
I think that issue had nobody on the cover,it just read,"Tone..and how the greats get it" or something like that..

Bobby Vega had said that and it was the first time I'd heard anything like that.
but the end is clipped anyway, right??
 
#24
Just because a bassist is a pro with a lot of experience does not necessarily make them intelligent or mean they understand how their gear is affecting their end tone. I've heard some crazy stuff from some of my idols.

One of them endorses a $200 power cable designed to improve an amps tone despite it not being involved in the tone circuitry and carrying the same electricity that passes through the shoddy 70 year old rat-chewed wiring of the night club downtown. Many believe large speaker diameter automatically means deeper lows than a smaller one, regardless. Some think that Hartke aluminum cones have a bright sound like a cab with a tweeter. And of course most every salesman will warn you of the dangers of underpowering cabs.

Go ahead and cut your strings. Stick the end in the hole and wind them up. They were designed for that, it has nothing to do with tone and the poor guy to your left might forgive you and be your friend if you apologize and buy him a drink. Maybe... if he can still see.
 
#28
landau roof said:
Actually, this isn't true. They're not cutting a roll of finished string stock to length. The core is a given length and then it's wound.
Click to expand...

But it doesn't matter!

Sorry to interweb-yell, but the whole point of the thread is this:

Crimping and trimming your strings will not make a bit of difference in the tone of your bass guitar or the integrity of the core.

The only positives to not trimming your strings are that you will strain the tuning gears if you wind all that extra length on them; jab yourself in the eyes if you leave the dangling, ******** guitar-player style; and in any case, look like a jackanus.
 
#30
I would not say that the D'Addario video is perfectly clear about this but if you listen to the whole thing it does say that the cores are "cut to length" early in the process and then the finished strings are "cut to length" at the end. The unclear part comes from the fact that two different types of strings are under discussion in these two steps and I think that neither are bass strings. But it does make sense that the cores are initially cut to a length suitable for the subsequent processing steps and winding jigs and then they are cut to final length once the winding is finished. Seems to me that a lot of my bass strings have the main windings terminate just beyond the nut but they have secondary wire at a loose winding pitch that follows the core right up to the very end. It is hard for me to see how they would do that unless an overlong core was held in the winding jig and then the string was cut to final length before the end of the secondary wire.

In any event, every bit of wire on your bass strings has already been cut to length at some point or another in the manufacturing process. You do no harm by cutting further as long as your cuts are made in the portion clearly intended to be cut to length. Cutting long scale strings short to fit a short scale bass does have some risks but that is not what we are talking about here and those tradeoffs are well discussed in other threads.

Ken
 
#33
khutch said:
I would not say that the D'Addario video is perfectly clear about this but if you listen to the whole thing it does say that the cores are "cut to length" early in the process and then the finished strings are "cut to length" at the end. The unclear part comes from the fact that two different types of strings are under discussion in these two steps and I think that neither are bass strings. But it does make sense that the cores are initially cut to a length suitable for the subsequent processing steps and winding jigs and then they are cut to final length once the winding is finished. Seems to me that a lot of my bass strings have the main windings terminate just beyond the nut but they have secondary wire at a loose winding pitch that follows the core right up to the very end. It is hard for me to see how they would do that unless an overlong core was held in the winding jig and then the string was cut to final length before the end of the secondary wire.
Click to expand...

I just came upon this and it reminded me of this thread.

Last time I restrung a bass, I took a cut end and stuck it in a potted plant to use to aerate the soil. This is a D'Addario Chrome. You can see that what's at the very end is exposed core, albeit a bit rusted from its current use.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
 
#34
landau roof said:
I just came upon this and it reminded me of this thread.

Last time I restrung a bass, I took a cut end and stuck it in a potted plant to use to aerate the soil. This is a D'Addario Chrome. You can see that what's at the very end is exposed core, albeit a bit rusted from its current use.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Click to expand...
I don't understand your post. Still, it does look like the windings are not tight around the core until the very end, where they are wrapped tight like they are on the main part of the string. My guess is that those final wraps are a way of "terminating" the wrap so it won't slip. If that is the case, a person would loose this when they cut the strings more than an inch or so (unless they put a bend in the string to help keep the core from shifting relative to the windings).
 
#35
boynamedsuse said:
I don't understand your post. Still, it does look like the windings are not tight around the core until the very end, where they are wrapped tight like they are on the main part of the string. My guess is that those final wraps are a way of "terminating" the wrap so it won't slip. If that is the case, a person would loose this when they cut the strings more than an inch or so (unless they put a bend in the string to help keep the core from shifting relative to the windings).
Click to expand...

I was watering a plant last night and found that string end in there, which I put in the pot a month or so prior to poke around and loosen the soil around the roots. :)

I'm not saying that trimming strings affects tone (so long as it's done correctly), just showing that the mfgr doesn't cut a string at the windings as has been asserted herein.
 

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