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Double Bass Velvet strings megathread part II

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#442
The velvet Blue are the 1st synthetic core string by Velvet (all others have a silk core). they have a copper winding like the 360's. soundwise in my opinion they are a bit brighter than the silk ones and they have more sustain and more articulation. i think they sound almost like the 360's.
they are much cheaper than all others because of the synthetic core
for more info you can always write to [email protected] ,but ill be able to answer only tuesday because im on vacations till then.

Nuno
 
#444
I had garbos on my bass for five years...until the A string BROKE! :eek: (they were kind of old though)

I now have animas. One reason. The bow. The Garbos are garbage with a bow. Overtones, skating, bad open string notes. In short, it sounded like a cow farting while another cow was cut in half by a lumberjack who'd been eating beans for 6 weeks straight....and some bad saxophone too if you get my meaning. Worse amplified. :rolleyes:
And I can bow, I spent 4 years playing classical at the Sydney conservatorium so I know a bow well. It wasn't just bad technique.

However, if you don't bow much at all, then Garbos sound delicious. Beautiful sound, soft on your hands. Even string tensions and great for slapping I thought.

Either way, I wouldn't go back to cable core strings now.
 
#445
I've had my Garbos for 6 months and I love them, pizzicato. Arco they're a lot of work. It is possible to play OK arco up to the E on the G-string. The G-string is the hardest one to bow as it has some polyester winding.

Everything else about the Garbos are great, soft tension, thick gauge which povides this huge acoustic volume which I cannot live without. It makes me able to play mostly without amp (depending on the drummer!!!).

Don't know much about the Animas though. They seem to be more allround and easier to bow from what I've heard. Probably to light for me anyway :smug:
 
#446
I love the Animas. They have great projection of the fundamental and they have a nice sustain. I'm not a legit bassist by any means, but the work I've started doing with my teacher on arco doesn't make me want to change strings. They feel great.

shoot me an e-mail when you get back to the city and we can hook up if you want to check them out on my bass.
 
#449
I would think that pairing up Obligato E A with Evah's D G or maybe just a full set of Obligatos would give you what you're after as they are silver wound on a nylon core. They're both decent arco strings.

The reason why I only mention Evah Pirazzi D G is that the E A is really thick and I think they're dead sounding out of the package. They're not even good to bow in my opinion.
 
#450
I missed this thread being somewhat busy this past couple weeks.

The reality is that what you want doesn't exist. If it did we'd all be playing them.

Feels like velvet sounds like spirocore=Velvet Animas to me. They bow about as freindly as spirocores though.

Everything I can think of that is very arco freindly is about as far away from the pizz sound of spirocores as you can get.

It's an exercise in compromise. What is the most important aspect of a strings performance to the playing you do the most on that bass?

If you want spirocore pizz then use them and deal with the arco. If you want spectacular arco choose a great arco string like Flexocor or Belcanto and deal with the pizz.

Animas, Evah Pirrazzi, obligati, and all the rest of the strings that try to do everything are compromises in every direction and you end up with a jack of all trades master of none kind of thing.

...Oh and Ken is absolutely right about this; Each player, bass, and string are a combination in and of themselves. Change one of the three and the generalizations about the other also change. It's hard to compare strings based on evaluations on the internet.

Ya gotta spend the bread and try them on your bass.

Case in point. I didn't really like Belcanto all that much on my bass after living with them for awhile. When I recently tried some other basses strung up with them they really knocked me out. Change the bass and the string all of a sudden worked better for me.
 
#452
yeah i have kinda given up (temporarily!!!) on the string dilemma for now because i've purchased a full circle, a marvin tailpiece, and am going to purchase an acoustic image amp (i.e. the money's running out).

thank you all so much for your input, it's good to know the major names of synthetic strings that might suit me out there...

in regards to Uncletoad's words of wisdom, it was kind of my assumption that no such string exists. i will note that i play a bulgarian flatback and so there is a certain punchiness/mid-range quality that bothers me sometimes (also hard to EQ in my present amp situation). at the same time, i love that growl and "solo bassist" sound that my spirocores have... it seems to me by what ya'll are saying that i should mix up the strings and get a different G/D or just G. i'll keep researching...
 
#454
I've had the 180 suits on my bass for about a week, coming from a Oliv G and D with spiros on the bottom. What a completely different and unique sound. I love the 180's more each day! I would say the sound is very round (on my bass, 150 year old German Flatback) and open. They were also very loud. At first we thought something was wrong until we realized that the rattling was coming from a picture on the wall! I know the 180 is pricey here in the states, but when you consider one set that can bow very well, has a good (somewhat old-school) pizz tone, and can then be tuned up for the solo rep for $350 as opposed to 2 or three different sets of strings for their various purposes I think you have a good deal, especially for the broke-a$$ college student. Give them a shot!
 
#455
I'm trying out animas after using spirocores for years and the biggest difference I've noticed with bowing is the G string. It's wound differently than the other 3 and to get a decent sound I've got to use lighter pressure and faster speed. The D, A, and E are just about as easy to bow as the spiros. However, playing high in the thumb position is trickier than spiros on all four strings. On another note, the texture of the animas is really different - kind of rough, and my fingers catch on them (hard to gliss). The oil from my skin actually helps to reduce this, so maybe over time this will be less of an issue as the strings absorb more oil. I've only had them on 2 days.
 
#457
Troy Robey said:
I'm trying out animas after using spirocores for years and the biggest difference I've noticed with bowing is the G string. It's wound differently than the other 3 and to get a decent sound I've got to use lighter pressure and faster speed. The D, A, and E are just about as easy to bow as the spiros. However, playing high in the thumb position is trickier than spiros on all four strings. On another note, the texture of the animas is really different - kind of rough, and my fingers catch on them (hard to gliss). The oil from my skin actually helps to reduce this, so maybe over time this will be less of an issue as the strings absorb more oil. I've only had them on 2 days.
Click to expand...

I've never noticed a different winding on the G string. Also, keep in mind that it seems to take Animas a little longer to break in and settle down. Once they do though, yee-haw! Enjoy.
 
#460
JoeyNaeger said:
I have seen several symphony players using spirocores. There is nothing about them that will hold back your arco technique. Granted, they're not as smooth and easy bowing as belcantos or flexocors, but they bow just fine.
Click to expand...

I'm moving more and more away from my string-as-the-solution phase. I've made some setup changes with the help of a certain TBDBer that I'll get into on a different thread at some point.

However, after the usual disclaimer about not actually having real arco skills, I will say that I've drug a bow across just about everything now. Spirocores are entirely managable arco if you pay attention and work at it, at least within my limited scope. Likewise with Jazzers. I've played a lot of "hybrid' strings like FlatChromeSteels, Permenants, Superflexibles and they all respond arco somewhat better than Jazzers, Spirocores or something similar. (although Jazzers bowed pretty well for me).

However, everytime I play arco on a real arco string, Flexicores, Helicores, Belcantos. There's just no comparison. They are so much more buttery under the stick. The tones are so rich. It almost makes me sound like I know what I'm doing.

Hybrids are a trade off both ways. I've not found (and I've looked) an honest arco string that I can be happy with making my way in the world as a working jazz bassist. I can also imagine that making your way in the world as the principal of an orchestra with Jazzers would complicate your life.

Set up, practice, decide what tradeoffs you want to make.
 
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