Double Bass What strings to mix with BC?

[Bassalova]

Interesting. I never thought of Mozart as aggressive but hey what do I know.

Hehe, maybe Mozart was the wrong reference . And agressive the wrong word.
What I meant was an A and E (specially E) that is both fast and fat in sound for "rapido" music. I agree with you that the BC´s blend extremely well with the rest of the section.

For me it is also ipmortant to have a set that works very well with pizz playing, and sound beautiful under the bow. Mixing BC and Spiros solves that problem I think. The Spiro E and A sounds cool under the bow, the D and G too nasal and harsh. The Spiro D and G also is too bright pizz in my opinion. The BC D and G had the sound I was kind of missing: organic pizz sound and beautiful arco sound. The A is kind of OK, the biggest problem is the E. I´ve got a wolf with the BC A-string, and thought maybe a Spiro A would be better and perhaps tame the wolf.....

 

[koricancowboy]

Cool. I'm glad we agree with Mozart. I know what you mean about the BC E and A pizz. I'm fortunate to have 2 basses and keep each set up for different things. My orchestra bass has BC's and my jazz/folk bass has spiro weichs. They're about 5 years old and sound great. I think the brightness eases up over time. I find a soundpost adjustment can lick a wolf tone better and more permanently than a string change. YMMV. Good luck on the quest for strings. I'm glad I'm done.

 

[lucas vigor]

Damn. This thread opened up a lot of hurtin' for me.

I loved my spiro weichs for jazz and pop, but once I started playing in an orchestra I realized that my volume was much lower compared to other players. Switching to the BCs did the tricks...but that E string just sucks for Jazz! No "mwah" or sustain that I can detect.

I like the idea of BC G and D, Weich A and Mittel E.

Here we go again.

 

[Bassalova]

Damn. This thread opened up a lot of hurtin' for me.

I loved my spiro weichs for jazz and pop, but once I started playing in an orchestra I realized that my volume was much lower compared to other players. Switching to the BCs did the tricks...but that E string just sucks for Jazz! No "mwah" or sustain that I can detect.

I like the idea of BC G and D, Weich A and Mittel E.

Here we go again.

Haa-haa! (Nelson, Simpsons)

Just to be a little serious... The BC E really sucks!!!!
I´ve been emailing with Bernard Rieger, one of the top guys in Thomastik I guess. He spoke about Thomastik having produced a new BC E-string prototype. That was like a year ago. I wonder why they are holding back on those...