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Double Bass When Nylons Go Bad

Jay Corwin

Jay Corwin

Supporting Member
Jan 29, 2008
4,674
5,819
Sanborn, NY
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#1
Recently I switched from gut back to Innovation Silver Slaps. I had played slaps years ago before I eventually settled on gut.

I wanted to share this experience and see if others have had similar issues. Last night I went to practice, and my bass had a noticeable buzz/overtone thing happening on the E and I thought the A as well. It was SUPER present plugged in. Present enough that I tried a different amp because it sounded like a blown speaker. It was every note on the E. It was really roaring pretty good.

So I checked all of the usual suspects, and couldn't get rid of it. Then I recalled that a couple of years ago I was using the same type of string as an E to match with guts, and had the exact same problem. I can't remember if it was an Innovation or Eurosonic, but I was matching different nylon E's with plain gut for a while. The solution - change the string. I swapped out the E, and the problem went away.

Both times I've inspected the string, and physically can't find a darn thing wrong with it. Is this a typical failure for nylons when they reach the end of the road?
 
#7
jasonrp said:
Why did you give up gut?
Click to expand...

This summer was absolutely brutal on them. In my neck of the woods we had the worst drought since WW2, followed by oppressive humidity. I literally could not keep them in tune for more than a song on many gigs. They would adjust as much as a full tone, and more on my E just sitting in the stand for day. Then after one gig, they just started falling apart over the playing surface. It took much sanding and oiling just to get them useable again. For the previous 2 years, I had not experienced this kind of instability - not even close.

It's worth noting that I had been playing them for long enough to know the shortcomings of gut. I also regularly maintained them, so it was not a case of neglect. It just got to the point where they were holding back my abilities, and killing me on gigs. I was tuning more than playing it felt like.

So I threw the towel in on them in late summer. I was just too busy with gigs to put up with it anymore. I had to have a reliable solution.
 
#12
I'm not too far from you and mine went nuts with the humidity also this year. The cold weather change isn't making them very happy either. There is less shredding on them now but they are still going out of tune a lot. I love the tone and am not ready to give up yet....but I've got the silver slaps and/or evah slaps on my wish list.
 
#18
Sam Dingle said:
If it's ONLY happening on the E string then it has to be a setup issue right?
Click to expand...
Slightly on the A, I think. Like I said though, I've had an identical problem before - only on nylon strings. If I switch strings it might just disappear again. I'm gonna wait for some emails to come back...might just put gut back on because I have to record again soon.
 

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