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you got me again, rounds!

T

thunderbolt

May 13, 2009
69
8
Evansville, IN
#1
When I first bought my bass 2 years ago, I took it home and played the hell out of it and got blisters on my fingers. Even though the beatles may have made this ailment sound cool in helter skelter, I had to wait almost a week for my fingers to heal so I could play again. A friend suggested I try flatwound strings, and I loved the feel and tone to death. I have been a diehard flatwound enthusiast ever since.

Flash forward to yesterday. The local GC has a sale on DR sunbeams, which I have heard are pretty warm and mellow for rounds. I figured maybe I can have the sound of flats with the tension of rounds, so I buy them. Take them home, put them on, retune and jam for a few hours. I woke up this morning and the tips of my fingers are on fire with the raddest blood blisters you've ever seen.

Fool me once, shame on you roundwounds. Fool me twice, won't get fooled again.
 
#2
:rolleyes: I have used roundwounds for years and have never suffered blisters so bad I couldn't play, and I dig in pretty hard. When I started I would "armor" my finger tips with a layer or two of super glue each time I played. After a few weeks I had some nice callous built up and now my fingertips are indestructible.

Also, are you rubbing the strings a bit as you strike them? This can cause excessive friction and increase risk of blisters due to the texture of roundwounds. Roundwounds will eat thru a medium gauge pick in a single song if you rake as you pick. That's exactly why I switched to fingers, spent too much on picks and skin is free!!
 
#4
thunderbolt said:
the blisters are on my fretting hand. too much sliding methinks.
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Yeah, I'd definitely take it easy with that until you've got some callouses. It's like anything else in life, if you jump into it without the right tools, you're bound to suffer the consequences. Still, in my experience, once the blisters pop/ heal up, they'll form some nice finger-armor :smug:.

@levis: My friend Aaron did the same thing! I never did that though, I already had enough callous from twisting wires all day... :p
 
#5
You sure they weren't mis-packaged concertina wire? Maybe they were made by a company in Transylvania?

I dislike rounds on all but a few basses that I play since they are whizzy and make zipping sounds and I hate that.

But meat eating strings are kinda hard to imagine unless you're doing something very odd when you play.

Personally I find the ROTO77s (flats) make my fingers tougher, not less calloused. I think it's the tension of them that make my finger pads get hard and tough.

My fingers have six-packs now with all the work outs with the 77s.
 
#7
i remember that when I started to play bass ( 23 years ago) I suffered the same thing, I stopped playing for 21 years , when I restarted I was thinking about all the pain my hands will take but what a surprise, zero- nada, I practice 2 hours at day, using either flats or rounds, no pain at all in my fingers, I dont know what have changed in the last 20 years, I think that now I comfortably numb :confused:
 
#8
PastorofMuppets said:
if that is true then your technique needs correction.
It should not matter how hard you play or what type of string...
Proper technique will never result in what you describe.
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I don't play hard, I just have sensitive digits. Thats why I hardly ever play basses at GC, it just hurts because they are all set up with rounds. They feel terrible and they sound terrible. I gots me some TI jazz flats in the mail as we speak.:hyper:
 
#10
CapnSev said:
I'm the same way man. I've been playing for 14 years, and I still get sore fingers after long sessions with rounds. Some strings are worse than others for me, and Sunbeams are killers on my fingers.

Compression-wound strings and flats never bother me though.
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apparently Sunbeams ARE compression wound, according to the package. I figured they would be a little easier on my fingers for the same reason, but they seem particularly bad in terms of roughness compared to whatever comes stock on the fenders and squires at GC (my only point of reference for rounds). These Sunbeams are like sandpaper, and I already miss the midrange presence of my old D'add Chromes.
 
#11
Jeez - the stockers on Fenders are typically 7250 NPS right now - at least on quite a few basses anyway.

I find them somewhat aggressive to the fingers, but not really all THAT bad.

Maybe you're a candidate for Elixir Nano-coated strings. I find them refreshingly smooth and soft to the fingers - er, in a 'manly' way, of course! .

Are you using any handcreams on your hands?
 
#14
sounds to me like you just need to approach the rounds less aggressively until you build up some callouses. i am very close to 100% flats myself, but I keep at least one bass with rounds around to keep my callouses up!

Whatever you do, remember that this is NOT the time to switch to rotosound 66s!
 
#15
Never had blisters on fretting fingers from playing. Played rotosound swing 66 most of the decades Ive played. Only reason I can think of that someone would ever get blisters from fretting and sliding is being rather overly heavy handed with it. How high is the action on your bass? I'd geauss its rather high in combination with very heavy handed fretting.
 
#16
You have to ease in to it. You can't just jump in and play for hours and not expect to get blisters, you have to build callouses. When your finger tips start to feel a little raw, it's time to stop and come back in a few hours. DR strings tend to be rough on sensitive hands.

BTW, if you think rounds sound bad, have you played them in in a full band context? I think they sound much better in a mix than on their own, but I like them alone as well, so YMMV.
 
#17
The GHS Boomers I used to play feel like about 120 grit sandpaper when first installed. My fingers would get shredded until they broke in. Now that I discovered the magical SIT strings, I never have a problem. They're like butter right from the start. Been playing them for a few years now and couldn't be happier.
 
#18
SurferJoe46 said:
Maybe you're a candidate for Elixir Nano-coated strings. I find them refreshingly smooth and soft to the fingers - er, in a 'manly' way, of course! .

Are you using any handcreams on your hands?
Click to expand...



only on one of them JK LOL OMG BBQ


but seriously, i play guitar quite a bit as well so I have some callouses, they just weren't prepared for the all-out sawtooth nature of bass rounds.
 
#20
Jaco who? said:
DR's tend to be rough on sensitive hands? Wow. New one on me. The round cores are about the gentlest strings you can buy.

OP, stay away from D'addario Pro steels - you might bleed to death.
Click to expand...

Can do, mon capitan. Maybe I'm just a big ole pussbag for not being able to handle rounds, but at the end of the day I don't even really care for how they sound anyways so theres no point in getting used to them. They're fine for the jaco "blippity burp" crowd, but I'm more of a jamerson "wumpity thump" kind of dude anyways.

FLATS FO' LIFE MOFOS
 

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