What bass string gauge?

Talk about all other types of guitars. Jazzmasters and basses go here!

Moderated By: mods

User avatar
ohyeahfuzzbear
.
.
Posts: 1848
Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2010 9:06 am
Location: midlands

What bass string gauge?

Post by ohyeahfuzzbear »

I'm gonna get my bass set-up with new strings and shit and I was just wondering what a good gauge is for drop D and sometimes standard...

Also brands and stuff could be useful to...
Doog wrote:"And every day after high school, the young Kurt would sit down with his soldering iron and oscilloscope, to work on what come to be known as the Boss DS-1, the world's first guitar distortion pedal."
Dillon
.
.
Posts: 1644
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2006 7:03 am
Location: Colorado

Post by Dillon »

I tune my bass a whole step down (D standard) for a lot of my band's songs, and I use DR Low-Riders in Medium (50 to 110). Highly recommended.

http://www.drstrings.com/catalog/lo-rider-bass
User avatar
Doog
mid-century modem
Posts: 23075
Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:49 pm
Location: London

Post by Doog »

I generally use 50-110 tuned to standard, but there's ample string tension there for drop D.
User avatar
ohyeahfuzzbear
.
.
Posts: 1848
Joined: Mon Feb 15, 2010 9:06 am
Location: midlands

Post by ohyeahfuzzbear »

I think I may go with Ernie Ball power slinkys 110-50 then...
Doog wrote:"And every day after high school, the young Kurt would sit down with his soldering iron and oscilloscope, to work on what come to be known as the Boss DS-1, the world's first guitar distortion pedal."
User avatar
damienblair17
.
.
Posts: 1069
Joined: Fri Oct 24, 2008 6:31 pm
Location: San Francisco
Contact:

Post by damienblair17 »

I use Super Slinkys (45-100) and I'm half step down in Eb most of the time. when I go drop D(flat) it's usually fine, but it depends on which bass I'm using.
Doog wrote:The perfect marriage of Teh Kurdtz and Teh Durstz.
RUN AMOK!

KESSEL RUN!
User avatar
Billy3000
.
.
Posts: 3033
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2006 3:16 am
Location: Atlanta

Post by Billy3000 »

I use D'addario and DR 45-105's and I play in half step down, sometimes dropped to C# and it holds up well. I like both D'Addario and DR strings, but it basically depends on what's cheapest wherever I am when I'm buying strings. I used to use Ernie Ball and I do not recommend them at all! I've played bass in my past 3 bands and when I used Ernie Ball strings they would lose their tone and get all grimy much much faster than the D'addario or DR strings do. I gig pretty regularly and I like to keep the same set of bass strings on for at the very least 2 months, and the Ernie ball strings could not handle that, they would either break or just get disgusting and have no tone after a month at most. Since I stopped using Ernie Ball strings I haven't broken a single bass string.
User avatar
Gabriel
.
.
Posts: 3178
Joined: Sun Apr 11, 2010 8:46 pm
Location: NYC

Post by Gabriel »

The bassist in my old band uses Elixir Super Lights 40 - 95 and theyre sweet strings. They sound new for ever and they're really easy to play if your a guitar player. As long as the bass is full scale they handle drop D too. Not cheap though but then again they do last an awful long time.
User avatar
robroe
Bon Jovi Fan Club!!1
Posts: 49936
Joined: Thu Apr 20, 2006 1:00 pm

Post by robroe »

for my mustang bass i bought a pack of Fender Bass VI strings and used the 4 heaviest strings on it.

So it goes

.044
.056
.072
.084

it works fucking great!!!

you can get them real cheap here if you want to try it

http://www.firstqualitymusic.com/p_XL15 ... ROOGLEFEED
dots wrote:incesticide
User avatar
Lefty Mustang Bass
.
.
Posts: 23
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2010 9:34 am
Location: East Coast, US

Post by Lefty Mustang Bass »

robroe wrote:for my mustang bass i bought a pack of Fender Bass VI strings and used the 4 heaviest strings on it.

So it goes

.044
.056
.072
.084

it works fucking great!!!

you can get them real cheap here if you want to try it

http://www.firstqualitymusic.com/p_XL15 ... ROOGLEFEED
Really? I can see the first 3 working, but isn't the 84 a bit small? How's the tension?
The Unicorn Tamer