I have a bass that I use exclusively for reggae and the round wound strings on it are around a year and a half old. That is an unusually long time for me to keep strings on a bass but I wanted to see if I got a warmer more mellow tone over time for the genre with old strings.
However, last weekend I played a gig with the bass and whilst the strings were in tune in the open position there were a number of places on the bass, more noticeably 7th fret and below, where the notes sounded very slightly off pitch and as a result I found myself bending the strings to pitch during some of the songs. I checked the tuning during the gig and the open strings stayed in tune all the way through the gig. I've recently got some Elixir's so will most likely put them on the bass and check the intonation before the next gig. But I just wondered if it's normal for older strings to lose their pitch along their length.