funkle

Ok, I’ve played on these a couple of weeks. They’ve settled in. I’ve played an hour or more on these most days. They have a great feel. Not hard to fret, very flexible. I like DRs for this a lot, the round core is a great feel. A lot of the high end has worn off for me. I didn’t expect them to mellow quite this fast. The tone is acceptable but they have a strange sort of dulled tone - it kind of sounds like they are wrapped in something. Which, I guess, the core wrap wire is. I’m not sure I’m convinced of these over other DR steels. They feel better than Elixirs - lower tension - but for my chemistry, they don’t seem to stay brighter any longer. I probably prefer Fat Beams overall. I’ve been doing a lot of string dating on other basses. Rotosound Ultramags 40-100s are wonderful sounding but very tense feeling on my left hand, much like Elixirs. I had to take them off, they were noticeably hard to fret. But they sound a bit like Swing bass strings, very crunchy and good low end. Bizarre how different they feel to Roto steels of the same gauge and reported tension. Rotosound SM66s (40-100 Swing Bass set) feel amazing in terms of tension and sound utterly amazing when they go on, but I seem to kill them off after a couple of weeks. They are acceptably mellow now but have kind of lost the magic of the beginning days. I guess I’d use these if I was going to change strings frequently and had more time and money. I literally have never heard my maple neck P bass sound as good as when these went on. Great sound. I’m either going to try DR Pure Blues 40-100 or TI Superalloys next. I think the Pure Blues ‘Quantum Nickel’ is probably type 52 Alloy, like the Ultramags and the Superalloys. It seems hard to get the magic triad of ‘sounds like steel, feels like nickel’, acceptable string tension, and tone durability. Ah well.

I have a Goodwood right now. I’m taking it out on a gig tomorrow, then a ceilidh gig in the weekends after that. My testing at home is positive. It’s very similar to my Silverstone in sound, which is exactly what I want. (The Silverstone has a little bit more low end than the Monza or Monaco, which I like.) It’s louder than the 8” prototype Stevie kindly let me put through its paces. Tomorrow is with drummer and loud guitar outside. So it should push it reasonably hard. I’ll report back after tomorrow.

Matt was very patient with courier issues when buying some tuners from me! Easy communications and plenty of good humour. Very much appreciated Matt. Pete

I’m going to cross post from my busking thread on the Everse 8. it’s very relevant here as I got to try out Stevie’s new 8” prototype cab. ‘So, I got the chance to try out a new prototype cab. It’s wonderful, very capable for an 8” cab. The driver for me for trying it out was having the Everse 8 distort a lot when I pushed it a lot harder on one recent busking gig. I was asking too much of it - outdoors, no walls nearby, playing with a drummer on a portable kit - but I realised that I want to step up my power/speaker size. When I compare directly to the LFSys 8” prototype. I now appreciate more cabinet resonances when I turn the Everse up loud. I think this is because it is a composite cab, and also not as well braced as the LFSys cab. There’s no contest for me. Having the prototype LFSys 8” cab to compare to the Everse shows how much better having a dedicated, properly braced, rigid bass cab sounds at high volume. I’ve sold the Everse 8 and accepted that what I need for busking is more speaker size and power. I did a lot of testing out of portable camping batteries and the Jackery Explorer 300+ is where I landed. I’ve solved a significant EMI noise problem with that, and will simply use my well used B-Amp with an LFSys cab and the Jackery. I accept better/louder sound will now need a bigger carry - so got my luggage trolley back out. I now await an LFSys Goodwood 10” with great anticipation.’ I’ll update the thread here once I get my new Goodwood.

Ok, just stuck stainless steel Dragon Skins on my dual Precision pickup bass. 45-100. They are very sticky to start off with - as @Jamieboy said. They sound like Hi Beams to me (Fat Beams have a little bit more in the mids). They feel looser tension than Elixirs. As Jamie said, they are not as smooth as Elixirs. I’m not sure I feel a mega difference between these and other DR strings. I’ll play with these for a while and report back.

Hey all. Update to the thread. So, I got the chance to try out a new prototype cab from @stevie. It’s wonderful, very capable for an 8” cab. The driver for me for trying it out was having the Everse 8 distort a lot when I pushed it a lot harder on one recent busking gig. I was asking too much of it - outdoors, no walls nearby, playing with a drummer on a portable kit - but I realised that I want to step up my power/speaker size. When I compare directly to the LFSys 8” prototype. I now appreciate more cabinet resonances when I turn the Everse up loud. I think this is because it is a composite cab, and also not as well braced as the LFSys cab. There’s no contest for me. Having the prototype LFSys 8” cab to compare to the Everse shows how much better having a dedicated, properly braced, rigid bass cab sounds at high volume. I’ve sold the Everse 8 and accepted that what I need for busking is more speaker size and power. I did a lot of testing out of portable camping batteries and the Jackery Explorer 300+ is where I landed. I’ve solved a significant EMI noise problem with that, and will simply use my well used B-Amp with an LFSys cab and the Jackery. I accept better/louder sound will now need a bigger carry - so got my luggage trolley back out. I now await an LFSys Goodwood 10” with great anticipation.

Hopefully better than I did...I could'nt find the right size of threaded insert for the thumb screws to go into, so I just drilled into wood. Somewhere in the comments on that video is a comment that says the right kind of insert (I think...).

Yes, it is. I have had an issue on my Precision with it. Turns out my Precision doesn’t have pickup polepieces that are grounded. So, if I don’t have a good path to ground (e.g. because the strings are coated in non-conductive material), I get a ton of noise touching the polepieces. Like when Elixirs are installed.

Good responses. I’m going to try these Dragon Skins out then. Though one thing I need to check - do they allow strings to ground properly at the bridge? (i.e. Is the coating conductive?)