(Artist's conception.)įeeling like a chump, I pushed the “BUY” button.Īnd am I glad I did! Flatwounds made the instrument come to life. HOLY CRAP! SIXTY EFFIN’ BUCKS FOR A SET OF STRINGS?! I didn’t mind paying a bit extra, because flats always cost a little more, so I. Sheesh! Why hadn’t I thought of that? I went to order a set of La Bella six-string bass flatwounds. Open E was pretty floppy on the Bass VI with rounds. Specific to the Bass VI, the flatwounds also seem to keep a better tension on the low E than the roundwounds do – and that’s with the same guage of La Bellas. The flats seem to give it a more authentic 60s tone. ….on a side note, I got a Fender Bass VI here with flats and I can vouch for its twanginess. I’ve written about flatwound strings before here, here, and here, yet it never occurred to me to string my ’90s reissue Bass VI with flats - until reader Benj posted this comment in the thread on flatwounds for 12-string: As with gut strings, there are good reasons why tastes shifted toward louder, brighter roundwounds. Back when they were introduced, players would have strung them with flatwounds. Okay, now let’s talk six-string bass - not the fusion kind, but the ’60s variety, such as the Danelectro six-string bass and the Fender Bass VI. I also ordered a banjo set, for an ancient, pre-bluegrass sound. But once they do, they feel and sound great. I recommend allowing several days for them to settle in. You know how it takes longer to break in nylon strings than steel ones? These are even worse. But they really do capture a lot of “gutness.” Their tone is quieter and warmer than conventional nylon, with markedly less string noise (a great thing for a very rusty classical player like me). At between $12 and $21 dollars per set, depending on the bass-string wrap material, they’re pricy, but not crazy expensive - about the same as other high-end, E.U.-made brands, like Savarez or Thomastik-Infeld. (Aquila’s US distributor is Just Strings.)Īnd holy cow, do I love ’em! They don’t look anything like gut strings, which resemble, well, dried-out intestines. They sounded cool on the uke, so I ordered a few guitar sets. They have several lines of faux-gut nylon strings made from a proprietary material called - wait for it - “nylgut,” which allege to capture the sound of gut without the tears. Guitarists were smart when they ditched the stuff.īut I recently bought a new ukelele, which came strung a set of Aquila strings from Italy. Total tuning nightmare, especially on an Elizabethan-era axe with friction tuning pegs, not to mention lots of unison- and octave-tuned strings. And you will never, ever see it.) I experimented with gut lute strings, only to run screaming. (I have a photo of myself playing on a hay bale at a Renaissance Faire, wearing a feathered tudor cap and white tights. I’ve never tried them myself.īut one of my darkest secrets is the fact that I started out as a teenaged lute player.
Nylon strings were louder and brighter, and they offered better consistency, superior intonation, and longer life.įew living guitarists have ever actually played gut strings, which really are made from animal guts (usually cows, goats, or sheep). When these appeared after WWII, classical guitarists, led by Andrés Segovia, ditched gut overnight.
What do the classical guitar and the Fender Bass VI have in common?īoth instruments were developed using types of strings that are practically extinct.įirst, let’s talk nylon strings. You can skip ahead if you don’t care about rare and expensive guitar strings. NOTE: The contest is at the bottom of this post. "We both love candlelight, long walks on the beach, and really expensive old-school strings."
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