Strings of DOOM

[new05002]

its okay TJ, flats are only for the initiated

[whiskey_face]

All this talk of flats has me thinking I should try a set, Might cure some of the Brightness issues, I kind of hate dialing signal out of the eq, I'd rather have it all up.

flats are amazing. i just scored 10 sets of fender flats 13-54 for 30$ on saturday. hnnnnng

flats make it so you can actually use treble AND presense

[dub]

I don't tune down too far, and like a bit of string flap. D Standard, occasionally drop C. Been rocking 11-50 Flats on Gibson scales. I hate new string sound, so flats are perfect. Thinking about trying some half-rounds for perfect combination of stiffness and feel.

Cobalts were some of the worst strings I've ever tried. Just dead sounding and jangly. Felt awful under my fingers too.

[HeavyXIII]

In regards to those strings I said I bought: I think the change in string gauge/tension caused my action to drop pretty low, and the sound I'm getting is a result of the strings fretting out near the neck pickup. Do I want to change my action with the truss rod, or at the bridge?

[The Wood Wizard]

What gauge did you jump from and to?

More than one gauge you likely need to do both. But just one you can usually get away with just bridge adjustment

[HeavyXIII]

My upper strings stayed about the same, but I'm pretty sure the lower 3 are a little smaller. Say down from 64 to 60, ~50 to 46, and ~38 to 32. Just for reference, which way do I want my truss to turn to add a little relief?

[The Wood Wizard]

righty tighty - lefty loosie. So to tighten it is to stiffen the neck and fight the strings, to loosen it is to add more relief and let the strings pull the neck into "upbow". ig give it a quarter turn and maybe raise the high strings a tiny bit on the saddle. less is more here, give it time to settle before you start turning things all willie nillie haha.

[HeavyXIII]

righty tighty - lefty loosie. So to tighten it is to stiffen the neck and fight the strings, to loosen it is to add more relief and let the strings pull the neck into "upbow". ig give it a quarter turn and maybe raise the high strings a tiny bit on the saddle. less is more here, give it time to settle before you start turning things all willie nillie haha.

Thanks man! I've never needed to mess with my truss before, I really wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing if it ever became necessary; and this time it wasn't. I raised the bridge on both sides a bit and much of the plinkiness went away. I also found a lot of my mids! They still sound a bit different than the old strings, but I think being able to get 12 sets for $20 is a fair enough trade-off. Twice as many sets for less than half the cost?

[The Wood Wizard]

hellz yeah! what are you usingnow?

[HeavyXIII]

Juststrings.com has a "big name manufacturer" produce their brand of strings, which I built a single set of for testing purposes. I did some reading, and I've seen suggestions that it's either D'addario or GHS. I don't know how ball ends work at the factories, but if they are exact clones of one of those brands it would have to be GHS, because the ball ends are all gold. It's definitely a good deal they have going, but if you need anything bigger than 60 you'll need to order from a different brand.

TMP;DR - I switched from Zachary strings back to custom sets for teh moniez. Zach is okay, but his shipping costs and minimum order are a little off putting. So now I'm at 60-46-32-22w-17-13. I find that the 32 gets a little lost in the mix, so I'm going to bump it up to 34 to make it scosh tighter. This is C and B standard, as well as drop A# on a 24.75" scale.

[moose23]

Fender steels on bass as the 5 string set is about 15 euro so I can dump the highest string and have a nice set for myself. Dunlop heavy cores for guitar in C/C#.

[louderthangod]

The only time I like flats are on single-coil style Fender guitars like Tele's and my Cyclone (which I only use for surf/psych) and for bass. I've been using D'Addario 14-68's for a dozen years and have always really liked them a lot for tuning to B or A. Big, punchy strings with plenty of clarity. I'm also one of those guys that leaves strings on for over a year. It takes a few months to lose that metallic rattle and from month 3-12 or so they just get better sounding. I had Pyramid put together 18 sets of 14-68's and they sound even better but they get a little grittier than the D'Addarios which I don't like but the sound out of the wrapper is better right away.

[kbit]

I'm glad I found this thread, will have to try out some naked strings for my bass soon.

[misterstomach]

i've decided to stop using d'addario's recently just because of their annoying new packaging system, wherein the strings are coiled two at a time. so fucking irritating. much of my string changing happens in the dark, under stress, with limited space and time. it's really annoying to have to pull out all of the strings, unbundle them, put one aside and hope it doesn't float off or get mixed up with the strings i'm taking off, put the other string on, and then recoil the other string to put back in the pack or find it and string it on the guitar. i may seem whiny, but it really annoys me. i really like just dealing with one string at a time. i'm not sure what to switch to. what's a decent string that you can easily get in 12's or 13's (probably preferably 13's) with a wound 3rd that's easy to get in most any guitar store? i break strings all the time, so i'm not that worried about them getting dull more than a month or so out.

[Nostradoomus]

I liked DR strings when I bought strings at the guitar store (and didn't need custom gauges) Do your strings always break in the same spot Parker? Might have a burr in the saddle/nut/somewhere, I hate that shit.