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Attention musicians...especially bass guitarists...

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  • Attention musicians...especially bass guitarists...

    I've heard that one rarely needs to change strings on bass guitars.

    That said, I have a bass guitar that I rarely play, and it's had the same strings on it since I bought it over a decade ago.

    Now, I primarily play country music, and I'm getting that "itch" to try to do some recording. I'm not a very good bass player, either. But I want to learn how to play in the "neotraditional" country, Americana, Texas Music, or Red Dirt styles.

    I'm really looking to start off learning bass lines like the ones in this video:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5VYOXm0gu4

    But on to my question...

    I'm thinking about changing the strings. Again, I've read that I don't really need to. But I'm wondering about the different types of strings, and what might sound good for the types of music I would be playing.

    I know there are different ones: flat wound, round wound, tape wound, half round, and things like that.

    I'm considering getting a set of flat wound, but I don't know for sure which way to go here.

    My bass is a Yamaha, and I would probably be running it through either a PA or my amp first, then into my computer.

    Thoughts?
    Skilled programmers aren't cheap. Cheap programmers aren't skilled.

  • #2
    In general, you don't need to change strings unless you need to change strings, due to fraying, damage, etc., but it doesn't hurt to clean them once in a while.

    It's been a long time since I bought strings, on the order of a decade or more (because I don't really play any more) but I generally stick with Ernie Ball Super Slinky. They're decent general-purpose strings, so to speak. That page has a thing to compare their strings -- it says "find your sound" -- but I'm using an ancient iPad right now and that page crashes my browser so I can't say if it would help or not.

    Beyond that, I couldn't say. I don't play country, and I run through a series of effect pedals (including distortion) so the tone of the strings wouldn't matter much to me. I would say, go to your local guitar shop and see if they have different strings setup on different basses, and see how they sound.
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