Innovation string descriptions

[daflewis]

Silver/Golden Slaps
A clear round wound nylon coated string that comes with a silver or golden "hue". A bit thicker than the rockabillys but with lower tension, they also finger pizz well with a nice toppy click at the front end. Under the bow they are quite breathy and a bit scratchy. Very popular with slap players.

Super Silvers
Based on the same idea as the silver/golden slaps, but with higher tension.


Psychobillys
A string similar to the Silver Slaps in tension but thicker; there's plenty to grab hold of!

Rockabilly
A black nylon flatwound medium tension string originally designed to replace gut for slap playing, but actually bows and finger pizz quite well too. A darker sound than metal strings but with some sustain and a good gutty slap. Well suited to straight ahead jazz and rockabilly (of course!)

Ultra Backs
A black nylon flatwound string with a bit more tension than the rockabillys. A real dark horse this one, has a lovely punch to the pizz and a good amount of growl and sustain; it also bows surprisingly well, though with a definite "reediness" to the sound.

140H "Honeys"
A fairly low tension, slightly thicker than average, metal wound string designed primarily for jazz, but that bows very well too. They have a gutty thump at the front end with some sustain but a softer sound and less growl than most metal wound strings. The windings are non-ferrous so these strings will not work with magnetic pickups. (piezos are fine

140B "Braid"
Again, quite low tension, metal wound and slightly thicker than average, these strings have a bit less sustain than the honeys but have a great gut like sound under the bow with that characteristic slightly breathy quality.

Edited November 24, 2012 by daflewis

[Marc S]

Thanks for posting this helpful description
I'm fairly new to double bass, and hadn't fully realised just how different the strings can be
A useful guide

Cheers

[Marc S]

I'd like to try a set of silver slaps
Where's the best place to buy a set?
I see they're cheaper on Amazon, than on the shops listing them on ebay

Marc

[daflewis]

Hi Marc,
Sorry for the late reply, I've been out of circulation for a few weeks....
Anyway, you can sign up to try out any of the innovation strings here! Just have a looks for the appropriate thread and add your name.
Cheers,
Daf

[Marc S]

Just another thought Daf,
But would it be useful to add a description of which strings work with different pickups?
i.e. those that work with magnetic pickups or piezo pickups....

Might be useful info for those, like me, who are fairly new to the world of DB's

Coming from playing bass guitar, I hadn't realised the myriad of choices of strings!

Cheers again
Marc

[daflewis]

Hmm, yes, that's a little more complicated than first appears... The first part is easy - a piezo will work with any string because it picks up tiny changes in pressure due to the vibration of the string/bridge...
Contact mics like the Ehrlund (shameless plug there!) will also work on any acoustic body because, well, they're mics...
Magnetics, however depend on ferrous metal in the string to disrupt the pickup's magnetic field and different double bass strings have wildly varying amounts of these metals, so you'll get wildly varying amounts of signal.
Innovation say that none of their strings will work with a magnetic pickup because they use synthetic cores, and this is certainly true of the slap and rockabilly strings; though you can get a bit of signal from the jazz and orchestral sets because there's more metal in the windings; some people find it's enough, but we don't like to guarantee it.
Hope that helps!
Cheers,
Daf