La Bella 750T on fretless - top gear!

[Soledad]

I might not be alone on this. I reckon finding the rights strings for a particular bass and the sound you want is a costly and sometimes frustrating mission.On my fretless I'm now on set no4 after about 2 months and for the first time I'm happy. Just put a set of the 750T 'white' nylon flats on my fretless. At last, a set of strings that really suit the bass and get me where I want to be sound-wise.

The bass came to me with some rounds on and the sound is quite good but a bit hard, plus rounds do wear the board over time. I fitted a set of D'Addario half-rounds (45 - 100 I think) and didn't really see the point of those - might just as well go straight to decent flats I would say. Then tried a set of Fender flats - as per the reputation, too heavy and high tension so quite hard work on a fretless I felt.

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to play a 3 different electro-acoustic basses owned by fellow BC members (big thanks to Paul S and Frank Blank), all of which had black nylon flats on, of unknown origin. I'd read somewhere here that the La Bella white nylons were a little brighter so I decided to try them.

The problem with strings is describing them in a universally consistent way, so we all know what we are getting - it's very subjective, but I'll have a go:

- feel quite chunky after lightish rounds on the fretted (at 50 - 105) but are low tension so very bendy and slidy.
- lots of mid-range - which I think is the really important band for fretless
- a touch of crisp top, not super-high, just a slight crunch on the top if you want it.
- a clear bottom, with a rather woody sound. Rounded but well-pitched and nicely clear (compared to the Fender flats with a rather pitchless thump).
- decent output - can't A/B compare with previous strings but settings suggest output levels around the same
 

They call them 'white' but they aren't, they are a cloudy clear-ish nylon that look like dull nickels from a few feet away. Not weird looking at all.
I expect they will last ages - which is good as I have invested a fair bit on strings getting to this point.

I would never use these on a fretted, but I feel like my fretless is now where I want it to be so I can move on. Next, flats for my Precision. Sibob's P and Lakland both sounded the way I want with La Bellas on. The DR thread has confused me a bit. I'll probably start with La Bellas and hope I don't have to blow a hundred plus finding the right strings... again !