Advice against cheap "Bray" strings

[EmaTheMirror]

Even though I mainly use Elixir, sometimes I might want to try some very cheap brands found online as some of them can actually sound decent for a while and be a spare set, a set to experiment with, etc... I guess I'm not the only one as well.

Anyway, I'd like to warn against one particular "regular" set by "Bray" which seems to be quite popular on Amazon, or at least comes up amongst top results within cheaper sets and I decided to give them a try... The set I received was so "regular" that all strings, even if sealed in plastic pouches, seemed to be cut rather short - almost to a nice length for the first three, but the low E was literally sitting on the nut with the thin, tapered end by a good cm on my body-through 51 P, making them useless. It might have been barely ok for standard bridges, but honestly I didn't even bother and returned them.

Edited July 9, 2019 by EmaTheMirror

[bazzbass]

I would never have bought no-name strings , you really do get what you pay for with strings

I bought Hartke strings once......once.

[mcnach]

It happens with other brands too. It seems there's no standard as to what is 'long scale', or maybe you eed to ensure 'extra long scale' for body-through stringing.

I guess you can still use them if you load them from the top rather than through the body. I had that option on several basses and I can't say it made any difference to the sound.

[T-Bay]

Look on here at the reviews for Warwick Reds, stupidly cheap and good strings. Not the best, but very good and reliable. I tried them after a recommendation on here and now they are all I use.

[Bleat]

Strange as I bought a set of Elixir strings where I had pretty much the same problem on the E string on my Les Paul bass... to do with the fact of having the extra length to travel due to the 2 piece Warwick bridge... In your case it's because stringing through the body has added the extra length therefore the taper ends up on the nut.