Can you get a bad new string?

[Puganded]

Being a very inexperienced new player, I've not bought that many string sets ( 3) to build a reference point.

Just acquired an, as new- Ibanez gsr200 bargain ,wanted a cheapo extra bass to keep in my van to practice.
Then I put on a set of Fender flat wounds @ 46 quid.

The A ,D and G all sound really good, and massive improvement to the originals,
BUT the E string! Hard to explain the sound, its as if affects echo has been applied, and fretting the low F is not a nice tone`.

My question is : Do you sometimes get one bad string in a pack?

as a note ; I also removed the 9 volt cheep preamp, thinking it could be the problem,
I did not like the sound anyway ,made no difference to the problem, but now as a passive set up, it sounds a bit cleaner.

Thanks

[danweb22]

3 minutes ago, Puganded said:

Being a very inexperienced new player, I've not bought that many string sets ( 3) to build a reference point.

Just acquired an, as new- Ibanez gsr200 bargain ,wanted a cheapo extra bass to keep in my van to practice.
Then I put on a set of Fender flat wounds @ 46 quid.

The A ,D and G all sound really good, and massive improvement to the originals,
BUT the E string! Hard to explain the sound, its as if affects echo has been applied, and fretting the low F is not a nice tone`.

My question is : Do you sometimes get one bad string in a pack?

as a note ; I also removed the 9 volt cheep preamp, thinking it could be the problem,
I did not like the sound anyway ,made no difference to the problem, but now as a passive set up, it sounds a bit cleaner.

Thanks

Check your witness points on the strings, especially as they are flatwounds 

 

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/witness-points-the-pictorial.1217291/

[Grimalkin]

Set the witness points as danweb mentioned above. If that dosen't make a difference, try dropping the pickups by a few millimetres under the E string. If the pickups are too close, the magnetism interferes with the vibration of the string causing wolf tones. 

[King Tut]

Or - yes, it may be a duff string. It happens.

[BassBod]

Yes, it happens…but not very often.  The last one I remember was a black plastic tape wound, one out of the set sounded odd and would not intonate properly.  The company replaced it with no hassle, but they usually want the duff one back to see what went wrong. 

[Reggaebass]

As mentioned, I would try just lowering the pickups slightly on the E side first, I had this once on a jazz, it was like a harmonic sound, it worked fine after 

[Puganded]

Sorted! Thanks to all, released the string think it was twisted, pressed in the witness Mark as read, now it growls,  sounds great for a cheep bass.

[Reggaebass]

Glad it was an easy fix, enjoy your flats 👍

[PaulThePlug]

Likes a GSR200... I have 2... Wired VBT and kept the PhatII 

Edited October 8, 2022 by PaulThePlug

[Bassassin]

I stopped buying Roto Swing Bass after 3 consecutive sets with dead-from-the-packet A strings.

 

A long time ago now, and quality control may have improved - but yes, it certainly happens.