Need help with what type of Bass strings I should use

[Sheepdog1969]

 

I have played guitar for over 45 years, and have occasionally fiddled with other peoples Bass guitars during that time. I recently picked up my own Bass, and have it set up to my liking.  (the funny story of how I acquired it can be found below.)

It is a p/j and I play (and I am learning to play) rock, metal, jazz, funk, fusion, R&B, and blues. It is a 4 string Rouge series III lx-200B. (it actually plays quite well, holds tune, is intonated, and has the action set just high enough to eliminate 98% of fret buzz.) Yet it still has the factory strings on it, and I bet it will sound even better with a set of quality strings. Any thoughts?

 

 

[ksdaddy]

I bought a 1983 Precision in 2003 or 2004, can't remember. I immediately put a set of mom n pop D'Addario roundwounds on there, normal gauge, 45-100 maybe?  XL something. Nothing weird.

They're still on there. They sound fine.

[Sheepdog1969]

11 minutes ago, ksdaddy said:

I bought a 1983 Precision in 2003 or 2004, can't remember. I immediately put a set of mom n pop D'Addario roundwounds on there, normal gauge, 45-100 maybe?  XL something. Nothing weird.

They're still on there. They sound fine.

Bass strings last that long? Guitar strings loose their edge in less that a year.

[ksdaddy]

I guess if you're looking for "edge", then of course they don't last very long. But in this particular case, they still sound fine to me, and if I were to change them, I'd go through a period of a month or more where they would sound too metallic to me. Then once they broke in nicely, I'd be right back where I already am, just $30 poorer.

[JO'C]

I play both guitar and bass. In my band we don't have a real bass player but we have 3 guitars and one of us plays bass and we rotate every set. I have a Peavey Cirrus bass and I kept the factory strings on for many years and they were fine except... When I played it a lot I would get blisters on my right hand finger tips (I don't use a pick while playing bass). Then I read about flat wound strings and changed over to D'Addario XL Flat Wounds. Very nice strings and no more blisters. Slight change in tone but amp pot adjustments fixed that. That change was about 5 years ago and the strings are fine. Bass strings are totally different animals than guitar strings. No bending and associated major stressing plus they are all wound and of course much thicker. I think it's the solid G, B, E strings that get stressed and oxidized requiring guitar strings to get changed more often.