Many players, especially old school R&B guys, tended to leave their strings on a loooooong time. I guess the decreased upper freq.s gave them a "better" thump (or maybe thud).

Reviewing the Oct. 04 Bassplayer story on Brian Wilson one finds that Carol Kaye alledgedly never changed her strings (says she was "too busy") but would after 2 years simply trade in her bass for a new one!

This raises some questions for me...
First, how economical could this have been?
Sure she's busy but how long does changing a set take?! She couldn't have an assistant do it?
I considered that she might've been given promotional basses by Fender but at that time she was hardly a well-known figure outside the studio scene so her name wouldn't have had much cache with the public market.

Second, (& more idly) I wonder if engineers/producers had to adjust their standard EQ when she brought in a new model.

Comments?

How busy could she be? Evidently, so busy that she barely had time to eat or sleep at times. It's very entertaining, and sobering, to read her stories about studio life back in the day. I seem to remember stories about people cat-napping in empty neighboring studios during breaks, eating on the run, not getting home for several days at a time, that sort of thing, just going from session to session. Does that mean that there was NO time to get new strings? I don't suppose so; still, if that's your lifestyle, I imagine you develop a pretty different set of priorities.

Yup, she really was that busy! It wasn't uncommon for the "Wrecking Crew" to work 12 to 16 hour days every day of the week. Since she used (and still uses) flats exclusively, she could get away with going two years on a single set of strings.

Kirk

Do you guys remember the Jaco interview that was posted here a while ago? When asked who he listened to, He said "I don't have time to listen to anybody." Or something like that. That story reminded me of that.

Maybe she worked in busier studios than I (duh!), but wasn't there a tech guy hanging around that could change the strings on her bass or basses when needed? The last time I did a session and broke a string, the engineer's assistant did it for me. It took less than 5 minutes.

That story makes no sense. But there are many stories in this so-called business that make know sense.

I remember reading something similar about John Entwistle and the recording sessions for "My Generation". Originally he was trying to play the song complete with it's solo on a Danelectro. The thing is, he kept breaking strings. Since there weren't strings available, he kept on buying more Danelectro's from the music store. Eventually they ran out of Danelectros as he kept breaking strings. So then he wound up with a Fender and finally played the entire song with *I believe* a Precision bass. There are definitely some strange recording stories from the sixties, that's for certain.

Evidently, she didn't break strings. Does that make sense?

This was, I gather, just how people operated back then. I read an interview with Steve Cropper recently, in which he said Al Jackson never changed drum heads unless one broke (although he was known to play whole shows with a broken head!), & that he & Duck never changed strings unless one broke.

So people back then didn't obsess over the age of their strings. And?

Nick: cool story about Entwistle! I hope it's true. David Gilmour has spoken about the recording of "One of These Days": he & Roger Waters doubled bass on that tune, but Waters' bass had dead strings, & they wanted more snap in the bass on that track. So they sent a tech out with a few pounds to get some strings--and he never came back! So they recorded it with one bass strung dead; if you listen, you'll hear it come in after a few measures of Gilmour's bass. (PS I don't think people always realize how much bass Gilmour played with Floyd.)

I think he might have mentioned it in the cover article BP did about him several years back. Funny story, either way.

Like on "Hey You", probably my favorite Pink Floyd song from a bass standpoint. A prominent fretless part, and it was David Gilmour playing it. Go figure!

Man, I wish I could buy a new bass every time my strings went dead!


Me: "Hey dear, my strings are dead, I'm gonna go out and buy a new bass."

Wife: "Okay honey, I'll have dinner hot and ready for you when get back, have fun!"


If I had the $$, (and I'm sure Carol Kaye did) I'd be using any excuse I could think of to buy a new bass. Dead strings, finish doesn't match my outfit, I'm feelin' depressed today and need a little pick-me-up,...etc.

I'm a bit younger than Kaye & never achieved a level in music biz to be in LA studios but at the time of her peak, things were much different than now as far as tech support, even for the recording staff.
Anybody remember Tommy Tedesco's stories in Guitar Player?

When I mentioned an assistant to change them, I meant just a friend or whatever.

It still seems odd that chasing the comparitively lesser fees of those days one would opt to buy a new bass regularly rather than a new set of stings or that 5 minutes a year was that hard to find...

Mostly I wonder at the engineer looking up & asking, "Hey, Kaye, what? You get a new bass again?!"

If I tried that line on my wife, her more likely response would be "Okay honey, I'll have your belongings on the front lawn when you get back..."

Kirk

I've posted this before but apparently Bernard Edwards didn't change strings either. Asked in an interview what strings he used he looked surprised at the question, and said "whatever strings come with a Fender".

What Carol Kaye, Jamerson, Duck Dunn did in the old days.....that was then. This is now.

Anthony Jackson changes strings for every take!

I don't know if Carol's story about buying new basses instead of strings is true. I should have asked her when I saw her. People didn't have techs in those days.

She's using Thomastic-Infeld strings now.

For "traditional" sounding players, old dead flatwounds were the only way to go.

In a BP interview a few years ago (I want to say May 2000) with Tony Kanal from No Doubt, he said that he changed his strings every day. That blew me away.

I can't even imagine this. When I need to change strings, I do it at least two days before my next gig. For the next couple of days before the gig, I will play the new strings as much as possible, bend them, stretch them, play them some more, stretch them some more, etc... This is to make sure they are all settled in so my tuning will be solid when I hit the stage.

I can't imagine the tuning nightmares of dealing with brand new strings every day!!

Kirk

I love new strings! All throught the '90's I changed my strings 2 or 3 times a week if I was working a lot and could afford it. Now I am married and a bulk my good gigs seem to be on upright. It's hard to justify the expense, so I don't change them nearly as often as I would like.

Kirk,

If you string your bass proper-like and have good hardware (tuners, nut, and bridge), you shouldn't have any tuning problems. Also, stretching shouldn't be necessary.

A common problem I have seen (more on guitar than on bass) are neck movements due to players who change all the strings at once (take all strings off, clean the fretboard, and then replace all the strings). In this case, it's hard to miss having tuning issues, but it isn't the fault of the strings as much as the neck (from having zero tension for a period of time and then settling back to the appropriate amount of tension).

When I restring my basses (one string at a time), I rarely have more than minor adjustments after about an hour.

My bass doesn't like new strings, the treble just rips your ears off (for corroboration, see my 'Warwick mods' thread). It wore some LaBella S/S rounds for about three years and then became Bootzillared last May. They're still sounding fantastic!

I hate changing strings, it's so damn fiddly. Maybe I think that because my double ball-end wearing Hohner lets you swap sets and tune up within about 2 minutes, at a leisurely pace. See, those headless basses may look weird, but...

Jason Newsted used to get through eight sets of strings a night, when on tour with Metallica. At 200 gigs a year, and $20 a set, that comes to $32k per year. Doesn't that seem a little consumptive?

Alex

I have several Basses That I use for recording that I leave the strings on forever.On my "Sting"
Bass I left the factory strings on it and it has a great tone and I bought it new in 2001.Some of my Basses have strings on since 1996.

i change strings when the c and f get segmented from fret wear...the curse of the 7 string!
i don't like new string sound...i fight the treble a lot.
the cost is an issue, too. not too many cheap sets of 7's that are worth playing...i can't even find flats for my bass, which i would love to try.
poor widdle meeeeeeee.....lol

I still have the factory strings on my Yamaha 5. But I've really got to change them, though. They've probably been on there since 2001! It's only under my tutelage that they've even begun to wear out.

I can be fairly heavy on my strings, but as I play different genres of music, and discovered how to use amps to my advantage, I've eased up a bit.

I read in an interview with Marcus Miller, that when he heard this, he started lurking around the studio to hopefully recover the discarded strings. Much to his dismay, he found Jackson cut the strings off the bass to make string changes quicker.
I change them about once a month.

I concur with dcr. I don't know about the LA scene but in the sixties in Memphis there were not a lot of music stores much less techs. I learned by watching Duck Dunn and I can tell you bass players didn't think about changing strings back then. When you bought a Fender back then (around $300 with the case I think) it came with flatwounds. Bass players in Memphis didn't think about changing strings a lot until bands like Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Yes started becoming popular. And Carol Kaye was probably knocking down so much money it was probably no thang to buy a new bass.

When I first got my own Bass in 1971 I did not
even consider changing strings. I remember when my sister broke a string on her Guitar,my dad had to take it to the store and get it "Fixed" LOL.

:D :rolleyes:

I admire him but that sounds pretty obessive compulsive.