Thomastik-Infeld Acousticore Bronze-wound nylon strings Reviews 
5 / 5 based on 1 reviewsThese came on my Turner Renaissance 5 FL.
Supposedly the bass is "designed around"
these strings. While that seems likely,
ultimately I "redesigned" it, but they
have an excellent sound.
The voice of these strings comes across
as "very stringy". Ms. Diva says, "It
sounds like a REAL stringed instrument."
There's almost a built-in tremolo to the
lower notes and the upper range has a
good humming quality rather than a metal
twang like regular strings.
There's no metal core, just nylon filament,
so they are very elastic and, as with a
nylon classical guitar, they can handle
various tunings without major changes in
the way they feel to the player. The low
B string feels almost the same at low A as
at B. This same elasticity causes the
B and E strings to tune with a much more
gradual response to turns on the tuning
peg, unlike the rather touchy, sudden in-
or-out effect with steel core strings.
The extremely elastic feel makes them hard to play at quick tempo [Chuck Berry etc]
because my fingers don't easily leap from string to string. It's not like with steel
strings where you are knocking around from
string to string on a fairly resistant grid
of stiff metal wires. These strings are
like rubber and just give way under your
hand, so you're playing in mid-air. Maybe
I have faulty right-hand technique, but at
any rate, that's my main gripe, and to me
it's serious enough that I replaced them
with RS88 Rotosounds, the black nylon over
steel that I am very familiar with and love very much to play.
Another negative is that these are quite
pricey: $65[US] for the 5 string, about
$43 for 4 strings. You will note that the
B-string is apparently very "precious".
Another shortcoming of the Acousticores is
that they are too mushy to reliably allow
me to get a percussive "thunhgkee" attack
[also restored to me by the fat stiff RS88
Rotosounds]. Lastly, I personally avoid
roundwounds, even on most of my fretted
axen, so especially on this FL bass I had
little hesitation about removing them. I
did play them for several days anyway and
think I may put them on a fretted piezo
bass sometime, just for kicks.
Bronze round wire windings over nylon
filament cores resulting in a very elastic string, for piezo PUs only. Will not play
through magnetic PUs.
Mine must be the extra long set, and they
fit the Turner which has both through-body
stringing and a 35" scale. If you get a set, don't panic if the silk doesn't quite
clear the nut before you bring them into
tune. They stretch a lot. When I slack
mine to remove them, before the string is
gone floppy, the silk extends about 4mm over the nut onto the neck. It's OK.
Very interesting tonal chameleons of use
only to piezo-acoutic players. I found
them entertaining as they sound so very
different, but ultimately removed them,
not for dislike of their tone but because
of playability issues [personal] and that
I rather have flatwounds on my fretless
[personal-financial concerns]. If these
were rubbery FLAT-wounds, I would have
hung in there a long time while trying to adapt myself to the playability issue.
I'm rating them a "5" because they are the
BEST [because they're the ONLY] strings of
this type, and they ARE amazing, unique,
entertaining, and useful [to someone else].
Golem rated this unit
on
2003-11-19.
