At various points in my bass-playing life, I have been relatively richer or poorer.
I certainly don't replace on a monthly basis, like a lot of the more keen players on here, but nowadays normally I can afford to replace fairly regularly, and usually do this a few days before a gig or recording session (so ~3-6 times a year).
In the past, however, I used to have to make do with a new set once or maybe twice each year (or sometimes even only when strings broke). I had heard somewhere that James Lee Jamerson (Motown) used to boil the same set of strings to re-invigorate them. It worked for me to some degree, and I didn't notice the strings breaking shortly after boiling or anything like that (in fact, when using EB strings, I don't think I have ever had one snap, come to think of it!)
I recently tried boiling on a used set of EB Roundwound Super Slinkys (used for maybe 6 months). I added a bit of washing up liquid to the pan, too - which seemed to make the water bubble more finely. I then used them to re-string a friend's neglected Fender bass, which probably hasn't had a set-up for ten years.
I got a pretty good result - they don't sound like a new set - but they definitely re-gained some of the overtones / harmonics and twang of a newer set, although the real top-end is missing. Sounded good straight on to the guitar, but we'll see how long the new twang lasts...
Another bass-player friend of mine has suggested using some industrial de-greaser / cleaner that he has (probably a strong alkali) to remove the contaminants from the strings. This will be my next experiment.
Have any other users tried boiling, or specific cleaning agents or any other methods for "rejuvenating" strings?
Success stories (or epic fails)?
I certainly don't replace on a monthly basis, like a lot of the more keen players on here, but nowadays normally I can afford to replace fairly regularly, and usually do this a few days before a gig or recording session (so ~3-6 times a year).
In the past, however, I used to have to make do with a new set once or maybe twice each year (or sometimes even only when strings broke). I had heard somewhere that James Lee Jamerson (Motown) used to boil the same set of strings to re-invigorate them. It worked for me to some degree, and I didn't notice the strings breaking shortly after boiling or anything like that (in fact, when using EB strings, I don't think I have ever had one snap, come to think of it!)
I recently tried boiling on a used set of EB Roundwound Super Slinkys (used for maybe 6 months). I added a bit of washing up liquid to the pan, too - which seemed to make the water bubble more finely. I then used them to re-string a friend's neglected Fender bass, which probably hasn't had a set-up for ten years.
I got a pretty good result - they don't sound like a new set - but they definitely re-gained some of the overtones / harmonics and twang of a newer set, although the real top-end is missing. Sounded good straight on to the guitar, but we'll see how long the new twang lasts...
Another bass-player friend of mine has suggested using some industrial de-greaser / cleaner that he has (probably a strong alkali) to remove the contaminants from the strings. This will be my next experiment.
Have any other users tried boiling, or specific cleaning agents or any other methods for "rejuvenating" strings?
Success stories (or epic fails)?
