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Old 11-27-2008, 11:59 AM
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Ken Smith Ken Smith is offline
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Join Date: 01-18-2007
Location: Perkasie, PA
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Lightbulb Strings..

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Bishop View Post
Ken, how did you come about determining string choice for your basses?

I ask this because I have tried other strings on your basses , however, my ear always takes me back to Smith Medium Taper Cores .
Well, prior to the Taper Core which came out in 1983 I had used the same gauges that came about with some trial and error or rather by choosing what worked best for my ear and also the same gauges in a Bare Core. Just before, during or right after (not 100% clear on the timing) we made our first 6-string by order for Anthony Jackson we were asked by him to make a Piano style Core for the Bridge area similar to what Rotosound had been making but without the adjustable Ball length which required a tool and some work to fit and tighten each Bass to the Core for every string. So, we made the same Gauges but used different Core wire and slightly different construction than did Rotosound and made a fixed Bass Bare Core String. These were called 'Bare Core' which we sold mainly to Anthony and maybe 10-20% to others after market. We continued to use our RWM (Round Wound Medium) Custom Balanced Gauges.

About a year in to this while at a Namm Show in 1982 Martyn Howe from Rotosound came into my display Booth during the Show and told me that they had a Design Patent Registered for that String and if I wanted to use them, I would HAVE TO buy it from them, not my supplier here in the USA. When I consulted a Lawyer shortly after the Show and looked up their Patent we discovered that our String was made differently but intended for the same exact usage. I was told that Patents are mainly for Design and not Usage. Then I was asked by the Layer about Income for this string and how much it was worth to me. I explained that gross sales (or gross profit, can't recall exactly this far back) was only about $2,000 a year on that particular string which by then we had in 4 gauges (L,M,ML,LM.) It was then that we were told that right or wrong, we could not afford to fight this in Court if $2,000 annually was the amount we were trying to protect. Then, my main contact at the String factory suggested that we run the last cover wire over that Bare Core and be done with it! This design was already in use with the Double Ball Strings but with 'Bare Core' on my mind, the thought just never came to me.

So, just like the Pickup placement coming about by chance, so did the Taper Core idea. Funny huh? To this date, I think I have sold more Taper Core than RS has probably sold in their design that they called 'Superwound'. I never hear of them nor do I know if they still make them.

One think of note here is that there was a small problem with the BC strings with some players. They had to raise up their Bridge saddles pretty high to get the Bare Core up high enough so that they didn't hit the Pickups when playing due to them sitting lower on the saddle on the Core and not higher up on the total thicker winding diameter. Some players also reported some overtone problems due to the raw exposure and accuracy brought about by a string with a truer tone than the sometimes muffled sound with some round wounds on the thicker gauges. The Taper Core was right in the middle between the BC and the Regular wound sting and fixed the overtone problem as well.

After developing the TC Strings in the same 4 gauges we made the regular Custom Balanced and BCs in, we started using the TCRM as our standard string for the Smith Basses. This happened around 1983 or so.
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