"Flexocor strings info from Ken Smith" (from TB, 2005)

[Ken Smith]

This is a retrieval of a Thread I authored on TB first posted on 10/28/05. It was a sticky and locked for over a year up until about a month ago. Now this information is burred way down the list. My intention here is to have the information available which took me many months of testing across mane basses of various Pedigrees and price points. We can now discuss this once again and continue the topic over here.
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Stark Es Last night (10/27/05) I did some work on my 7/8 Shen. I pulled out a reg set of Flexs and the E was for the Ext, 210mm.. Oops.. way way too long. So I took out a Stark E from another set I had and mixed it with 3 regular Flexs. It works great tension and tone wise. So I can tell you that no matter what Bass I try them on, the Stark E IS the fix for the reg Flex E.

The Stark E is about .105" The reg Flex E is about .096". The Reg Ext.E that I just got (my first one) measures about .100. I think this is closer to where the set needs to be. I wont know of course until I use it on a Bass with a C ext with regular Flexs. If this works good on the latched E, I will ask Pirastro to make this gauge in the regular length or maybe with a .102 thickness as all the other Starks are within .003 or less of the reg Gauges.

For now though, The Stark E handles all the problems of the Flex weak E syndrome. No more mixing Helicore, Permanent or Orig Flex Es to get the proper tension. When you do this to match tension, you also have the side effect or mis-matched tone. Keep it all Flexs and keep your tone where it belongs, Even!

BTW, a special thanks to francois at TB as he was the one to guide me thru all these String things when I started back playing after a 15yr retirement. Thanks francois, it was you that kept me on track and put me in touch with Pirastro to learn all these things about the new styles available now. Also, thanks to you, I have re-discovered the Jaegar Strings and taken a liking to the Forte reds (Stark in Jaegar series) on one of my Basses. I love the soft feel under my fingers and the smooth dark tone my Dodd produces with them. I have an invitation to play the Trout next week in a Chamber quintet. I brought the Gilkes last year for this. I think it's time to try the Dodd and Jaegars and see how the blend in a small setting. In the Orchestra, they are perfect for this Bass. They do require a bit of Bow pressure on the E and some on the A but after all, I am using a Bultitude Bow. It's like a Bazooka hitting a Tank. Or in more peaceful terms, it's like Meat 'n' potatoes or Peas 'n' Carrots.. Take your pick...

[Ken Smith]

I was up at Arnolds places yesterday (AES) with my Shen to get a new Sound Post fitted. He got to try it with 3 reg flexs and the Stark flex E. He agreed and mentioned that in the future, he would order his Flexs in like that.

I mainly went up to retrieve my 5er that needed the neck re-set and neck block repaired. It is strung with flex G&D and Perm A,E&B. The reason is that I had 2&2 on my Martini because the E was too thin so I put the Perm and it balanced better with A&E matched.

Again here, if I had known about the Stark flexs which by the way are not listed anywhere, I would have just gotten the bigger/better matching E string. The Perms would never have gotten a second look at all.

So, if the E is too flabby, get the Stark. If you need the tone darker and don't mind a slight drop in presence of volume, get the Jaegars. They are balanced in feel and tone to my ear. At a distance however, there is little if any loss in volume. It's just a different type of sound. More spread and less direct penetration from what I can tell but neither is better than the other.

[Ken Smith]

Regular Flexocor is the old formula now called just Flexocor or Flexocor 92s. The string they call Original Flexocor is NOT at all anything like the Flexocor of the 60s and 70s. The current regular Flexocor or 92s is the closest thing to the old formula. Pirastro seems to lazy I guess to re-name their brands. Maybe they are concerned it will confuse us even more. They should switch and call the 92s 'Old Formula' and the Originals should be called NEW Flexocor which are heavier gauge than the Medium regular 92. Because of the thickness they DO sound darker after they break in BUT the 92s Thick/Stark would be even darker sounding right out of the gate and after the break in as well.

The combination I referred to on my Shen was all Regular 92s Flexocor with Medium G,D and A with the E being the Stark/Thick gauge. I don't know why Lemur calls them 'thick' when Pirastro prints 'Stark' on the package. Maybe it means 'thick' in English.

I have the Original Flexocor (dark Blue threads) on my Martini and it is currently getting an Extension Fitted. I will use a Permanent 'E/C' on it to start since I already had it on the Morelli and took it off. When I get the chance and these get old or I get tired of them, I would like to try regular Medium Flexocors on that Bass as the 'E/C' Ext. string is .100 instead of .097 on the standard 'E' length string. I don't know why they do that. I think .100, .102 or even .105 would be a better match for the medium set.

I will update this thread after I get the Martini back.

[Ken Smith]

Ok, as promised I am posting some results and an addition.

On the Martini with the Orig flex and Perm E/C, the sound was nice unless you had been using reg Flex Starks. I could hear the edge on each the note when a great player from the NYC Ballet was trying the Martini up at Arnolds as well as when Arnold or myself played it. It did not at all sound bad. It just didn't sound as good as it would after changing strings. The Martini has good mids in the tone and needs the darker Stark reg Flexs for my ear. I soon put the reg Flex Starks on all 4 strings and the sound was darker, smoother and more even than I had ever heard the Bass. I think Arnolds Ext and some tweaking was partly to blame! I prefer this set to all other Pirastro strings now personally.

A few months ago I sent a very old set of Flexocors to Pirastro to test. They looked like the reg Flex but the gauges on all but the G were much heavier than even the Starks. Last week, Pirastro sent me a letter saying 'These are pre-1991 strings and are similar to our new Orig Flex" and sent me a set as a thank you for me efforts. I now went and measured the Orig Flexs and noticed the gauges were similar but the sound is not. I still think the reg Flex is the closest sound to the Old Flexs pre 1991. I just hope the keep offering the Stark gauges as they seem to be the best I have found.

[Ken Smith]

It has been over a year since I did these tests and had had the chance to play a few more Basses with these Stark Flexs on them. The current list includes the Martini, Dodd, Gilkes, Bisiach, Loveri and Prescott. I have also used regular Flex gauge with only the Stark 'E' on a few Basses including my Shen and Storioni attributed cornerless Bass. On a few basses I have tried Reg Flex G and D with Permanent A and E on my Martini, Gilkes and Shen.

So, what do I think works best? I have no clue! My ears are shot and my fingers and hands hurt from changing strings..lol

BUT, I am now liking the Stark E-only mix on the Storioni and the complete Stark set on the Martini. Why? Because each Bass feels best at a certain tension and at certain times of the year. This due sometimes to the Sound Post being tighter or looser as the Bass moves thru the seasons.

So, what's your thoughts on this?

[Drake Chan]

After going through all those string changes, you finally come to the conclusion that the best strings are, well, you don't know. It all depends on the conditions you stated, right?

My thoughts on this matter are that you really do have to find a good string setup if your current string setup is not making the grade for you. But at the same time, the quest to find the perfect string down to a T will not exactly help you that much.



For example, on my school's plywood Christopher, I ordered a set of Kolstein Varicores just to see how the strings were. I was interested in 70% arco/ 30% pizzicato, and I heard these strings were okay, but not great for pizzicato, and decent for arco. Actually, there wasn't much info at all on the strings, except that the G-string was nasally, but has been improved since.

The result? The strings were pretty good for arco and pizz, just as I expected. Not great, but just good. The G-string was very nasally sounding. I expected it to mellow out over the months. It never did.

I eventually jumped the gun and bought a used Flexocor set, minus the E-string. I replaced the Varicore G with the Flexocor G and voila, problem solved. The best G string I have ever heard and played.

The only other problems? I don't have a car, and haven't gotten this bass setup in years. So when playing the G-string from the A-flat to E-flat with the bow, the string buzzes. A lot. A proper setup will probably solve this problem. Also, this is a plywood bass, so its arco sound is not very good.

My school's other bass is a 1960's-ish carved Juzek. Its major problem before was that it had the oldest set of D'Addario Helicore Orchestrals on them. The sound with the bow was excrucating and screechy.

I replaced the strings last year with a new set of Helicore Orchestrals. The set, given only a bit used from another bassist, seemed to be a lighter guage set. When I first played it, I still found the sound somewhat scratchy compared to the Varicores (minus the G-string).

About a year later, guess which bass I'm playing? The Juzek. And the reasons?

Well, for one thing, I just couldn't stand the buzzes on the Christopher anymore.

But now I found the Helicores to be not just a tolerable string, but a pretty good all-around string. One reason is that they are on the carved Juzek, a major step up from the Christopher. But the other reasons are that I started using a better bow, and my arco technique has improved since a year ago.




So what's my point for this winding post? Basically, with enough practice and better equipment (bass and bow), the string choice becomes less relevant.

You definitely have to find a decent string setup to go along with a good bass and bow. But once you do, you should put less time towards finding that perfect string setup and more time towards practicing to improve your technique. At the end of the day, the time that you spend practicing will help you a lot more than the time that you spend looking for better strings.

Ken, you yourself said after looking and looking, you had no clue what were the best strings out there, just that you found a very good string setup for your basses



So does looking for the perfect string setup do any good? Definitely.

Because, if it were not for bassists' (not just us, all musicians) neurotic and obsessive tendency towards finding the best strings possible, the string manufacturers would settle for making 'good enough' strings. Instead, they give us a pretty large variety of choices for strings, and they also work on introducing new strings as well as improve old strings based on the feedback we give from our preferences and observations on what works and what doesn't.

[Thomas Erickson]

Originally Posted by Ken Smith

Ok, as promised I am posting some results and an addition.

On the Martini with the Orig flex and Perm E/C, the sound was nice unless you had been using reg Flex Starks. I could hear the edge on each the note when a great player from the NYC Ballet was trying the Martini up at Arnolds as well as when Arnold or myself played it. It did not at all sound bad. It just didn't sound as good as it would after changing strings. The Martini has good mids in the tone and needs the darker Stark reg Flexs for my ear. I soon put the reg Flex Starks on all 4 strings and the sound was darker, smoother and more even than I had ever heard the Bass. I think Arnolds Ext and some tweaking was partly to blame! I prefer this set to all other Pirastro strings now personally.

A few months ago I sent a very old set of Flexocors to Pirastro to test. They looked like the reg Flex but the gauges on all but the G were much heavier than even the Starks. Last week, Pirastro sent me a letter saying 'These are pre-1991 strings and are similar to our new Orig Flex" and sent me a set as a thank you for me efforts. I now went and measured the Orig Flexs and noticed the gauges were similar but the sound is not. I still think the reg Flex is the closest sound to the Old Flexs pre 1991. I just hope the keep offering the Stark gauges as they seem to be the best I have found.

Ken - do you know if there's a way to tell the pre-1991 flexos from the current "original flexo"? I have a very old D and G that I love, but I'm not sure if they're just really well used (former teacher took them off his orchestra bass, gave 'em to a broke student (me) who played 'em for years) or a different string altogether because they seem better than the current "originals". They measure about <.06 for the G and >.07 for the D. Digital caliper isn't very accurate.

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Thomas Erickson

Ken - do you know if there's a way to tell the pre-1991 flexos from the current "original flexo"? I have a very old D and G that I love, but I'm not sure if they're just really well used (former teacher took them off his orchestra bass, gave 'em to a broke student (me) who played 'em for years) or a different string altogether because they seem better than the current "originals". They measure about <.06 for the G and >.07 for the D. Digital caliper isn't very accurate.

Measure in inches please. .049" is what it would be close to.

For older strings, look for a fine wire wrapped around the colored threads in the peg pox area. Those are the old ones. The Flexocor that I remember are the ruby color threads, not the dark blue. However, I have found both types with the wire threads up a the top.