Nylon Tapewound strings

[Chris P.]

A while ago I put a set of Pyramid Nylon Tapewounds on my Höfner and they were different from what I expected. I will share that later, but in the mean time I'm curious about your opinions!

[Pilgrim]

A while ago I put a set of Pyramid Nylon Tapewounds on my Höfner and they were different from what I expected. I will share that later, but in the mean time I'm curious about your opinions!

I put a set of tapewounds on a Gretsch Electromatic solid body with Thundertrons to tame down what I found tob e excessive brightness on the G and D strings.  I think they are Labellas.  They did help, but not as much as I expected.  However, I only had a week or two for them to break in before I needed to use the bass.  I expect them to sound better in six months.  I almost universally dislike the sound of new strings.

My other use of tapewounds is on my Lotus fretless which is a P/J configuration, on which I used the Fender tapewounds in a effort to get a more upright sound and a bit of "mwah", although I'm still trying to figure out what that means. I was pleased with the result.  Those strings have been on for more than 10 years, so they sound pretty good in any case.

[Dave W]

I've used LaBellas and D'addarios. Like them both. The LaBellas are a little more lively but the one bass I have now with tapewounds wears D'addarios. They just work better with that bass.

I've tried Rotosound and Fender tapewounds just once. The Fenders were inconsistently wrapped and annoyingly bright. The Rotos were dead sounding.

[patman]

I have used GHS and Fender...

Liked the sound of both...Thought the E string was too floppy on the ghs set.

[Dave W]

All tapewounds are relatively low tension, and in standard tuning, the E is almost always the lowest in tension anyway.

Tension is directly related to the weight of the string, for any given scale length and pitch. The nylon wrap weighs almost nothing. Richard Cocco of LaBella told me years ago that the 60-115 black tapewound set was actually a 44-98 roundwound set wrapped in tape.

[Pilgrim]

All tapewounds are relatively low tension, and in standard tuning, the E is almost always the lowest in tension anyway.

Tension is directly related to the weight of the string, for any given scale length and pitch. The nylon wrap weighs almost nothing. Richard Cocco of LaBella told me years ago that the 60-115 black tapewound set was actually a 44-98 roundwound set wrapped in tape.

Sounds about right. I have found that when installing some tapewounds on bridges with small string holes, it may be necessary to file the E-string hole just a tad wider to accommodate the string with its wrap.

[4stringer77]

Speaking of GHS tapewounds, they've been gone for a while but have recently been added back into production.
http://www.ghsstrings.com/products?categories=bass-tapewound
Can't say I've ever put a set on but they sounded good on records Herbie Flowers played on.