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A Little Guide on How to Choose Bass Strings by Igor Saavedra
A Little Guide on How to Choose Bass Strings by Igor Saavedra… First of all I want to apologize with my readers for the delay on this April article. As you surely know I was in a tour in Europe playing in Germany at the Musikmesse and also in Spain and I just couldn’t find some good quality time to write.
Now concerning bass strings… Going into this subject, to my surprise, people frequently ask me things about strings that I took for granted that everybody knew. In this short article I will just give you a list of the things that everyone should know before choosing their strings.
1) “Rigidness” is not the same as “Tension”… that means a string can be very rigid but not necessarily very tense, or the opposite. A good example is when you play close to the bridge. Obviously the string feels very rigid right there, but the tension is quite the same all along the string.
2) Taking a four-string Bass as an example, the “Scale” (34”, 35”, 35”, etc.) of that Bass is measured from the nut to the exact point where the string makes contact with the bridge saddle and considering that not every string has the same scale because that scale distance usually increases towards the lower strings, the string that is taken as a reference is usually the G string.
3) The reason why the gauge of the strings is different is because that’s the best way to compensate for the lower tuning. A lower tuning on a string will apply less tension to it, but if you increase the gauge that will increase the tension of the string and compensate things; the wider the gauge the higher the tension.
4) Investigate… don’t assume that the “pre cocked” combination of gauges (tensions) that the string sets have are the best option for you, not everybody has the same hands, fingers, strength, angle of attack, sound preferences, etc., You can like a very tense “heavy” G string but a very soft “light” E string or quite the opposite, and that’s something you won’t find on string sets because either all the strings are “heavy” or all the strings are “light”, so my advice is trying to find single strings on the market and experiment as much as you can… you will be surprised. In fact, the gauges on my basses are just crazy, completely unavailable on standard string sets, but they perfectly suit my needs and preferences, which I think is far away the most important thing… experiment!
5) String gauge is expressed on “thousands of an inch”. That is for example a .040 G string has 40 thousands of an inch, so that’s the reason for the point on the left of the number. People in the US usually are more familiar with this information, but that doesn’t happen in the rest of the world where the Metric System is the one who reigns…
6) Learn and study about “Twelfth root of 2”… The scale of an instrument and the fretting is strictly related with this amazing number. I don’t want to extend this list explaining to you all the details about this, but I think it is a good idea to just give you the concept so you can find out more about it. String tension is closely related to this…
7) If you are looking for a brighter sound go for Roundwound strings. Roundwound is the most brilliant winding, though is a little noisier because of the increased friction with the fingertips. If you want less bright and less friction noise go for Halfwounds. And finally if bright sound and slapping are not important for you I would suggest using Flatwounds.
8) In relation to the materials, if you are looking for a brighter sound, go for Stainless Steel, then Nickel Plated Steel, and finally Nickel, which has the less bright. There are some Bronze windings that have a very bright sound but they will usually leave a lot of dirt on your fingertips.
9) You can get even brighter if you choose ”Exposed Core”, or “Contact Core” strings, where the core of the string, which has a higher harmonic composition, is exposed on the bridge saddle area so it can make direct contact with it. My advice is that you have to consider that if you choose this option as you’ll have to move the bridge saddles a little bit up so to compensate for this gauge reduction on that area, which will make the rest of the string, “which is wounded”, to be a little closer to the frets.
10) The Bass Pickups generate an electromagnetic field around each string. That electromagnetic field is altered by the string vibration and that vibration will have a different harmonic composition so it will behave differently depending on the string tension, the string material, the string construction, the tuning, the construction and woods of that particular Bass, the technique, the finger touch, the size of your hand and your fingertips, etc. The configuration of the particles (electrons, protons, etc.) obtained by this specific alteration then will travel from your pickups through your cable and will reach the amp and finally will go out from the speaker… so that’s how an Electric Bass sounds! For an Electric Guitar, obviously is the same principle… but we don’t care too much about that over here 🙂
That’s for this month my dear friends!
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Photo: Self-portrait by Melissa Auf Der Maur
Melissa Auf Der Maur is a Canadian bassist who played with Tinker, Hole, and The Smashing Pumpkins. She released her own work and is a photographer with photos published in Nylon, Bust, and National Geographic. She released her ‘90s Rock Memoir “Even The Good Girls Will Cry” on 17 March 2026.
KB: Did you always want to be a singer-musician growing up?
I’ve played music my whole life. In school, I played trumpet and sang in a children’s choir, so music was always within me. My mother was the first female disc jockey on the Montreal airwaves; her record collection played a huge role in my inspiration and love of music.
KB: When did you start playing bass, and why this instrument?
When I was 19, the early 90s music explosion began to percolate in tiny clubs around the world. I was lucky to be a ticket girl at Montreal’s underground music club. In one year, I saw Hole, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins, White Zombie, and The Breeders – all had female bass players. That’s when the seed was planted. By the age of 22, I was the bass player of Hole.
KB: Which brands of basses have you used in your career, and which one are you using now?
The first bass that I learned on was a vintage Squier Precision. Hole was sponsored by Fender guitars, so I upgraded to Fender Custom Shop Precisions. That is all I play, but I have a cool vintage 8-string Greco that I use on recordings to thicken up guitar parts.
KB: What equipment do you use or have you used with your basses?
Ampeg SVT amps and cabinets, a couple of Sans-Amp pedals, and that is it.
KB: How did you become a member of Hole, and what is your fondest memory of that time?
Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins was helping scout a replacement for (RIP) Kristen Pfaff, Hole’s bass player. My band, Tinker, opened for them on the Siamese Dream tour, so Billy had seen me play and could vouch for me. Courtney trusted her talented friend, and that was it. I initially said “no thank you” due to my commitment to my photographic studies and the drama and chaos surrounding the band during the “Live Through This” album release. Courtney took it as a good sign that I said no, so convinced me to reconsider, and soon after, I accepted their invitation, in the name of helping put females in the male-dominated landscape of rock music. My fondest memory is every show we played as a mostly female band, symbolizing what a woman could do in a rock band. Every show had a purpose: get more women to play music.
KB: You are a photographer as well. What makes a great picture? Do you shoot in color or b/w?
I started shooting photographs at age 15. Initially only shot black & white and worked in the art school darkroom. In university, I took a color photography course, and shifted mostly and forever to that, because it was easier to process film on the road when I joined a rock band. I experimented with many cameras, point and shoots, manual, polaroids, medium format, and vintage finds. The trick to a good photograph is to shoot many and all the time – the magic is in the edit and selection process.
KB: Are there artists you would love to collaborate with or wish you had?
??I’ve been lucky to collaborate with some of my favorite musicians in my career. I would still love to collaborate with a new generation heavy electronic artist on an analog bass, heavy electronic drums, and synths collaboration project. Take me out of my usual zone, merging the past and future: my love of 80s dark new wave and new artists exploring that genre. It was very futuristic back then, and we are now, after all, living in the future. I am in the mood to play bass to heavy beats I want to dance to.
KB: What are your 7 favorite bass lines in music across all genres? And why these 7?
“Mountain Song” – Jane’s Addiction (love a rambling, rolling bass line – feels like the ocean waves)
“Black Top – Helmet” (was the first bass line I taught myself)
“Gold Dust Woman” – Hole from “The Crow 2” Soundtrack (it was my first bass line contribution to the band)
“Get Ready” – The Temptations (Motown just feels so good, because of the bass)
“Lucretia My Reflection” – Sisters of Mercy (makes me want to hit the dance floor and play bass simultaneously)
“Be My Druidess” – Type O Negative (full chord bass playing at its best by iconic, demonic, Peter Steele, RIP)
“Romantic Rights” – Death from Above (1979 – unique distorted overdriven tone, combined dance rhythm and melodic intelligence, all in one shot – also! Shout out to a bass & drum only band, which is awesome, and we should have more of, but the bass player needs to be a killer to fill that role.
KB: What are you currently up to?
Releasing my ‘90s Rock Memoir “EVEN THE GOOD GIRLS WILL CRY”. Visceral healing process, it was to get it out of me and write it, but I suspect the real magic will begin by putting it into the world and reflecting with others on what the magic of the ‘90s was all about. Powerful music decade that carried us into what is now a brave new world of digital corporate weirdness – may the past shed a light on our future. That’s my hope for this book release and tour.
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