Can you revive dead bass strings with alcohol? Testing with Ibanez SR300M with dead strings

Here's another interesting test to rejuvenate lifeless dead roundwound bass strings. If you are incredibly frugal (i.e. cheap AF) you are surely familiar with the genius of boiling your used strings. But what about soaking them in a solvent to clean them? Here I soak a set of roundwounds from my Ibanez Soundgear SR300M bass to find out.

[@mr.cheekbones7595]

I tried this method during quarantine but instead I left the string for like 1-2 entire days in alchol (especially for E and A strings). Seems like this made a pretty good job. I'm really happy about the result. After 1 year and a half they're still pretty bright-sounding.

[@marysmith7270]

My brother suggested something I gotta try sometime. He has a small parts washer for washing things like bolts, small engine parts, etc. It works with both a solvent and heat and agitation.

[@mr.cheekbones7595]

@@marysmith7270 yeah. I've seen a video about ultrasound cleaning for bass strings. But I think that machine is a bit expensive. If you think about alchol 90-91% is really cheap. Here a bottle costs like less than 1€.

[@js4512]

The Parts washer he was talking about is actually a ultra sonic jewelry cleaner.

[@SDRockman]

What about using an air compressor to push all the dirt out?

[@frankjuster8726]

i only use flatwounds , do they go dead ? the late great joe osborne used flats and didn't change them for 20 years .

[@kubicki2000]

Flats start out brighter and fade over time but most people prefer them when they are older and more mellow, including me.

[@MrStickthrower2001]

Nope, but it will certainly perk up your bass player. 😏

[@kresosusec1]

Greetings from Croatia Bill.
Bass strings lose tension in approximately 10 days of active playing. You can boil then 2 times and after that they are unusable. You can play them but they don't have tension anymore. They feel wobbly, and your setup becouse of that dont work anymore. So life of string set is about 1 month of playing. I don use elixir or coded strings becouse they lose tension like all other strings, they are wobbly but bright-and i dont like that. There are two sets of cheep bass string on the market that actualy works. For stainless steel-warvick red, and for nickel Harley benton from thomann. China strings from ebay and aliexpres like Alice, orphe etc are scrap compared to warvick red and Harley benton nickel. So order big quantity of those two brands " becouse of postage" on thoman and you are ready to go.

[@ivanmaskov]

I kak ti se cine zice nakon godinu dana testiranja?

[@kresosusec1]

​@@ivanmaskov Mijenjam žice samo dok imam viška para, ili kad mi puknu,. sad su mi na basu žice stare 3 godine,. dok budem nešto novo snimao stavit ču nove, za vježbu je sve dobro. Ovo što sam napisao vrijedi samo ako želiš onaj feeling novih žica . Ovo su ti po redu faktori koji čine dobar zvuk.
1.Tehnika sviranja "kutevi pod kojima lupaš po žici, te elastika zgloba". -- ovo je najvažniji faktor, pa po redu prema dole
2.Stanje žice-dok je nova ima savitljivost i tenziju koja traje oko 10 dana aktivnog sviranja.
3.Elektronika-eq, pa zatim pickupovi.
4.Bridge, pragovi, nut
5.Drvo

[@ivanmaskov]

@@kresosusec1 je slazem se.. Ja imam elixirke vec 2 g tonski malo trebla izgunilo, ali trazim jeftiniju varijantu, posto sam sad upao u bend i planiram bar promjenit jednom u mjesec dana

[@MegaIslandboy671]

Is this safe for nylon wounded bass strings?

[@kubicki2000]

I kinda doubt it. Either the alcohol would damage the nylon or the strings might retain moisture.