Half Rounds Bass Strings on 6 String Acoustic Bass Guitar – Bass Practice Diary – 15th October 2019

I get a lot of questions on social media about bass strings. What strings do you use? What do you think of these strings? etc. One question that I’ve never been able to answer is, what do you think of half rounds? Because I’ve never tried them, until now. So, I’ve just put a set of D’addario ENF71 Half Rounds on my Warwick Alien Deluxe 6 string acoustic bass guitar. The string gauges are 30-45-65-80-100-130.

Why Half Rounds?

There was a reason why I wanted to try half rounds on my acoustic bass guitar beyond just curiosity. I normally use bronze round wound strings on my Warwick Alien Deluxe. In fact, I use round wounds on all my basses. The Warwick Red Label Bronze Strings that I normally use sound great. And they are amazing value for money. But there is one issue with using round wound strings on acoustic instruments (it’s the same with steel string acoustic guitars) which is, that the strings can make annoying squeaking noises when you shift position.

An obvious solution to this issue is to use flat wound strings. I’ve tried this, and the problem is, that I don’t like the sound of flats on bass guitar. To me they sound very dull and dead, and I need the brightness of a round wound string to create the sound I’m trying to achieve.

So, the question in my head was, can half rounds provide me some of the brightness of a round wound string but with less friction (squeak), like a flat wound string? And I have to say that my early response is very good. They seem to do exactly that. The next test will be, how long will they stay bright for? That may have to be the subject of a future video.