When it comes to finding a fresh set of strings for your bass guitar, you’ve got options, and lots of them, which can make it hard to know exactly what to go for. In this guide to the best bass strings available today we’re going to help you zero in on the right set or sets for you.
Jonathan Horsley has been writing about guitars and bass since 2005, playing them since 1990, and regularly contributes to publications including Guitar World, MusicRadar and Total Guitar. For this guide Jonathan put a range of bass string sets through their paces.
Best bass strings: Product guide & reviews
Material: Nickel-plated steel wrap, high-carbon steel core
Winding: Roundwound
Tone: Well balanced
+ Performance for the price
+ Balanced brightness and warmth
+ Plenty of options
- Neither super-bright or super-dark
The NYXL strings’s USP is the high-carbon steel from which they take their name. D’Addario cook this stuff up at their New York factory and fashion it into a super-tough hexagonal core before applying a roundwound nickel wrap. These are the second brightest strings D’Addario produce, and yet they are well-balanced, with a musical warmth and harmonic richness.
They’ll handle all kinds of styles, with a bass and treble response that’ll suit contemporary slap and percussive styles, but enough midrange to ingratiate them to those seeking more old-school flavors of thunder.
D’Addario offers the NYXL sets in a wide variety of gauges, and various hybrid gauges in between that offer a light top, heavy medium configurations. There are five- and six-string sets available, too.
Material: Stainless steel
Winding: Flatwound
Tone: Rounded and warm (with a bit of ageing)
+ Classic vintage tones
+ Nice feel
+ Get better as they get older (up to a point)
- You need the right set for your bridge
La Bella’s Deep Talkin’ flatwounds have that classic flatwound feel – easy on the finger, easy on your frets, easy on your fretboard. And there’s a lovely roundedness to their tone profile that allows those E and A strings to bloom nicely.
A little experimentation with your technique and EQ, juicing the bass, a little string deadening, and you might find yourself spirited away to Studio A, tracking with Marvin and co.
But seriously, they feel so good for fingerstyle, and make a very fretboard-friendly option for fretless players. Just make sure you get the right set for your bass; La Bella sells through-body and through-bridge sets. The “FS-TB” sets are for through-body basses.
Material: Nickel-plated steel
Winding: Roundwound
Tone: Bright and punchy
+ Value is hard to beat
+ Tone profile makes them a good all-rounder
+ If they’re good enough for Geddy…
- Not the longest lasting
Launched in 1962 and used by the likes of Geddy Lee, Roger Waters, Duff McKagan, John Entwistle and… well, you get the idea, the quality of Swing Bass 66 sets is not to be sniffed at.
How these British classics are put together is very much a trade secret. There are no line drawings of the process, no pulling back of the curtain, but you’ll know a well-made nickel-plated steel string when you play it. The balance will be there, with deep lows, detailed highs, and there should be a little warmth too.
However, at 20 bucks or less, they offer excellent value, and come in a variety of gauges, with plenty of options for short and long scale basses. Five and six string basses are also catered for.
Material: Nickel-plated steel wrap, steel core
Winding: Roundwound
Tone: Modern, bright and clear
+ Big value for money
+ You’ll find them everywhere
+ Wide variety of gauges
+ Bright, articulate tones
- Not for vintage fans
The ubiquitous Slinkys are never a bad idea, and with a quality steel core and nickel-plated roundwound wrap, they deliver a bright, effervescent tone that makes them a no-brainer for contemporary styles.
Rock bassists would love them, as would the metal heads, and with that amount of articulation and treble, the Slinkys work well for bouncy slap ’n’ pop basslines.
They also represent quite excellent value, are available in a wide variety of gauges, and are available everywhere. Sure, if you have aspirations of being the next James Jamerson, these might be a little on the bright side, but otherwise you cannot go wrong.
Material: Bright stainless steel
Winding: Roundwound
Tone: Bright and punchy
+ Lovely brightness
+ Good feel under the fingers
+ Consistent tonally across all strings
- Not the best option for ‘70s bass heads
The Hi-Beams have got a very agreeable feel, good and malleable, and that’s in no small part down to their round steel core. The brightness from that stainless-steel wrap makes them one of the best options for percussive bass styles.
Disciples of Mark King would do well to seek out the lightest set they can, boost their bass and treble accordingly, and press that thumb into service. Marcus Miller is a big fan.
DR Strings engineers these tension using its Tite Fit/Compression-Winding tech, so there is a lot more mass of metal than the finished string – so what starts out as a .108 gauge E string ends up as .105 once when it’s ready. Very clever.
Material: Black nylon-coated steel
Winding: Tapewound
Tone: Warm vintage with depth
+ Unbeatable for vintage bass sounds
+ Kind to frets, fingerboards and fingers
+ They’re coated and will last for ages
- You dislike anything that pre-dates the color TV
These tapewound strings are totally old-school, and if you are looking for that mellow, bass-heavy thunk there is nothing better. Tapewounds always feel kind to the fingers and they are ideal for fretless players who don’t want to chew the rosewood to kindling.
We would co-sign Rotosound’s description of the Tru Bass 88’s tone profile as deep and warm, but maybe it’s best to direct you to recordings such as Abbey Road and Transformer – two recordings form the pop-cultural pantheon to feature them.
Depending on your setup, you can chase upright bass tones with these, and that, in this digitized age, is a beautiful prospect.
Material: Iron/cobalt alloy-wrapped steel
Winding: Roundwound
Tone: Crisp highs, prominent low end, scooped-mids
+ Long-lasting freshness
+ Clarity across the frequency spectrum
+ Versatile, but especially good for bolder players
- They lack vintage warmth
And now for something completely different, the Power Slinky Cobalts. Well, not completely different, but with the iron/cobalt alloy wrap offering more magnetism for your pickups to react to, the Cobalts are engineered to give you more output.
Tone-wise, this serves up a menu of deeper lows and brighter highs, and a midrange that has a little more discipline. And, of course, with a soupçon more output, they’ll really help you cement the low end in the mix.
This should appeal to a wide range of players, especially those playing modern styles. Rock and metal players should like these. But then, that tone profile and softer feel on the fingers makes these a decent bet for percussive styles.
Material: Coated steel with steel core
Winding: Roundwound
Tone: Prominent upper-mids, appealing overtones
+ Excellent contemporary tone profile
+ They’ll last you a long time
+ Stealth black finish is pretty cool
- Not the best old-school option
The Black Beauties are coated in black polymer to extend the life of the strings, maintaining their just-out-the-pack freshness for longer. The coating is DR Strings’ K3 coating, which was rolled out in 2010 with the promise that it wouldn’t tame any of the string’s frequency response, and nor would the coating flake.
We players can get a little superstitious with coated strings, with even the suggestion that there’s something between your finger or pick and the string being enough to play tricks with our mind, but these strings are excellent, with a healthy amount of upper-mids and trebly sparkle complementing a loud low end.
Indeed, for coated strings, these have exceptional brightness, a musical liveliness that will work well for modern styles.
Material: 80/20 bronze with Nanoweb coating
Winding: Roundwound
Tone: Quite bright
+ Coating extends the strings' life
+ Produces a unique bright tone
+ Smooth feel
- May be too bright for some
The acoustic bass is a more specialist instrument but here Elixir has looked at what works on its guitar strings and implemented it on this bass. The company has coated the 80/20 bronze cores with its well-known Nanoweb coating, and let us tell you, they are very bright!
The Nanoweb coating isn’t for everyone but we love the smooth feel it produces, reducing the string squeak whilst sliding notes. The coating is also fantastic for longevity, it works a treat and will preserve your strings for multiple more months than a standard set. If you hate restringing your guitar, the Elixirs will be your best friend.
If you prefer slightly warmer acoustic bass strings, then the Elixirs won’t be up your street, however, we feel like they produce a lovely resonance without any intrusive, harsh overtones.
Material: Nickel-wound steel with silk-wrapped steel core
Winding: Flatwound
Tone: Super mellow
+ Magnificent vintage bass tone
+ Great feel
+ Fundamentally balanced tones
- Not the most versatile
Let’s round out the list with something a little special, for those occasions when you want to go into record and you need everything, y’know, just so. Made in Austria, these Thomastik-Infeld flatwounds will give you warm, mellow bass tones, with more than a hint of the upright about them.
They are constructed from a ribbon flatwound nickel-plated steel wrap with a round steel core that’s wrapped in a silk inlay. With the round core, there’s an extra degree of flexibility and a more relaxed feel.
Allied to the flatwound’s inherent smooth profile, that round core helps make these exceptionally approachable. For this money, they should be, of course.
Best bass strings: Buying advice
How to choose the best bass strings for you
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