Don't Cut Upright Bass Strings!

Every now and then we learn that one of our customers has cut his bass strings!  Whatever you do, never cut your upright bass strings.  Maybe their thinking (I am sure) is a holdover from their days of playing an electric bass (Fender) but one should never cut the strings on an upright bass because they will surely loose the 'integrity' of the winding and literally...fall apart and unravel quickly.

On the well made Pirastro and Thomastik brand of strings, one of their best attributes is the extreme quality of the wrapping and how long they last.  Why cut them???  Cutting them will release the tight core wrapping that will eventually work its way down to the rest of the string thereby ruining it.

From what we can tell, some have thought (incorrectly) that it is bad when the colored end winding (scroll) end of the string runs out and then the metal string wraps around the tuning peg.  This is normal if it does this and every string goes around the tuner peg a couple times before the string is at playing tension.  It's ok!! 

On very rare occasions, some synthetic strings cannot handle the multiple revolutions on the peg.  One particular recent example is the new D'Addario Zyex E string.  The E core is the fattest, stiffest string and because of this they were susceptible to breaking. They seem to have fixed this as well.  Early on, their Zyex E strings were the typical length as their other bass strings, but they soon realize that with the Tungsten core, going around the peg once or twice (or too many times), would break.  They remedied that by making their E strings slightly shorter thereby minimizing too many revolutions around the peg.

Hope this clears up any questions regarding whether to cut your upright bass strings.  Don't!