Cleaning bass strings

[Ben Bradley]

Gerald Forsburg wrote:
> LOL!!!  I was a bass player for years.  Never heard of this, but it
> doesn't surprise me.  We bass players are a weird bunch.  The only

    I've heard of this before, here's a discussion:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.audio.pro/browse_frm/thread/91706ff8a532e9/a4ba16258fdcf442?lnk=st&q=boiling+strings+group%3Arec.audio.pro&rnum=1&hl=en#a4ba16258fdcf442

or if that link is broken by 'wrapping':

http://makeashorterlink.com/?D20D1254C

    The piano at my church (we're small with no real pianists in the 
congregation, so it's rarely played) is very dull sounding in the bass. 
I'm wondering (okay, I'm new here...) how much of that might be the 
strings, and how much the hammers. I suppose as a hammer ages the part 
striking the string gets compressed and harder, making for a brighter tone?

> musicians that are weirder are the drummers.  Beware, some bass player
> probably told you he boiled his strings on a bet with a drummer to see
> if you'd actually do it - pianists are generally found to be pretty
> gullible. <G> ;-)
> 
> Gerry
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On
> Behalf Of John Dorr
> Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 9:48 AM
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: Cleaning bass strings
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I read somewhere about electric bass players who boil their strings when
> they 
> get too grimy and they want to brighten up their tone.  I wondered if