Fitting the things/Initial impressions: well they're guitar strings, and despite all the dire warnings on the packet about handling etc they fit just like normal strings. They *feel* like nothing on Earth (well, perhaps very rough, rather stiff cotton), but that's another matter. Bizarrely, they're packaged two-to-a-paper-packet (you know, the standard little packet that every one uses) 6th and 3rd, 5th and 2nd, 4th and 1st. Why?? Even the cheapest sets manage one packet per string. These things cost over £13 a set! This packaging is a bloody nuisance and totally unacceptable at this price.
I'm a little puzzled by the comment on the packing saying that the strings "aren't designed for contact with metal" - something of a design failure for a fretted instrument string, I'd have thought. There are also some fairly pointless comments about preventing the windings coming off the bass strings - unless you attach your strings with blu-tac this isn't likely to be an issue as far as I can see.
Well they're on there now and stretching in. I have to say I'm approaching using the things with some trepidation and will be making sure I take a back up with me. FWIW, John The Bassist has been using a set of the bass Neons for a couple of weeks and they sound OK. In fact, he really likes them. But then he's a bass player. The trepidation is rapidly becoming angst.
In use: The first thing I noticed once I'd started playing was that the claim of 180 minutes survival for the coating was likely to prove optimistic - a lump came off the top E on the first contact with a pick. The next thing I noticed was that these strings feel very, very odd. A little like nylon strings, perhaps, but an awful lot more like rubber bands. Whether or not this is a good thing is entirely a matter of opinion - I can't say it bothered me, but it would take a bit of getting used to if you're used to normal tension strings.
DR Neons - somewhat brighter on the DR website than in real life.
In practice I have to admit that I found the DR Neons to be pretty much as reported in the reviews I'd read: they lack volume, the string-to-string balance is awful and those strings you can actually hear (the top two being all-but inaudible) manage to sound both wooly and thin at the same time. Meanwhile, even under lights/camera flashes the stings don't look too clever - in fact, they have a curious "out of focus" quality which makes them quite uncomfortable to look at. Half way through our set I'd had enough and switched to another guitar strung with Ernie Balls. The difference in sound quality was staggering (and not in favour of the DRs) and the EBs sounded way, way louder (and this on a Strat with 56-style pickups as opposed to the Texas Specials on the one with the DRs on).
Conclusions? Well the DR Neons have a number of unique features, but none of them IMHO are actually good. The packaging is substandard, the finish neither looks particulary good nor lasts well, the playing feel is weird and the things sound awful. And they're staggeringly expensive.
"Just say no" I think sums it up.
No comments:
Post a Comment