D'Addario Bass Guitar Strings, XL Nickel Half Rounds, ENR71, Long Scale, Regular Light Gauge 45-100, 4-String Set, Pack of 1

Bottom Line: These strings truly do have most of the smooth playing feel of a set of flat wound strings, though not completely as smooth. (The outer winding surfaces were made as normal round wounds, then the outer surface was ground down until the surface was flat-ish.) Yet the tone of these strings retain a noticeable amount of the brightness and overtones of round wound strings. The best of both worlds on a bass if you ask me. Very Important!: These medium scale strings fit my Hofner Club bass perfectly. The heavily wound portions of the strings run from below the archtop's floating, rosewood bridge and then, just past the nut of the bass, these strings quickly taper down to where they DO fit into the holes of the guitar tuning pegs Hofner uses on its basses. The E string's taper at the top is just enough that it fits snugly into the E tuner's post hole. The other strings, of course, fit into their tuners with more ease. This bass is a joy to play, and the feel and tone of these strings have increased my enjoyment of playing it. I was given a Hofner Ignition Series Club Bass for Christmas, though I got it early. The Club bass is made in the same manner of hollow body construction as its more famous Hofner Violin or "Beatle" bass brother, only the Club bass uses the same Les Paul-ish shaped, single cutaway body as the Hofner Club guitar. The natural tone of these hollow body basses has a distinct thuddy, woody character resulting in a tone more akin to the tone of a large acoustic double bass than does any Precision or Jazz bass. These Hofner basses are 30 1/4 inch scale (15 1/8 inch from nut to center of twelfth fret) basses for which there are notoriously few choices of string sets because of the extra string length needed from the bridge to the trapeze tailpiece. I have wanted a Hofner Club bass for over twelve years (when I first laid eyes on one of these sunburst beauties being played by Kurt Smith of Tears for Fears) and I finally got one; even if it is the $350.00 Chinese version rather than the $2300.00 German original. (The bass's manufacture, finish, and workmanship are simply amazingly close to perfection! I'm truly impressed with the workmanship.) However, I really liked the sound of this Club bass with the included round wound strings. Sadly, the winding end of the factory strings were coming unwound somehow and the A string broke at the tuner, necessitating this string purchase. On my other bass I have long used a set of D'Addario ENR71 "Half Round" bass strings and love them. If the Hofner Violin and Club bass users on the bass forums are to be believed, the vast majority of new Hofner bass owners immediately on delivery remove the round wound strings installed in the factory and replace them with LaBella or other brands of flat wound strings. I guess the idea is to get as close to Paul McCartney's unique thumpy bass sound as possible. I'm different, and am loving the thumpy AND bright overtones, and feel of these D'Addario ENR71M medium scale strings on my new short scale Hofner Club Bass.

These half-round bass strings give me the full tonal Range I desire, plus a tonal Quality that is even more impressive. And what's Really going to sell you is the Feel! Smooth as silk compared with round-wound, can hardly feel the difference vs. flat wounds, but they give you the full traditional Motown punch with the highs rolled off, Plus the ability to go Entwistle or Squire on a scoop tone... deep lows and bright highs with proper EQ. My favorite feature of these strings is that I can mimic a fretless bass (acoustic or "Jaco"). You want to slur up or down to a note and apply finger vibrato on the sustain? DONE! No scratchiness on the slur (again, silky) and the string gauges are light enough to allow an easy vibrato... no chorus required. (I'll also fret Back from the fret to induce a little growl, and work off the bridge pickup if I want to really try to emulate the Jaco Jazz tone.) As long as these are for sale, I have no reason to try another set... I can't imagine a string feeling and sounding 3x better (and that's what I'd have to pay to move higher from here.)

Sounds excellent. Pleasure to play. Got the medium strings but curious about other sizes now. Will purchase again.

I normally play flatwound strings, so this was a slight change for me. I've been playing bass for 20 years now, and I started out with roundwounds (Blue Steels, etc.). But when I bought my Ibanez bass (which creates a brighter and more active sound than a Fender Jazz, for example), I compensated with easier-to-play flatwound strings, which I've played with for the last ten years or more. This time I wanted a little more brightness and attack in my sound so that I could have a little more presence on stage, and that's what I got. We play a lot of Rush, Yes, U2, Pink Floyd, etc., so these strings added just what I wanted. The only "problem" was that it took a week or so for my fingers to adjust because they no longer slide as easily as they did on flatwound strings. So this means that the callouses and frets will wear just a little bit more (though certainly not nearly as much as with roundwounds), and my fingers have to move a little extra to compensate for not being able to slide without creating string noise, but it wasn't that big of a deal. Now, I understand that my setup is nothing like what Geddy plays. So I already know, of course, that I'm playing different strings (no Rush pun intended) than he plays. However, the combination of my strings and bass create a sound that is very similar to his, and that's what matters. Overall, I really like the strings. In the end, these halfwounds are just a tweak and an experiment with my sound that happened to turn out well for me.

I put this on a Squier CV 51 Precision Bass, they are way brighter than regular flats but way mellower than rounds, a perfect in between sound... I really liked the sound but they somehow feel “stickier” than even rounds, they are soft but sticky, it’s kinda weird feeling, I’m sure it just takes a bit of use to loose that stickiness... This are my first half’s, I’m more used to flats, but was looking for this sound for that bass, sound wise they are perfect.

I have been a roundwound player for 90% of my time playing bass. 10% of the time was flatwounds, and while I liked them, for some things they were just too dull or were missing something depending on the song or style of music. I decided to give these a shot, as I've been curious about them for a few years, and I'm not sure why I waited so long to do that! The feel of the strings is very different. When people say these strings have a "sticky" feeling to them, they're not wrong. Its the in-between of having a round and flat that is a bit confusing, since its not totally rigid like a roundwound string is, yet it isn't completely flat like a flatwound. It took me a few days to really get used to the feel, but once I did I found I really liked the feel and vibe of what I'd say is an extremely broken-in and old bass string. The fact that fret noise is largely taken out of the equation is also very nice. There is a slight increase in tension, but again, once you get used to that, it really isn't a problem. I did have to tweak my amp and pedals a tiny bit to accommodate for the slight volume difference, which was mostly due to me changing the way I was playing but also the strings themselves (acoustically) being a tiny bit quieter. They are a pretty mellow string, but don't lose too much with the brightness. To my ear, its a perfect balance. With the band I gig with, we mostly play pop/alternative rock and r&b/rap. For that gig, these are great, but when I'm playing at home I'm either playing sludge/stoner rock or some kind of poppy jazz. These strings are great for all of those, and the sounds that the strings produce work extremely well with overdrive and fuzz. The strings also retain a nice brightness if you are someone who plays with a pick (I tend to go back and forth depending on what I'm playing). They're pricey for sure, but much cheaper than flats, and I think over time as I break them in more these will still sound great. I don't foresee me really going back to playing roundwound strings on bass for any reason.

I’m a touring multi-instrumentalist, and I’ve carried multiple basses for years with both round wound and flat wound strings for different styles. I’ve been trying to streamline my touring rig as I get older and break it down to one bass that can do all the things, and finding these half-rounds has made it so I can play jazz, hip hop, rock and country all on the same strings. They’ve got the smooth zip of jazzy flats when you roll off the highs, and the aggressive bite of rock rounds with the treble cranked. Def the most versatile set of bass strings I’ve bought, my new standbys.

Hard to find in short scale but sound great.