DR Strings Jonas Helborg String Set Reviews 
1 / 5 based on 1 reviewsThese are designed to match a Jonas Helborg signature bass, so they are avaialble only as a standard 4-string set. I play in a duo or trio, so I can really hear my tone, and I have enuf basses to set some up as experiments for strings, PU's, etc.
I got curious about them and ordered a pair at a local shop where they cost a bit over $30. It's a longtime well established musician owned shop, and very helpful, but they had never heard of these. I heard about them on the WArwick Forum, since Warwick makes the JH signature bass.
http://www.parkwaymusic.com
I don't realy like them at all, for my taste in tone. However they ought to be god for open jam nites in a loud rock setting, something I seldom engage in anymore but I can recognize a tone that will refuse to be buried under the geetards and drumber.
I don't like the sound nor the feel. They have an extreme 'steel round wound' voice and are rather stiff, stiff enuf that the lower strings are a bit tricky to wind onto the tuning pegs if you have compact [aka Gotoh-type] machines.
The roundwound surface is not rough [not like Roto's] but is of extremely large wire, so it's quite 'bumpy' feeling on the low strings.
The whole deal about JH Signature strings is that all 4 strings a re Single Wrap. Even the low strings are just the core plus one single layer of very heavy wrap wire. I had hoped this would be a very flexible design but it is the opposite.
I tried these strings on several basses with various types of PUs including piezos [aka acoustic PU's], and on both fretted and FL basses. I also used three different bass amps.
The bass they were designed to compliment is a magnetic PU, fretted, thinline hollow bass ... so ultimately, that is where I have left them installed, on a thinline hollow bass. This particular bass, unlike the JH Sig Bass, has both magnetic and piezo PUs. On either or both PU's the effect of the extremely stiff RW strings on a fretted ax is the dominant theme. You can get that sound from many many many other strings already on the market ... so these seem to be more a gimmick than a solution to a specific need.
Golem rated this unit
on
2010-03-09.
