So bass strings, we're making bass strings, I'm making bass strings and we're in heavy, heavy research and development and I'm pleased to say that my first set are 75% done. The E string that's on here is a placeholder. The A, the D and the G are the strings. They're the recipe that are going to market. So in the process of developing this set of strings right, it's been interesting, it's learning, and I started down the line of my steel core steel wrap string and I hit a few brick walls. I spoke about this a little bit. This turned into an accidental exploration into my synthetic strings, which are underway, and then I got some new material and I left the synthetic string alone for now and I'm back over here with the Super Weichs. Lots and lots of lots and lots and lots and lots of strings, technically perfect, scientifically perfect, put them on the microscope, get all the numbers right, and they just don't sound right. So, in the process of learning what my coppers and my nickels and my stainless and my aluminum and some other things that I won't tell you, but in learning, in the process of what these things do, to the sound, from the core, to the wrap, to the final wrap, to the polish the finish. You know, learning all of that as it can be, is painful at times, stretching what you think you know, what you don't know, but enough. So now that I can definitely come up with a you know kind of pre-conclusion as to, hey, this string's doing this, it's perhaps the right sound, but it's a little heavy, the tension's a little off. Okay, we're going to change this one working element by this factor and it will result in and at this point in time I can say now I know what the answers to those questions are and it will result in and at this point in time I can say now I know what the answers to those questions are, and it's very exciting. The E string I've got to finish off. Again, this is a placeholder. It's actually my synthetic E string, so it picks up the bow nice and easy. That's just a little preview as to what the synthetics I mean. They I love it, but that is not the string that is going to be matched with this A, b and G.

In this process of developing strings, which started long, long ago, I've played and set up so many basses with so many types of strings and what I've found for a lot of us. We're overplaying our basses, like we're buying dark strings so that we don't have this funny thing going on, and I feel like we're kind of limiting our voice. I'm adjusting my approach and I'm going to ask that other people adjust their approach. This set of strings we're going to call the Super Weich. So think of the strings named Weich, classic strings, steel string. This is a Super Weich for many reasons A little bit lighter, a little bit more resonance, more bottom end, lower tension on your bass, power and sound. That's what we've developed Clarity, expressiveness. But you're not gonna grab this set of strings and play it just like you've done everything else Overplaying, right? I mean, I just bottomed the string out, I went all the way to 10 and I pushed it into this funny pingy, overtone-y space. This board on this bass, the fingerboard on this bass, is planed to what I would call very wet, meaning it's growly all over the place down here, in first position too. It's not a dry sound like you'd have an orchestral setup. It's a very, very wet sound, flat back brush. In bass it's a hybrid. So we don't have a lot of darkness in this bass. So my mind has been going and going and going and I've locked myself in the woodshed on these strings and it has been four years alone to get the string machines here, with development and all the things that have gone into it, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in materials and traveling and learning.

When we started making basses, I actually was going to make strings and then basses and we decided to go with basses. So it's really fun for me to kind of come back to where I was back then and make a set of strings. I'm glad for the way we did it, because now we have an arsenal, a slew of friends, that we can send things out to. This is not my set for the kind of fusion gut sound. This is not my set for the orchestral guy. They're bowable. You can bow the string. This is again.

This is the Super Vike. They're very ringy. That being said, I've put them on a round back bass, a poplar bass downstairs and the brightness that I'm hearing on this flat back hybrid. They sounded great. You know they're strung in with a set of Spire Chords. They interface really well. They're a touch lighter. They will. They will be eventually available in some different formulations, but this is the starting set.

It's the Upton Bass Super Vike, and I look forward to talking to you guys more about this and showing you more expressiveness, more vocabulary on your bass, things that you didn't realize so many strings and setups, setups, basses. You know, we might send you out with a setup that's done like this to get the tensions right across the strings, and then you end up saying I'm bringing that E string down and so on and so forth, and then you're lacking in sound in a particular string. So this balance set is built around knowing and making basses and building basses and setting up thousands and thousands and thousands of basses, and that knowledge is going into these bass strings, right? So I don't think, if I may say I don't think, any other person on planet earth can do what I can do here with my guys, with the resources we have available, with the instruments, the wood, the materials. It's very exciting and it's just the beginning. That's the Super Vikes. We'll talk to you soon.