Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Anyone tried the Curt Mangan "house strings" from Pick of the Ricks?

Good, bad, indifferent?

I have.

I constantly change my strings.

For me, who always likes the "fresh" string sound, they make financial sense. How long they will hold up for extended use remains to be seen.

Dave, your string needs (sheer number of them) might vary from the rest of us mere mortals.

Steve, I can only play one at time..

But he's tried to play more! ; )

Dave, wouldn't that be two at a time, considering?

I'm ordering a few sets. They're Ric sizes, and less expensive, and what the heck. I'll do a review.

Change Strings?!

I still have the factory set on my 2001 4003

Funny that. I've had a set of Pyramid roundwounds on my 79 for over 18 months. As they have worn a little, they have started producing a low thud reminiscent of the classic flatwound RIC sound. I think I'll leave them on and see where this goes.

I've been eyeing those Curt Mangan strings, too. I'm looking forward to someone posting a review of them. They DO make good financial sense for someone who changes strings frequently.

My short review of these strings.
Just played a gig with a new set of these strings on my 4004Cii.
They seem to be easy on the fretting hand. That may be more due to the fact that I'm used to playing 45-105 in stainless.

Though I would fail a blindfold test of identifying strings, and certainly don't claim to be an expert on anything, they sound just fine to my ears. I don't yet know how long they'll stay fresh.

Besides the price, another cool feature is that they are the same size as Ric brand strings, so no nut modification is necessary.

These strings seem, to me, as good or better than any, generally speaking. The price is reasonable, so, I'll use them on this bass and both my 4001.

Keep us posted as to the longevity of these.
So far I haven't found such an acceptable combination of features as those of the RIC strings.
They have great, bouncy tone, are easy on fingers & frets, and last quite a long time, though they are a bit more than most strings.

Any budget strings I've tried were OK at best, and other brands elicited the thought "I like these!" for about the first month or two, then gradually diminished in their appeal, so that I'm back to thinking RIC strings are the way to go.

I would like to have a set of spares of the same gauge as those I'm using.

I'll do that, Kevin. So far, so good. After talking with Chris at POTR and hearing his enthusiasm for them, I was encouraged. I bought 3 sets, sound-unheard.

Admittedly, in retrospect I'm not the guy who should be doing a "review" of anything as subjective as strings...I'm not so good at interpreting tonal nuance in bass strings, so "great, bouncy tone" eludes me. But to my 49 year old ears, the strings actually sound and feel a lot like Ric strings, for lack of a better description. I always liked Ric strings, too.

These are "nickel wound" which, I guess is a different thing than "pure nickel", although you couldn't prove it to my ears in a blind test. I'm not sure if Ric strings are pure nickel?

I guess the RIC strings have more pronounced overtones in the high mid range, or perhaps just different frequencies are accented than other strings.

Very bright & clear, depending on attack. All new round wound strings have it to a degree, but the RIC strings seem to keep that same tone longer, like they're always fresh.