Depending upon the preferences of the listener, this was either a good thing, as it made the instrument sonically clean, or a bad thing, as it made the instrument sound synthetic and unnatural. The all-synthetic construction gave a very smooth sound and feel, immediate note attack, and very even tonal response. The rationale for the overall design was the elimination of unnecessary weight, especially the unbalanced headstock, and the use of modern materials, such as graphite, for their advantages over wood.
Depending on the tailpiece, calibrated or uncalibrated double-ball end strings were used, with the former required in order to use the transposing feature of the TransTrem vibrato unit. The tuners utilized a finer than normal 18:1 gear ratio, with 40 threads per inch, which gave slower but more precise adjustment and helped reduce string slippage. The headstock was eliminated, the tuning hardware instead installed on a tailpiece mounted to the face of the guitar body. Initially produced as an electric bass and later as a guitar, the instrument was made entirely of the Steinberger Blend, a "proprietary" graphite and carbon-fiber mix in two pieces: the main body and a faceplate (the "blend" being an off-the-shelf carbon fiber "system" from the DuPont product line).
The best-known Steinberger design is the L-series instrument, sometimes described as shaped like a broom, boat oar, or cricket bat.
They are expensive but flats last forever.Fredrik Saroea of Datarock playing a white headless Steinberger guitar Very deep tone, long sustain, heavy gauge, high tension. If you do like flats, you owe it to yourself to try a set of La Bellas. If you have never tried flats, you might want to experiment with cheaper strings to see if you like the sound and feel. The mediums are better but the lights are probably most similar in feel to other brands of flats. The Jamersons sound great but are too hard for me to play. I've tried the medium and the 1954 Original Jamersons. Because of the tension and stiffness they will not buzz even with very low action.įor my other basses I would probably go with the lighter strings vs the medium. have Also the zero fret design makes it easy to set the action super low which these strings (and your fingers) will like. These are heavy high tension strings which tends to accentuate the long sustain that neck-thru Steinbergers. I only use flats or nylons on my basses and like the La Bellas very much, especially on this bass. The other four strings were perfect and the D string was just a millimeter or two too long to tune perfectly with low action. I had to shim the D string at the headstock by winding a bit of thread around the string next to the ball. La Bella and JustStrings make no claim that they will fit the made-in-China Steinbergers, but they are close enough to use. These strings sound great and most important they fit my Spirit XT-25 with one exception.