In the mid 1990s D'Addario introduced a line of bass strings produced under computer control which were marketed as "Slowound." They were sold in explicit competition with strings that were advertised as "hand wound."

D'Addarios made the points that in order to provide proper pitch, timbre, and life the winding must be of constant tension and fed onto the core at a constant rate. Even if you had one guy in the shop who could do that by hand, string after string and day after day, how many strings could he produce? What if he got sick? And what about the rest of the guys?

I immediately bought a set. To my ear they made my 80's vintage Peavey T-40 (which didn't sound bad to start with) sound like I had paid $500 more than I actually had. They were wonderful.

I put the bass down for a long while after my divorce. When I picked it back up I went looking for Slowound strings but couldn't find them. I just found out that they stopped marketing them in 2004 because all of their strings are made by computer-controlled machinery. I can't remember the last time I saw an ad for hand-wound strings.

Look out. It's "The Rise of the Machines." Wait--in this case, it's a good thing.

"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."