Dunlop Marcus Miller Super Bright Bass Strings (.045–.105): his current signature set, reviewed
Reviewed by the Change Your Strings editorial team ·
Marcus Miller's current signature bass string is the Dunlop Marcus Miller Super Bright (DBMMS45105), a stainless steel roundwound 4-string set in .045 to .105, Dunlop's first-ever collaboration with him. It replaced his older DR Strings Fat-Beam signature line; DR's own site no longer credits Miller by name. Miller switched chasing a rawer, more aggressive tone, in his words, "a little bit of my old 17-year-old sound."
What this set is
Dunlop Marcus Miller Super Bright Bass Strings (DBMMS45105) is a stainless steel roundwound 4-string set, .045 to .105, and it's the signature bass string Marcus Miller actively plays and endorses today. Dunlop's own artist page doesn't hedge about how new the relationship is: it calls the Super Bright line "our first collaboration" with him.
That framing matters because it's easy to find older listings for a different Marcus Miller signature string. DR Strings built a stainless-steel "Fat-Beam" set with Miller, commonly cited as dating to the early 2000s, and it's still sold today under names like MM-45 or FBS-45 at several retailers. But DR's own current Fat-Beam page makes no mention of Miller anywhere; the artist it features is bassist Divinity Roxx. Whatever the DR relationship once was, it isn't what DR is marketing now. The Dunlop Super Bright set is the one with an active, current, documented endorsement, right down to a dedicated interview about why he made the switch.
Anatomy
- Model
- Dunlop Marcus Miller Super Bright Bass Strings
- SKU
- DBMMS45105
- Gauge
- .045 – .105 (Medium)
- Gauge set
- .045, .065, .085, .105
- String count
- 4 strings
- Core wire
- Steel
- Wrap wire
- Stainless steel
- Coating
- None, uncoated
- Winding
- Roundwound
- Scale
- Long scale, fits 34 in. to 35 in. basses
- Product line
- Dunlop Super Bright (Miller's first Dunlop collaboration)
- 5-string sibling
- DBMMS45125 (.045–.125), sold separately
The DR-to-Dunlop switch, sourced
Marcus Miller has two Grammy Awards and is widely regarded as the defining modern slap-bass voice, so a string company landing him as an artist is a real signature relationship, not a rented name. Dunlop's own materials treat it that way. The Super Bright bass strings interview on Dunlop's lifestyle site runs deep into why he moved, not just that he did.
Miller's own explanation ties the switch to tone, not marketing. Asked why he went with Dunlop, he said: "So I'm looking at these Dunlop strings, man, and I'm going, whoa, this maintains what everybody's known me for, but it has a little bit of my old 17-year-old sound when I was playing more raw, you know what I mean? And I'm already feeling myself wanting to get back to that. This has the best of both worlds." That's a specific, quoted rationale: a brighter, rawer edge layered onto the tone players already associate with him, not a wholesale reinvention.
The construction backs up the rawer-edge framing. Dunlop's Super Bright bass platform, the line the Marcus Miller set belongs to, is built on a hex core that Dunlop makes intentionally thinner-walled than a standard hex core, aiming for lower tension and a more responsive feel without losing the tuning stability a hex core provides over a round core. DR's competing Fat-Beam construction, by contrast, uses a round core, which DR markets as a fatter, smoother, more compression-wound tone. Same gauge family, genuinely different feel under the hand.
Compared to the alternatives
| Dunlop Marcus Miller (this set) | DR Fat-Beam (Miller's former DR set) | Rotosound Swing Bass 66 | D'Addario EPS170 ProSteels | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gauge | .045 – .105 | .045 – .105 | .045 – .105 | .045 – .100 |
| Wrap material | Stainless steel | Stainless steel | Stainless steel | Stainless steel |
| Core | Hex (thin-walled) | Round | Hex | Hex |
| Tone character | Bright, crisp, cutting | Fat, deep, smooth | Bright, aggressive | Bright, harmonic-rich |
| Signature status | Current Marcus Miller signature | Former Marcus Miller signature, now unbranded | Non-signature | Non-signature |
The gauge match against DR's old Fat-Beam is exact, .045 to .105 either way, which makes the core-construction difference the real story if you're deciding between them. Rotosound Swing Bass 66 and D'Addario EPS170 ProSteels are both solid stainless roundwound sets in the same tonal neighborhood, without an artist signature attached to the price.
Best for
Slap and fingerstyle players chasing a bright, cutting attack with a strong fundamental, the sound Miller himself describes as raw. Funk, R&B, and jazz-fusion bassists who want a stainless roundwound with lighter tension than a typical hex-core string delivers. Anyone curious what Miller's actual current signature set is, rather than an outdated DR listing still floating around online.
Worst for
Players who want a warmer, rounder tone: a nickel-wound set, DR's round-core Fat-Beam construction (still sold, just no longer Miller-branded), or a warmer round-core signature set like DR's Victor Wooten Pure Blues will all feel and sound noticeably different than this stainless, hex-core build. Five-string and six-string bassists need Dunlop's separate DBMMS45125 5-string set, not this one. If you specifically want the older DR Strings set Miller's name used to carry, this isn't it; that DR relationship isn't what either company currently markets (Dunlop's own materials, published from 2017 onward, are the current documentation of the switch).
Verdict
DBMMS45105 is Marcus Miller's real, current, actively-documented signature bass string, not a legacy product riding on his name. Dunlop's own interview and artist page make the endorsement explicit, and Miller's own quote explains the tonal logic: a brighter, rawer edge on top of the sound he's spent decades refining. If you've seen Miller's name attached to a DR Strings set, that's the earlier chapter; this is the current one.