Definitely neon yellow when I can, for visibility as others have said. White also works. I don’t play any other colors. I just went ahead and bought like $100 worth of string a while back, so I’m pretty set for string for most of my life.
The only exception is that I have a 25 pack of blood red string, and I use that on my raw ti throws because I just think the color combo of that string and the darker metal looks awesome. And if you spend ti money, your throw better look cool.
Good point sir, you win this thread. Yellow is great and i have noticed that it looks like it was glowing in the sun, and under a black light it does look sick. I just felt bringing it up as a topic.
In my experience, yellow string feels and plays the best. Now I’m only speaking about Kitty String here, other brands don’t seem to have this discrepancy between colors but with Kitty String yellow just plays the best. Green and white give pretty much the same feeling as yellow, but the other colors just don’t seem to feel right.
It’s alot easier to see. I only use Neon Yellow, Green, Orange Pink or White string. I’m not big on multi colors unless its Ann Connolly’s Island Escape YYSL really like the colors.
don’t worry I use blue string on my legacy 2, northstar, YYJ inspire, and torrent 2. But I can’t stand multicolor string unless the colors are similar.
A: SO THAT I CAN ACTUALLY SEE SUICIDES!!! And whips. And slacks. And everything else.
I thought green string would be more visible, but then I was forced to get yellow when I wanted Kitty 1.5. That stuff is super bright. I kind of like the look of the lemon-lime Type X though…A FUSION OF THE COLORS!!!
I personally love Black/White and that will always be my #1 choice. Sometimes I change, and from all the colours I’ve tried, neon pink (salmon pink) is my preferred alternative. Good visibility, nice looking, and goes well with most yoyo colours.
I have a few packs of Normal KittyString in blue, neon yellow, pink, red. I also have Ammo in Ocean Blue (what ever it is named) and Yoyoexpert edition. (My house is littered with tips of strings floating around) and KittyString baby blue feels stiffer until you use it a lot. Then with the neon pink and neon yellow, almost no break in time. I know it sounds weird, but it is true! I read somewhere, a long time ago, the yellow color costs less or something, can’t really remember. Yellow is a default string because its bright, so it is easy to see, cheap, and faster to break in. All I can say!
These are mainly Safery equipment or sporting sites, but the same logic applies, colors thar are easier to see than others.
John Higby gives yoyo oriented shows around the World in a multitude of lighting conditions. He uses bright neon yellow string because he Knows it most often presents the best possible contrast against most background colors.
It should be noted that most of those items in that link you provided also use reflective technologies to help bring further attention to the item to increase visibility even further. I do agree though, we see the same orange and yellow(s) and sometimes greens time and time again.
With yoyo, it seems we want the string seen not only for ourselves, but for the audience and judges’ benefit. With kendama, it seems the opposite for most players. It seems the kendama string is supposed to be as invisible as possible. This is going on despite a trend in the making of more brightly colored kendama strings. I think as more yoyo-influenced kendama tricks start taking off and being created, the string color will become more important.
Going back to your John Higby reference: As a seasoned performer, he’s most likely watched plenty of videos of himself performing. That combined with his own experience has probably steered his decision to use and stick with the string he uses for the reason you mentioned.
For us “Regular guys”, we often shop by what we like best, so colors become more a factor of swag and style/preference. I find I can see the green and yellow strings the best. While I’m choosing based on what works best for me, I’m not concerned with my audience, because as far as I’m concerned, my audience is me.
I say if you’re not competing or intentionally performing, string color isn’t so important. I would say for those who are performing and competing, I’m sure string color does play a factor in player’s choices. Could you imagine the hard time judges would have if someone wore a white shirt and was using white string? Or a black shirt and black string, especially when the backdrops are usually dark/black, that would be really tough!