I prefer flats to rounds. To experiment with flats, I simply removed the rounds and replaced with flats. I'm sure the OP could do the same.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
Welcome to TalkBass! Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Specific Take on An Age-Old Question
- Thread starter Michael Stanley 2112
- Start date
- Oct 13, 2009
- 5,743
- 13,388
- 5,321
- Disclosures
- Admin on the D*A*M Forum
I have 10 electric basses, three acoustic bass guitars, an acoustic upright & an electric upright. They have all had flats on them at least once, but they don’t all have flats on them now.
I don’t think you want flats on all your basses anymore than you would want all flathead screwdrivers in your tool box. You’re gonna come across a phillips screw at some point & need a different type of screwdriver. You will also come across a song that needs the nice ringing bell-tone sound of rounds.
Right off, I see you probably need to keep rounds on the 2600 & you probably need to keep flats on one of the two P-basses. The other P, whichever one it is, should have rounds. The Jazz clone needs to be evaluated for flats or rounds and have the best sounding & feeling strings installed on it.
The SR300E appears like it could wear either flats or rounds, and I can’t find an RGB 350 to know its characteristics. The RGB 300 & RGB 305 both appear to have a P style pickup in the neck which make it a fair candidate for flats.
My advice is to do some evaluating to see which bass gets which type of string. If you can’t decide on one, try some Ernie Ball Cobalt flats. They are the crossover point between flats and rounds. They are bright like rounds, but look and feel like flats.
Good luck
I’d say to give it a shot. And maybe give it another shot. It’s all about matching the bass to the strings to the style and what you hear in your head.
I have flats on 4 basses: La Bella low tension flexible flats on my Precision Special frankenbass and Nashville Tobias, GHS precision flats on a 71 Precision Fretless, and D’Addario chromes on a Hamer Slammer shortie. I have rounds on two basses: custom light boomers on a ‘93 fender custom shop PJ and GHS Balanced Nickels on a Yamaha BB 5 string. Of course, they all sound different. The Labella’s are thumpy, the GHS flats have good but controlled growl for the fretless, and the D’Addrios are a bit zingier to balance the shortie’s extra thump. The Boomers hit the 80s midrange brightness well, while the nickels are more scooped on the Yamaha. I went through a flats on everything phase, but came back to rounds on 2 basses because each combo hit the sound I imagine for that bass. And with all that, I can cover everything I do these days, from classic rock and 80s pop in bars to gospel, contemporary Christian, and folk stuff in church.
This thread is making me want to try tapewounds though…
I have flats on 4 basses: La Bella low tension flexible flats on my Precision Special frankenbass and Nashville Tobias, GHS precision flats on a 71 Precision Fretless, and D’Addario chromes on a Hamer Slammer shortie. I have rounds on two basses: custom light boomers on a ‘93 fender custom shop PJ and GHS Balanced Nickels on a Yamaha BB 5 string. Of course, they all sound different. The Labella’s are thumpy, the GHS flats have good but controlled growl for the fretless, and the D’Addrios are a bit zingier to balance the shortie’s extra thump. The Boomers hit the 80s midrange brightness well, while the nickels are more scooped on the Yamaha. I went through a flats on everything phase, but came back to rounds on 2 basses because each combo hit the sound I imagine for that bass. And with all that, I can cover everything I do these days, from classic rock and 80s pop in bars to gospel, contemporary Christian, and folk stuff in church.
This thread is making me want to try tapewounds though…
I had the same thought. I've never used them, so it might be a fun experiment.
So I bought this bass used with new roundwounds on it, no idea what kind. I kept them on for a few months and I think they started sounding okay towards the end, but still a little muddy/boomy and with a waaay too zingy G. I would put on an HPF in my amp sim or turn the bass EQ down on my practice amp (no HPF pedal atm). And I'd often keep the tone knob pretty far back to remedy the G.
I just put on 9050L's and have played them for a few hours. Some caveats: I've only been playing for around a year, though I play other instruments but mostly for myself and am not a working musician. This is the also the first set of flats I've tried (and indeed my first bass string change at all). Also I'm sure placebo can't be totally discounted. So, YMMV/take with a grain of salt if you will.
My first impressions are: I immediately prefer the feel of these in both hands. I had been waiting for a stewmac truss rod wrench since it's an AVRI and I expected the strings to be higher tension. I'm not really sure that's the case - the truss rod could use a hair of adjustment but they feel/look to me like similar tension to the rounds. There is a little new string clank, which I expect will go away, but even so I do prefer the sound of these new to the sound of the previous rounds new. They have a bit of thump, but not too much boom, and articulation/attack feels more defined. A sweet, sweet neck pickup sound. The E string feels tighter, and the G string does seem to be more balanced (at least, it doesn't make me immediately wince upon playing it with the tone knob full on). I'd say the sound is overall "cleaner" or "smoother" somehow on either/both pickups (maybe that's the "mids", but I don't think I have that level of understanding for the instrument's sound yet). It sounds better to me than the rounds with EQ knobs even on my amp, though I've not yet played it through the software which brings out different qualities. There is still a hint of Jazzy growl, definitely not rounds level, but also not totally gone, which is sorta nice.
Hopefully I'll like the sound as it develops over time. If not, well. I won't be running out of strings to try any time soon.
Last edited:
Sounds about right, and the strings will settle over the next few weeks too. I had a problem with the feel of flats at first, so you're already ahead of where I was at this stage.
Yeah, I have - well, almost all. My '94 Gretsch Broadkaster has TI Jazz Rounds on it. But, only because, after 14 years of trying more strings on the thing than I can count (and spending.. well, let's not go there), they're the only strings that don't make it sound like a hippo fart in deep mud - or, at best, a baritone guitar. Fortunately, they're particularly smooth - for rounds; and have very little finger noise. So, I'm... mostly... happy. I also have one bass - a '90s MIK Rogue VB-100 violin bass - that wears Roto TruBass 88 Tapes. Partly because I really like the sound; partly because another left handed bass player has them on his violin bass...
Mostly, though, it's because they're the only strings - out of several - that tuned up and intonated on this bass with no problem or fuss whatsoever. Which, believe me, on basses with floating bridges/trapeze tailpieces, is a really big deal. But, they're the only two - out of the 26 that I currently own, that don't wear flats. And I have just about every kind of 4-string bass you can think of; from a cheap violin bass to an Alembic. Only one set of twins (gen.1 MIK Danelectro DC59 Pros) - unless you think that Rick 4001s are the same as 4003s (and, trust me; they are not).As for "consensus"? I could care less. I learned to play bass in 1968, on a friend's '68 Rick 4001 - with it's factory Maxima Flats. And, I have played very, very few basses with rounds on them since then. Any bass I get that has rounds on it, very seldom keeps them much past it's first function check. I can't remember one that kept rounds on it for more than a month or two; usually because of something that Life decided was more important to deal with at the time. I learned very early in my bass playing life, that there's just as much - if not more - difference between flats as there is between different rounds. Which is why the 24 flats -wearing basses I own wear 13 different brands and gauges of flats. I have a bass with just about every kind of flat you can think of (and some you can't, maybe). Because there's a flat for every bass, that will give you what you want to hear. Well, unless you want to hear twangy noises and finger squeaking, anyway...
Last edited:
Yes, always. But my personal preferance is for flats, so any other considerations that may apply to any particular bass are thrown to the wind (and the factory rounds into a plastic baggie) without trying the flats first. That being said, a couple of my basses were restringed with GHS Pressure-wounds after I first tried the flats and wasn't completely happy with the sonic results.
Thanks for following up. So far I love them. Neck pickup only is full and vintage-y and sounds nice muted, both is still jazzy and balanced, and bridge pickup only is more usable IMO. They are definitely a bit more mellow now, but I think that's more my style in general, so it's an OK tradeoff for me especially given the improved feel, tonal consistency, and note definition. That said, it feels like I still have the option of digging in a bit harder or blend in more bridge for a bit more grind, and have found their slap tone quite usable (though I've really only just started learning that).
Like I mentioned I haven't tried too many different strings, but these give me so much of what I want that it'd take some convincing to switch to something else on this particular bass.