Flats - why do many rave about them

[Thunderbird]

Just now, ped said:

Flats can sound really bright, just a different sort of timbre. On a ray you get a nice sound, with some rich detail. Lots of the stingrays you hear in 70s funk are on flats. 

I didn't know that 😀

[ezbass]

29 minutes ago, ped said:

Flats can sound really bright, just a different sort of timbre. On a ray you get a nice sound, with some rich detail. Lots of the stingrays you hear in 70s funk are on flats. 

Worked for Bernard.

[EssentialTension]

On 02/12/2021 at 13:09, Stub Mandrel said:

Does anyone here use flats on a 6-string guitar?

 

My first electric came with a set on it around '79, I haven't played them since.

My son, when he was playing guitar in a 'gypsy dub' eleven-piece, was using heavy gauge flatwounds on an Epiphone Casino and on a Fender Thinline Jaguar - either Rotosound Top Tapes (cheap) or Thomastiks or Pyramid Golds (both expensive). But he was not bending notes and was more doing rhythm skanking and clean melody lines. He did have a very thick warm tone.

 

I've also played with slide guitarists using flatwounds for a smoother sound.

Edited December 4, 2021 by EssentialTension

[EssentialTension]

1 hour ago, Thunderbird said:

Silly question but doesn't fitting flats to basses such as stingrays and jazz's kind of defeat the point of having a bright sounding barking bass? I know it's personal taste but genuinely interested 👍

 

Early Stingrays came factory-fitted with flats, as did all Fender basses until the mid/late 1970s.

 

And not everyone wants a bright sounding barking bass.

[Thunderbird]

Might try a set out on one of my Mustangs next time it needs strings

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited March 16, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[pbasspecial]

I have 3 passive P basses. One has TI flats, another has TRU 88 black nylon tape wounds and the other has round wounds. Always good to have choice depending on your mood and the band situation. 

[Bunion]

So, I purchased a stingray fretless a good time ago and it came with TI flats, I swapped them out for rounds and tucked the flats away. 
After a lengthy search I’ve dug them out and put them on the Cutlass.

A quick fiddle with the setup and a few noodles I’m still not convinced but I’ll leave them on for a few weeks and see what the fuss is about I may just need to get used to the different sound/tone but I’m not holding my breath 😑

[chris_b]

Strings are a critical part of most players sound. I've told this story before: @Happy Jack was interested in a Mike Lull P5 and asked to check out my Mike Lull PJ5. He liked it and bought the P5. I went back to have a listen and  . . . . his bass sounded better than mine!! The sound had an extra level of fullness and authority in each note which was missing in mine. After several weeks of head scratching and homework I realised the difference was in the strings. Ever the entrepreneur, Jack promptly sold me a set of Lakland flatwound strings (rebadged GHS). Hey presto. There was that sound! After a few years I put TI flats on and they'll stay there as long as I'm playing this bass.

[NAS Bass]

I have nearly always had at least one bass with flats on it since my first encounter in about 1977/78 on the recommendation of a friend. Not sure which strings they were but I remember red silks, a very confused situation in a rather old fashioned music store - me not really knowing what I wanted and the old guy in there initially wondering why this teen punk type wanted double bass strings.

 

Mostly use Roto 77's, particularly since the demise of the original Fender 9050 range. 

 

Not a fad at all.

 

I set EQ, gain and play to get a pretty gritty bark but with plenty of guts to the sound

[Bridgehouse]

I’m shocked. I need to do a bit more research, but I’m shocked.

 

I’ve used Chromes on the Shuker fretless for years. I was always led to believe that a higher tension suits a fretless much better. 
 

Anyway, a fit of boredom this afternoon made me try a set of TI Jazz Flats on it. I expected floppy, buzzy, thuddy, nothingness.. but no. Not at all.

 

There’s a specific way to set up the Shuker. Deck the saddles and leave them. Tighten the truss until it’s past flat and then slowly ease it back until you get the action you like with no excessive buzzing or notes cutting out near the nut. 
 

With this method and the Chromes on I usually ended up at 2mm at the E and 1.5mm at the G, and a reasonable balance between clarity, mwah, and sustain.

 

With the TI’s I’m getting 1.8mm at the E and 1.4mm at the G and notably better balance between clarity, mwah and sustain. It just sounds better tonally as well. 
 

Now the strings are floppier than the chromes, but I play very lightly with fingers so I don’t mind. It’s also hard to really dig into the Shuker given the board runs right to the saddles. 
 

I shall give it a good bash tonight and report back - I’ll either be converted or rip them off by COP tonight. 

[Bridgehouse]

Well flip me. 

 

Spent most of the evening bashing the TI Flats on the Shuker Fretless. I really did not expect them to work well on it at all. 

 

But they did. Firstly, yes.. much lower tension. Truss needed relaxing off quite a bit, but once it had settled the TI's liked a perfectly flat board with pretty much no relief at all. No buzzing or deadness anywhere and an action of 1.8mm at E through to 1.4mm at G. Now, the Shuker has a phenolic resin board and it's flat - if it has a radius it's 16" or more. Although the TI's are loose they aren't flappy - not how I expected. I think that a bit of tension is added by the break angle after the saddles and the through-body design. 

 

Tone is exceptional. There's a superb balance across all the strings - volume, tone, mwah, it's all really nicely balanced. Feels really nice and vibrato and slides are consistent and sound lovely. 

 

They are better than the Chromes I had on before. I'd say significantly better - which I didn't expect at all. I thought TI's were best on an old thumpy P-Bass, not a modern piezo and under-board Jazz fretless. Piezos can have a bit of an issue with mid-range sometimes, they can be all top and bottom. The TI's seem to add a big chunk of mid back in which was very pleasing, and I think the combination of that plus the better string to string balance actually made them sound and feel a bit brighter and more lively than the Chromes. 

 

With a touch of treble and the right mid-range boost they had a bit of an air of rounds about them - more so than the chromes. 

 

All in all a very surprising result. They are staying on. I'm going to get another set to put in the bag as a spare set. 

Edited December 4, 2021 by Bridgehouse

[dmdavies]

Never really tried them. I tried some La Bella ones years ago and didn't get on with them at all. A month or so ago, I bought a bass from @ead of this parish, and when I was in his house he very graciously let me try a heavily reliced tele bass with flatwounds on. It was a revelation.

 

I bought some Rotosound Flatwounds and put them on my 4 string Limelight Jazz. Had my second gig with them on tonight and I'm sold. 

 

I feel slinkier? Is that a word?  I play very staccato funk type stuff with this band and I've always chased a kind of Marcus Miller tone (the Little Marcus Head and Cab just scream that tbh) and bizarrely, this is the closed I've got to it in feel I think. Obvs the tone is different, but I'm still happy. I sound like me.

 

Isn't that what we're all after?

 

Anyway, flatwounds FTW.

[Dan Dare]

Different strokes for different folks.

[Boodang]

Rounds are not the only way to go! I love my jazz with flats on. There's a flat string thread going on over in general.... don't get involved it'll just f**k with your head... just enjoy what you've got.

[jd56hawk]

I was a flatwound fan until I tried tapewounds...ten basses, black tapewounds on eight of them.

I'm big on GHS.

Nothing wrong with flats, I used nothing but until a few years ago, and I sometimes doubt if I would have progressed as a bassist using roundwounds.

Good luck, and your fingers will thank you.

Edited December 5, 2021 by jd56hawk

[nilebodgers]

I am in the middle of an experiment on my J. I’ve been grumbling about the “twangy” character of the G string (elixir stainless roundwound) not sounding the same as the other strings and not being right for the Jazz exercises I have been working on. Instead of trying a full set of flats I bought a 0.040 single Rotosound 77 flat string (similar tension to a 45 roundwound) and fitted it tonight.

 

Sounds surprisingly good, tonally it’s very similar to the other well played-in rounds so more even across the neck. I’ll play it for a bit to see if it goes too dead, but it’s promising so far.
 

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Interesting, I find the g string often sounds 'light'. One of the best things about my flea jazz is that it sounds exceptionally even across the strings.

[Reggaebass]

Quite a good video here with flats and tapewound 

 

[Bridgehouse]

On 09/12/2021 at 21:06, Stub Mandrel said:

Interesting, I find the g string often sounds 'light'. One of the best things about my flea jazz is that it sounds exceptionally even across the strings.

I find TI Jazz flats very even - see above on Shuker Fretless. They are still on, and staying on! 

[Marc S]

On 29/11/2021 at 18:04, BassAdder27 said:

At nearly £50 a set I need to be fairly certain they offer me something I can’t get from Rounds 

 

They last longer. I find rounds get dull after time, due to the build-up of dead skin & grease in the windings. And it's not the same sort of "dull" or "more dead" sound as with flats. Also, I've yet to break a Flatwound, and I know I broke quite a few rounds over the years. Perhaps this is due to the way they're made? Perhaps it's because there's no way grease & gunk can get in between the windings?

Many flats users will tell you they've had some sets of strings on a bass for years. Some will tell you the sound improves with age and wear. So they may be more expensive, but cheaper over time. I've had flats on one of my P basses for around 3 years, and I think I'd probably have gone through 3 sets of rounds in that time (I was playing that bass all the time, as I was in several bands, and playing regularly).

My first experience of Flats was years ago, and they were very high tension, which put me off them for years. Then I started playing upright, and you don't really get rounds on an upright (though I'm sure there must be some, somewhere). Playing upright got me used to playing with flats. I tried the TI Flats, and they are indeed low tension, but I didn't like them on my Fretless - they just felt too floppy. So I swapped them onto my P bass, and Bingo - They just felt and sounded right.

I've tried several flats over the last few years, and it's strange how some will suit one bass and not another. I recently got myself a bass which came with Fender Flats... and I'm really loving the feel and sound of them.
I'd say get yourself a set to try, and if you don't like them you can sell them on without losing too much. Go for it - I haven't looked back (though I do still have rounds on one bass).

[Lozz196]

I’ve recently bought another Precision and it’s come with D’Addario Chromes on it, 45-100s. I’ve had them on other Precisions and found them a tad muddy but they’re just not on this bass. I think this might be due to the pickups, the new bass doesn’t have my usual Custom Shop 62s which do seem to have a lot of chunky low-mids. Anyway I’m finding that I really like them, at home practicing they sit really nicely when playing along to YouTube but of course it’s with the band that counts, if they cut it I’ll be keeping them as I find I really enjoy playing them.

[tauzero]

A big consideration for me is feel. I mainly play fretless, and I've tried flats, but I find that with the reduced friction that any time I slide, I'm liable to miss my endpoint or get the speed of the slide wrong. Plus I like the sound of rounds. 

[Steve Browning]

All my string orders to Rotosound begin with an apology for the time since the last one. I have put in orders, in the past,  because I feel guilty I haven't bought any for so long!

 

To my ears, flats give (what I can only describe as) a bigger sound. I don't go for ear splitting treble. They are tougher on the fingers (finger in contact with more string area, I guess) but they are my sound. I do have a couple of basses strung with rounds - the two 'Stingray' type basses. But all my Fender type basses are strung with flats.

 

 

[Woodinblack]

7 hours ago, tauzero said:

A big consideration for me is feel. I mainly play fretless, and I've tried flats, but I find that with the reduced friction that any time I slide, I'm liable to miss my endpoint or get the speed of the slide wrong.

 

Undoubtably like any change, but as flats last forever, that is just a question of getting used to it isn't it?