Keep with the flatrounds?

[JonnyAngle]

Hi y'all, new guy here. I've been playing bass for about 3 years now, and within the last year I have been using flatwounds. I play country that ranges from Waylon Jennings to Taylor swift.

I like my flatwounds (fender stainless 100s), but feel like I'm not using my bass to the full potential. I just bought a new to me MM Sterling and want it to be my #1. I guess I'm just looking for arguments for and aginnsts keeping the flatwounds.
Thanks,
Jack

[kraigo]

I like the sound of my P-Bass and my fretless with flats. It's the "comfort food" of bass tones. Other basses seem to prefer rounds. I can't see not having flats on some of my basses. It kind of goes to what you want to hear, what suits the bass and what suits the music. In my case, my two "go to" basses for the last couple of months have been the P-Bass and the fretless. I gravitate more to flats than I do to rounds. Every time I switch from either to the other I enjoy the change.

[dave64o]

I'd think flatwounds would work very well for the music that you play and based on what I've read here and on "another forum" there some who play nothing but flats on all their Music Man basses. So you're definitely not alone.

I've never tried flats on my Stingray 5's (it's a few years old so it has the same electronics as your Sterling) but I have flats on my Precision V and on my two Jazz fretlesses. If you're keeping your old bass as well as the Sterling you just bought, then I'd say keep rounds on the Sterling and keep the flats on whatever you're playing now. That's what I'm doing with my P and SR and together they cover *a lot* of tonal variation. I'm very happy with that combination.

Then again, feel free to experiment. Even with rounds on my Stingrays I can get a fairly warm, less aggressive tone simply by playing in pickup positions 4 and 5 (my SR's are HH models), playing away from the bridge, and cutting the treble. I still sometimes wonder how flats would sound on it but since the flats work very well on the P5 with flats and my Stingray sounds so good with the rounds I've just left them as-is. Like I said, I love the tonal options I have with these two basses.

[JonnyAngle]

Ok, so I don't feel like I'm such a redheaded step child for using flats then

[debassr]

I have a P and a Sterling. I have flats on my P, but rounds on my Sterling. Why? Because I can dial in many more sounds on the Sterling because of the active electronics plus the middle switch setting gives me a flats like sound even with rounds.