Subcontra-Flatwounds? (Low F# / E / C#)

[murph.vienna]

Hi,

This is my first post here, so please don't hit me too hard when I'm off

I play mostly electronic music and I really dig flatwound strings, and i love low tunings even more. Drum and Bass, Minimal, Dub, this kind of.
I was always looking for that perfect synth-bass sound directly out of the bass, my main instrument for this style is an Ibanez BTB205 stringed AEADG (5string dropA) with Thomastik Jazz Flats (btw: how do I post reviews in this forum? I bought 12 (twelve) bass string sets this year, I have some stories to tell ))

When I first saw / heard people playing the Warwick Vampyre Dark Lord I was disappointed that Metal was the only genre people would use it in.

Long story short, I found low tunings very usable in electronic music and I want to get deeper than low A, but I dislike roundwound strings very much (for this style, at least).

My goal is the low G at least, low F# would be nice too (because of tuning issues)

So the final question is: Is there ANY string manufacturer that offers .145 - .175 as flatwounds?

If not, I'll probably start sanding a Dark Lord set - anyone experienced with this?

greets from vienna

murph

[Roland777]

I WANT TO SEE THOSE REVIEWS! No cigar on heavy flatwounds, that seems like a pricey custom job. I'm expecting Skip any second now to chime in...

I'd also like to hear the music you're churning out. It sounds like a pretty ballsy combo!

[murph.vienna]

Actually there is no combo yet, its just me and a couple of machines... mc505 mostly.
i didn't find a drummer yet who can play as exact as my metronomes - well, at least not for 2 hours with no pauses.

I hope to have some spare time over the holidays to record this.

What will be reviewed: Thomastik Jazz Flats 5str, D'Addario Medium 5str and Ernie Ball Nickelplated Medium 5str, D'Addario ProSteels reg. lt. 5str, Dean Markley Blue Steel 5str, Fender 9120 nylon 4str, D'Addario Chromes 4str reg.lt... all tested on durability and sound on many basses.

What do you mean with "No cigar on heavy flatwounds" - ??

[knuckle_head]

Roland - you knew I couldn't stay away.

murph - my implementation of octave E tuning was/is industrial-dance. It is awesome in that application and makes keyboard players cry.

A no-go on flats I am afraid. I would suggest that a .165 SIT would be good for your G (potentially their .195 as an F#/E), and if you can be patient and let the strings dirty up a bit they may serve you well. You could even help the process along and periodically wipe down the strings with olive oil. It will treat your fret board in the process.

As for your reviews - feel free to start threads in here as you see fit, but do share what you've done and what you've learned. I have a particular interest in T/I SpiroCores if you came by them in your travels...

[santucci218]

while i have no insite as for the strings, i just wanted to welcome you to the forums from the ERB forum that i used to chat with you on.

[Roland777]

I want to hear clips from both of you. Low bassguitars in an industrial/electronica environment is a foreign concept to me, but it sounds very intriguing - like something I could really appreaciate! I'll be watching this one.

[Lokire]

You're not going to find flatwound bass guitar strings in those gauges.

BUT

If you're feeling adventurous, look into adapting some upright bass strings. I don't know how you could find out 'gauges', but they're definitely thicker. Maybe try some 1/4 size upright bass strings (should be just a little longer than 35" scale length).

[knuckle_head]

Originally Posted by Lokire

You're not going to find flatwound bass guitar strings in those gauges.

BUT

If you're feeling adventurous, look into adapting some upright bass strings. I don't know how you could find out 'gauges', but they're definitely thicker. Maybe try some 1/4 size upright bass strings (should be just a little longer than 35" scale length).

They really aren't any thicker - I measured some T/Is for 1/2 and 3/4 uprights and they mic out at similar gauges for standard electrics. They're even balanced tension based on the gauges - go figure.

[Lokire]

Hmm...I suppose so.

What about an upright B-string?

[greenboy]

Chimera chasing, in my estimation. Even if they existed, on a fixed-scale 34" or 35" instrument everything lower than B0 would sound dull. Why not just mix a flatwound or compressedwound set on the upper-pitch strings with the limited selection of fattie roundwounds for the lower-pitch strings? As it is those tend to have less overtone balance and accuracy due to less flexibility anyway. Why exacerbate this?

One can always learn to palm-damp on the lowest pitches as well ; }

[Bass Below]

Heavy gauge flatwounds? Oh, those are my dream

Flatwounds for a 39.5" scale length would be even dreamier

[greenboy]

Originally Posted by Bass Below

Flatwounds for a 39.5" scale length would be even dreamier

Yeah - that's about where they'd begin to actually exhibit what's cool about flats ; }

[Bass Below]

Originally Posted by greenboy

Why not just mix a flatwound or compressedwound set on the upper-pitch strings with the limited selection of fattie roundwounds for the lower-pitch strings? As it is those tend to have less overtone balance and accuracy due to less flexibility anyway. Why exacerbate this?

Excellent point. I'm familiar with the SIT .165 (mine is tuned to G#) and due to the heavy wraps on it, it's much more "thuddy" than your typical gauge stainless roundwound.

Greenboy's suggestion is the best of both worlds, use the flats you like for EADG and get yourself that SIT .165 for your A.

A suggestion based on my experience and opinion, if you're going to go below G#, use one of the strings heavier than the .165, like the .175 or more ideally the .195. I know I like my strings tighter than many of you, but for me G# is as low as i would go with a .165

By the way, welcome, your stuff sounds interesting, hopefully you can share some of it with us

[murph.vienna]

thanks for your replies,

the ibanez is 35" as some of you know or have figured out by reading the string review of thomastik infeld jazz flats (quite floppy on 34" because of low tension)
the g string, when removed from the packaging, feels/looks like a piece of rope. the strings are very thin indeed, and are the most flexible strings I have yet played (7 years on bass).

@greenboy:
first of all, the flatwounds are necessary for killing fret noise. additionally, i play with the tone pot completely closed. In fact I'm really chasing that sine-wave sound without overtones.
I don't want this to sound like a bass guitar, you know? it should sound like bass If you get the chance to listen to people like Aphrodite or Telefon Tel Aviv you should get the idea.
A lot of these wonderful drum'n'bass-fills are generated on analog synths, they have a much smoother glissando because they do not lose power. On a bass guitar this is a much trickier process. you COULD get this job done easy by using serious amounts of compression, BUT this kill your possibility of sending your audience to hell by bombarding them with a 30 Hz + their cousins 60, 120 and 240 Hz. and...the nice part comes when digging into tubes:
when tubes start to saturate they start to generate overtones. graphically said, a sine wave starts to get "spikes", and this is like turning the dry/wet-pot of a sine synth with added triangles, or added squares, even added noise. Maybe take some time and listen to Benni Benassi which got famous by reviving the oldschool sine+wave+triangle analog synth.
basically i'm trying to do the same with my bass signal what Roland already did back in '82 with simple waves (for anybody not knowing : the tb303).

second,
the low tension is needed because I play most of the bassdrum-parts around the 12th fret and still need flexibility to create bass-drum-like effects (by hitting the note a bit too hard the pitch goes up a notch and then gets back to tune - imagine this done in eights, with palm muting - et voila, there goes your BD track..)
further, the low tension helps me to keep my right hand calm... i played in an alternative rock band for some time (guitars to dropped C, bass in Eb-tuning, ernie ball nickelplated .50-.135) and I'm not yet used to play lower than "forte" on this bass.. - the bass is called "tiger" btw, not without reason

third,
i played 50.-.135 on this bass for years on Eb-Tuning and this was my most complicated bass to play when concering tension and power needed. Low Bb on 35" is not that off. I actually have this bass tuned on Dropped-A with a regular set, the scale really matters, i have absolutely no intonation problems over the whole fretboard. i tried to tune my 4string cirrus to BEAD first, which worked, then I tried GDGC (dropped G), this - indeed - start so suck.

and, @greenboy: i actually did learn muting strings. nevertheless, my 300€-ibanez has got very loud frets which sound rather unmusicial. i do love fret sound, don't get me wrong.

@knucklehead:
OMG I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT YOU IN MY THREAD
i really hope to get my hands on a quake5 soon... not so easy in austria... anyway:
i'm pleased that i'm not the only one who got the "which musical style sucks up most subwoofer energy?" question right
I have thought about a different approach to flatwinding:
How about flat-polishing a well-temperated string? I think I have to sacrifice some old backup strings...

@roland and the others requesting records:
i am very sorry but I cannot record anything until next week.

"last words" or "the award goes to":
greenboy - i am very pleased about your point of view and overall argument-density in your post, i think we'll get best friends in no time

[sir juice]

I cannot wait to hear this project of yours. Not only does it sound great, but you have clearly put a huge amount of thought into your playing, which is what I REALLY want to hear.

Do you play in any other projects at all?

[greenboy]

Hoi, murph.vienna,

I get it. I used to program synths and built and ran a commercial midi studio from the mid-eighties into the early nineties, and I was chasing low frequencies well before I picked up bass guitar. I built a few relatively efficient flat-to-25Hz subwoofers too and did beta testing on Servodrives when even those big boys weren't enough for my quest. Actually I am getting my 3rd biamped bass rig together these days because V-Bass can do some decent synthy stuff with heavy fundamental content and I find all the commercial products for this lacking in one fashion or another... Fretless Six host bass, by the way ; }

But I wouldn't worry about string noise nearly as much as I would worry about accurate overtone presentation and intonation issues because 1) string noise is largely a technique issue, and 2) if you are shooting for dense low end you can simply eq out whatever content to whatever degree you desire above, and bye-bye goes any string noise.

I think as you put some time in on what is currently available you'll come to appreciate the issues of diminishing returns in string-building technology for low pitches on short scales - ie, not Quakes or Dingwalls (or whatever other longer fans you can get a luthier to build) which I have played and recommend highly for low tuning with better impact, intelligibility, and feel when playing low.

Actually the selection of low-tuning roundwound strings today is still abysmal, to be quite frank.

[murph.vienna]

@sir_juice: i played with "WEIRD" for a long time (myspace.com/weirdvienna), but this has nothing to do with my project.

@greenboy:
I think I saw the right amp for you...
tec-amp bad bull (this thing ROCKS the S%(&/ outta your pants) or tec-amp black cat (this thing ROCKS and looks as good as a centerfold)
cabinet: 412XL or the BAD CAB (2x15+2x12+4x10+2x horn)

anyway back on topic,
you are absolutely right. absolutely. you know what's funny? i have a 31band EQ in the closet and do not know what to do with it. Ha. Although this will frick my phases up bigtime it's worth a try. I have a medium set lying around somewhere... but plz be cool with the Eb-tuning the .105 E kills me on 35"

For everybody thinks that I'm a rocket scientist / rockstar / <$$$job$$$>: i earn around 150 a week, and I'm located in austria, which means:
the next knucklehead quake is at least 150 miles away
a 4band parametric phase corrected EQ as hardware device (not the cosy Waves stuff) costs around 450€ here which is roughly double I paid for the ibanez (290€).

damn you, greenboy. I love my flatwounds, but i am a scientist, and so I WILL choose the right way of the roundwounds.
you are destroying my fingers dreams and I find you very disturbing, but you ARE right and maybe we'll even grab a beer sometimes.

thanks for inspiration

[greenboy]

Originally Posted by murph.vienna

damn you, greenboy. I love my flatwounds, but i am a scientist, and so I WILL choose the right way of the roundwounds.
you are destroying my fingers dreams and I find you very disturbing, but you ARE right and maybe we'll even grab a beer sometimes.

Ah, murph, it's not that I am RIGHT - it's that physics, acoustics, and commerical manufacturing realities have conspired against us.

An earlier statement of your jolted me on my subwoofing and Speaker Management System tweaking. Right now I'm working on the assumption that if one is willing to dispense with the lowest fundamentals for the expediency of having loud transportable bass rigs and PAs, that one can very much give the impression of primal phatness! And indeed, with direct radiator subwoofers in clubs where house, trance,e tc are played, one often is hearing the earmark of direct radiators being driven hard: increased harmonic distortion that emphasizes the first few overtones above the fundamental on the lowest pitches.

Thus, though a synth bass may be playing waveforms that approach sines, the reality output to patrons is still tending to live in the more approachable 40-to-125 Hz region. Something to think about.

[lemur821]

Originally Posted by greenboy

Thus, though a synth bass may be playing waveforms that approach sines, the reality output to patrons is still tending to live in the more approachable 40-to-125 Hz region. Something to think about.

That's something I've noticed as well. Fat synth bass is as much in the first harmonic as in the fundamental.

[greenboy]

Originally Posted by lemur821

That's something I've noticed as well. Fat synth bass is as much in the first harmonic as in the fundamental.

The distinction I was attempting to make though, is that it's not always a factor in the sound design itself alone, but is also certainly a byproduct of listening though pumped-up direct radiator - and even some horn-loaded - subwoofers in a venue that's awash in massed standing waves.

So I posit that if that is indeed a reality, that it might as well be leveraged to best effect since the lower you go the more physics and psychoacoustics seems to intrude ; }