Like most people on this board, I've read enough about Thomastik-Infeld Jazz Flats to know that they're the end-all and be-all of flats, last forever, and cure cancer. I had been meaning to pick up a set for a long time, and finally dusted off the wallet for just long enough to get a set shipped to my door thanks to Jong at Jive Sound. I ordered them at just the right time as I had several dates coming up that would cover a range of musical styles. The donor? My trusty Fender Precision, which I've never avoided posting a picture of.
Initial Impressions:
My bass had previously been strung up with the last set I had of my beloved D'Addario Slowounds, now discontinued. They were a light gauge, and I had to give my bass a quick setup to get the action where I liked it after I put on the flats.
First, they feel great. I've read that they play effortlessly, and that's pretty close to the truth. They were much lower in tension than the other flats I've used (Fender and GHS), and were very easy to play.
I was not impressed with the sound. They sounded very mid-rangey and clanky to me, without a lot of "booty". I tweaked the settings on my amp for a while, but I never really felt happy with them. With a mental shrug, I packed up my gear as I had my first rehearsal for a musical theater gig I had the next day.
Theater Gig
That whole next week I would be rehearsing and playing for a local holiday musical that was written to resemble a WWII USO show. There were lots of swing, jazz, and Christmas tunes, with a few ballads thrown in for good measure.
I was MUCH happier with the strings when I was playing with the band. It was just piano, drums, guitar and myself, and these strings really thrived when they sat in the mix with the other instruments. I didn't really get what I would call an upright tone, but the decay was short enough and the tone was thumpy enough that it was a passable combination between electric and the classic double bass tone. Again, they played so smoothly and effortlessly that I was really able to concentrate on the music. (This is a good thing as I was struggling for many of the tunes!) I played this show through a Hartke combo with the EQ set flat and the tone knob on my bass rolled off about 1/4. Great tone.
Club date
The next show would be two weeks later in the lovely state of Minnesota, where my band was playing a small bar/venue called the Red Sea. My band covers the territory of rock, ska, and reggae with a full cast: myself, drums, guitar, keys, trombone, sax, and an energetic female singer.
The tone was great here, too. Very present in the mix and full sounding. There were two places where I thought the sound was lacking, however. I play a lot of fast walking lines that jump around a lot with this group, and it was tough to get the same definition that I would get with rounds. This is probably an inherent issue with the strings being flats, but in fast passages with the full band playing, it felt a little blurry to me. The second part I wasn't crazy about was the slap tone, but that didn't really surprise me. I really don't slap all that much, and not very often on my Precision. But, with my fretless in pieces and my Jazz bass sold, I had little choice! There was more top end than I would have imagined, but it was still very "clanky". This gig I went to the board through my Sansamp and for stage monitoring I was a Peavey Bam 210 combo.
Jazz Combo
Finally, I had a chance to try out the strings at a jazz combo rehearsal last week. This is a small group with myself, drums, horns, and a guitar player who could not be there. This was one of my first times playing with the group, and we had a short list of standards that we want to go through. On the more R 'n Bish tune Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, the strings really shone. They had a great bouncy feel and tone that set well in the song. For the more standard tunes when I tried to emulate a more upright-ish tone, they did fairly well but almost had too much midrange for my tastes. I usually leave my EQ flat but I found myself dipping in the midrange a tad and boosting the bass by a hair. Still, they performed admirably and I got compliments about the tone I was able to get from my setup. This was played through a Roland combo amp that is at the studio we use for rehearsal.
Overall I would have to say that I'm very impressed with the strings. I would even go so far as to say that I'm more impressed with how they feel than how they sound, though they excel in both categories. They definitely have mellowed out since I bought them, and I think that I would definitely purchase them again if the need arose to replace them. They seem to fit fairly well on the P-Bass, and I'm curious about how they would sit on a brighter bass that had a larger range of duty.
Thanks for reading my self-indulgent review.
If there wasn't enough on the boards about these silly strings, now there's a little bit more!
