Alternate method of installing flatwounds? On Ernie Ball string package

[-Boscoe-]

DCCat, I just put some EB Cobalt flats on my Ray4 last night and noticed the same thing. G was louder and had a really different, pretty tone. This is the bass I mod and play around with so it's not an issue, but I'm wondering if that will mellow out a bit with time.

 

[nnnnnn]

Just looking at the picture for "step 3" is making me cringe as I'm very uneasy about the sharp angle it creates, especially with a flat.

Stringing it without going back through the slot still creates the same angle. It's just if you go back through the slot you end up with that angle at three places on the string instead of one.

Anyway, note that picture 3 is a bit deceptive because it looks like the flatwound wrapped part of the string is being bent, but it's not because the flatwound wraps stop before the string reaches the tuner, except on the E string where it stops roughly at the tuner.

At the tuner end of the strings there's a purple ribbon wrapped around the core from just before the flatwound wrap stops, and right at the the of the strings there's just the plain core, no ribbon. So the part of the string making that angle in the slot is just the core plus ribbon or plain core (depending on how far apart the bass's tuners are and whether you cut the string before installing).

I just put a set of Ernie Ball flats on my Squier Jaguar - first time I've ever installed flats on any instrument, and I decided to follow the suggested installation method and it seems fine. Unlike the issues some people reported above, nothing broke during installation or tuning or in the hour of playing I've done so far.