The title says it all. Can I use an EQ pedal up get a flatwound tone out of roundwounds?
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Can I EQ roundwounds to sound like flatwounds?
- Thread starter kyral210
- Start date
In my opinion, no.
Rounds just have more overtones. If you roll back the highs, those overtones are still there, just more dull sounding. By the time you roll off enough highs to start killing off the overtones, you also lose the attack.
Rounds just have more overtones. If you roll back the highs, those overtones are still there, just more dull sounding. By the time you roll off enough highs to start killing off the overtones, you also lose the attack.
Kinda, depends on the rounds...use a foam mute to get thump sorta like La Bella flats.
Crystal ball says roll off your tone knob on your bass
While there certainly are recordings on which the jury is still out whether rounds or flats where used in the studio, I have yet to find a method to get rounds to sound like flats convincingly. IMO, it's all about the overtone complexity and the texture of the attack that sets rounds apart from flats, and simply rolling back the tone just won't get you there. It may do the job in a pinch, though.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
It's a compromise, but rolling off the tone, and with a little foam, you can get a usable "flats" tone. Depends how often you want it, and whether you want to schlep a second base.
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Not really. Even with the tone bottomed out, you've got a totally different construction. The decay of the note is different.
Rounds kinda changed the entire role of the bass guitar, starting with the rotosound swing 66.
Some dudes let their rounds get ancient and skanky.
Still, even a skanky round is gonna have a more robust attack and longer decay than most flats.
Rounds kinda changed the entire role of the bass guitar, starting with the rotosound swing 66.
Some dudes let their rounds get ancient and skanky.
Still, even a skanky round is gonna have a more robust attack and longer decay than most flats.
Left hand muting helps. Will Lee uses this technique a LOT!
I don’t think so. The note attack on flats is much different from rounds. Also, the way the note decays is different. I don’t think you can get there with eq.
Some say you can come close - sorta like "can a neck J pu sound like a P"....
There's something about the attack and decay with flats that's would be difficult to replicate.
The past few years, I've been migrating to flats on almost all my basses - one by one, it's what I've come to
prefer.
I have found that a LPF is more effective in taming that treble. They are NOT the same thing...
and as valuable as HPFs have become, I find LPFs just as valuable these days.
There's something about the attack and decay with flats that's would be difficult to replicate.
The past few years, I've been migrating to flats on almost all my basses - one by one, it's what I've come to
prefer.
I have found that a LPF is more effective in taming that treble. They are NOT the same thing...
and as valuable as HPFs have become, I find LPFs just as valuable these days.
Not to me anyway.
I just tried my first flatwounds last fall, various size LaBella’s on different Fenders and Squiers.
The punch is dry and felt physically, like hitting wood with a sledgehammer.
The highs are clean, clear and articulate, but not sharp and cutting, the real definition of blunt bell- and piano-like.
Roundwounds are sort of muddled, there is a lot of sounds and noises going on and the notes seem to blend (or dissolve) one into the next. Tone in a mix has always been an issue for me and probably most people, but with flatwounds it is not anymore, especially with a jazz bass.
I just tried my first flatwounds last fall, various size LaBella’s on different Fenders and Squiers.
The punch is dry and felt physically, like hitting wood with a sledgehammer.
The highs are clean, clear and articulate, but not sharp and cutting, the real definition of blunt bell- and piano-like.
Roundwounds are sort of muddled, there is a lot of sounds and noises going on and the notes seem to blend (or dissolve) one into the next. Tone in a mix has always been an issue for me and probably most people, but with flatwounds it is not anymore, especially with a jazz bass.
If they’re very dead, they can get pretty close, but never quite the same.
This is as precise as an answer can get.
There is more than one aspect to "The sound of flatwounds", and depending on how many of those you set out to catch, you can get a decent approximation that is good enough in a mix, or you can fail completely.
When I bought a new bass a while ago, I brought it to band practice before the flats I ordered for it had arrived and I had to make do with the rounds that were on. Stainless steel rounds, fresh ones.
I dialed back on the tone knob a lot (about 3/4), played with my hand sitting over the fretboard, used a very light touch and tried to use the softest bits of my fingers to do the plucking, which kinda nailed what I needed.
The one thing I am not sure of how I could recreate it would be the thump you get when you play hard.
The quick, hard attack with the fast decay that a roundwound just won't do.
IMO bwildt nailed it. This is a simple and easily understood (to me) reason why rounds will not be able to sound precisely like flats. “Precisely” might be the concept actually being discussed, with each of our ideas and preferences determining if and how much we “settle” for our tone. To me, only flats sound like flats, and it is supported by bwildt’s reasoning.
Not really but maybe close enough, with technique as described, that it is close enough to do what you need, its situational dependent
The short answer is no. The longer answer is, you can use a foam mute and roll off some of the treble to kind of mimic the tone, but it is not going to be the same.
I'm going to agree about no. To try to be like flats, you'll have to kill all the highs. There's a certain tone that you can get with flats that comes from not having to kill the highs. If you just want a dull thud, than you can get that with either.
