curious. Why does Fender sell the Jaco Pastorius bass with flatwound strings?

Honestly I have no clue. My guess is that most Fretless basses come with flats as a standard(due to board wear), or that J-basses in the 60s came with flatwounds so theoretically it is period-accurate or something lol. It would make more sense to ship with Roundwounds though as you said.

 

There are those who are obsessed with "mint condition Fender"

Although roundwound wear is exaggerated,they don't want to try to sell a bass with fingerboard marks after in store customer demos.

After you buy it,you can do what you want.

 

^^^^^^^ That makes sense, like plastic wrap on the pickguard. I have pressure wound on my fretless, most of the high end, but easier on the fingers than rounds.

 

This.

 

I have two Jaco artists and both are still wearing the original Fender flats that came on them. I suspect Fender ships them with flats for the tone. They give the typical giant-rubber-band-on-a-rural-West-Virgina-washtub-bass kind of sound you tend to expect on a 1962 Jazz bass replica, frets or not. It's actually a lovely tone, especially if you're into vintage P and J tones.

I've tried roundwounds on one of my Jacos and it was lousy, to me. Thready and shimmery and about 1/2 the lows/fundamental gone.

That said, with the flats it doesn't sound even remotely like Jaco, even plucked hard over the bridge PU, with the front PU turned all the way down. My favorite tone is actually the front PU soloed, plucking directly over that front PU. Basically sounds like a P bass with a nice, papery kind of clopping sound over the top of it, especially with a low action.

I don't know why rounds sound so weak on it where you'd expect they would sound great. The flats really make the bass IMO.

L

 

I believe someone that thought most of the customers would change them to flats anyway.

 

Didn't they make two versions of that bass?

 

Tribute models are only suppose to look like the real thing, if you want that tone look elsewhere.

 

They also don’t rip out the frets and fill the slots with boat epoxy. It’s a tribute bass, not his bass.

 

Roto Sound Swing 66 for all my fretless basses.

 

that is the question for the ages!

 

If you're looking for Jaco tone, you're gonna have a bad time. Passive fretless J with vintage pickups (which is what the USA sig is) will get you the closest, then the rest is up to you.

 

One of them didn't have the epoxy 'board. That's a major contribution to JP's tone

 

The USA sig is quite a bit different to his actual bass. The Custom Shop is closer.

But the USA sig is an amazing fretless J, which a lot of people forget cause they get all caught up in arguing about it.

 

Because they won't make money out of installing strings from a competitor.

 

The more accurate and pricey custom shop Jaco does have an epoxy board and round wounds

 

This. Mine is a parts bass with a Jaco neck but I've tried my usual RS66 on it and it's just ok. With TI flats on it it sings. I have to put paper in the nut since the strings are so light but there's practically no tension and the action can be low as possible. Never taking them off.