Extra Heavy Flatwounds?

[two fingers]

Also, when your hands are strong, you play better. You lift weights to get strong, you play heavy strings to get strong hands

Not so fast. I am NOT flaming you because I too am a heavy-handed player. However, Victor Wooten's hands are an inch shorter than mine, his strings are incredibly light, and he plays with a light touch. Different strokes for different folks.

I don't want my surgeon to do a bunch of hand exercises or weight lifting with his fingers. Who cares if he/she can crack my rib cage with their hands? I want him/her to have a flexible, light, accurate touch. Get me?

Again, this is coming from a very heavy handed bass player. Most players pick up my bass and say "How can you play this thing set up so high????"

 

[Chaddycakes]

Sorry dude. My girlfriend yells at me all the time for being way too abrupt. I was in the studio yesterday, and my Jamerson pbass had an intonation issue, so the engineer handed me his extremely lowly setup jazz bass. It took a few takes for me to get used to, and the band kept telling me to "make love to it". It sounded pretty good, better than the poorly setup pbass. That e string has a date with an allen wrench. But tomorrow, I'm still going to grab that pbass for my live show. I'd say now that in a live setting, I need a higher action so that I won't be buried in the mix, while in a studio setting, a beautiful fundamental tone is more essential.

 

[KingRazor]

"higher action so you won't be buried in the mix"? What does your string action have to do with how well you're heard in a mix?

 

[Chaddycakes]

"higher action so you won't be buried in the mix"? What does your string action have to do with how well you're heard in a mix?

I find that being able to both play with a sweet fundamental or slam the strings off the frets from a distance allows me to be dynamic enough to compete with other players. Say you have a guitarist with a 2x12 tube amp cranked, you're stuck in a corner, you only have a 1x10 combo, and the drummer keeps looking at you and pointing up. What do you do? You play with a less than optimal dynamic so that you can still get through the mix.

 

[KingRazor]

I find that being able to both play with a sweet fundamental or slam the strings off the frets from a distance allows me to be dynamic enough to compete with other players. Say you have a guitarist with a 2x12 tube amp cranked, you're stuck in a corner, you only have a 1x10 combo, and the drummer keeps looking at you and pointing up. What do you do? You play with a less than optimal dynamic so that you can still get through the mix.

I use the same action regardless of what situation I'm in, as it has no effect on my dynamic range really. For me there's only one ideal action level.