Flats vs. rounds

[Greenman72]

Not gonna lie. I have a hard time hearing the difference between flats & rounds.

Seems to me that you can get the same sound out of rounds by turning your tone down.

 

[onda'bass]

Really? Is this when they are brand new?

 

[coryr1000]

You can turn your tone down but why miss out on that bright round wound ring? Cuts through everything!

 

[Nashrakh]

It's been a while since we've last had a thread like this, huh? "Just turn you tone down" is such a quaint and antiquated notion.

 

[Gervais Cote]

To me, the rounds have more rumble and over tones, especially when played alone without a band.

In the mix, with a loud band or a band with many other instruments, it’s sometimes harder to hear the difference.

 

[michael_t]

Rounds to cut through the mix and be heard.
Flats to sit in the mix and be felt.

I initially got hooked on flats for the smooth, screech-free feel, not for the tone.

 

[mambo4]

I don’t care or notice what kind of sticks my drummer uses, but I’m sure he cares a lot.

 

[Fuzzbass]

"Turn your tone down" gets you close enough in the mix. It's why I keep flats on only one bass at most.

But then I'm a roundwound guy who dials in bright aggressive tones whenever appropriate (and sometimes when inappropriate ). For those who prefer flats, rounds will never suffice.



Obligatory: neither my bandmates nor the audience care what kind of strings I use, but most of us want to please ourselves, so those factors then become irrelevant.

 

[ahbradot]

I love Rounds on all my basses....
But I put Flats on my Ernie Ball Music Man Sterling and the MTD Kingston and they both morphed into a beautiful new tone which I enjoy immensely.

 

[ole Jason]

I dislike how flats feel but I can definitely tell a difference in how they sound sometimes. There are flatwound tones and roundwound tones the other string type will have difficulty getting... however there's a huge swath of tones in between where both string types can occupy the same space. So the short answer, like most things, is it depends.

 

[JamesGrant]

Slap with flats is… not the same!!

 

[Aberdumbie]

Yeah, rounds are brighter and put you over the top. But aint that what guitars are for? And ahhhh the comfort of flats. I'll never go back and I was a dedicated Roto guy for twenty-five years.

 

[micguy]

Seems to me that you can get the same sound out of rounds by turning your tone down.

Flats have harmonics, but they die very quickly. Rounds support those harmonics for much longer - the difference is a frequency dependent decay time; eq (which is static with time) cannot mimic that.

 

[MegaSwing]

Flats are more vintage in tone, rounds more metallic. Use them interchangeably at your own peril.

 

[MCS4]

If I am playing them, the difference is very apparent to me. If I am listening to a recording, I think I can probably accurately distinguish between flats and fresher rounds the vast majority of the time. I think it is certainly true that there are occasions in which flats and dead rounds can be harder to distinguish on record, or possibly fresher rounds if the player is specifically trying to make them sound like flats (rolling off high end, using foam, using palm muting/thumb plucking, processing in post, etc.). Also, I think the latter supports the suggestion that rounds and flats inherently sound different rather than contradicts it; if you take rounds and try to make them sound like flats, you by necessity are admitting there is a difference that you are chasing. Conversely, I think flats almost never sound like fresh or average rounds in almost any imaginable situation.

 

[el murdoque]

When you leave out the extreme cases (like Bernard Edwards who played really dead rounds back then, or Steve Harris, who has his tech change the flats on his basses daily) and say that a flatwound player puts on a set and leaves it on until rust killst the strings, and really starts enjoying the strings when they start to settle an mature about a year in, and compare that person playing a well settled set to someone who really enjoys rounds and therefore replaces them every time the freshness is gone, then there is a massive difference, and it's clearly audible.

When someone tries to emulate a flatwound tone by using older rounds, dialing back the tone and/or using EQ to get closer to the flatwound tone, then it can be hard to hear the difference in a mix - as long as that person is doing a good enough job.

 

[KevInDaBassment]

So glad my choice had the word "Totes" in it

Bass also has to go through an amp EQ section, power amp, and speakers of some kind....all of which affect the tone in demonstrable ways. Could you reasonably mitigate differences in a band mix with numerous adjustments? Yeah, to some degree...but other things like decay, tension, and lack of finger noise contribute as well. If you can hear a difference with tone wide open on the bass, then there is a difference between the two.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

Not gonna lie. I have a hard time hearing the difference between flats & rounds.

Seems to me that you can get the same sound out of rounds by turning your tone down.

While I agree you can mitigate some of the difference by adjusting your EQ/tone, there is a distinct difference in tonal character. You may get a better picture if instead of trying to make them sound the same, try making them sound totally different by adjusting your EQ,

Or.. Download a copy of Tower of Power’s What is Hip and anything from The Who’s Iive at leads LP. I’m fairly certain you will be able to hear the difference.

 

[ra0ulduke]

How often can this topic be discussed?

 

[Relayer71]

Seems to me that you can get the same sound out of rounds by turning your tone down.

But can you do the opposite?