Flats?

Part 1: http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=519803&highlight=convert

Part 2: http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?p=9567945#post9567945

 

flats have made a pretty big comeback. most people still use rounds but flats are much more popular these days. what's the point? does there have to be one?

 

It just took a few decades for everyone to realize the cool motown & classic rock hits were recorded with flats. String makers saw an opening and started offering significant variety in flats, and it's all reaching critical mass. Sounds like you may live in one of the last remaining round zones in the US....get ready; flats are coming!

 

Tried flats and now 3 out of my 4 basses have them.

 

What other bass players use is irrelevant to me. I use flats on one of my basses because I like the sound. That's it.

IMO, there isn't a point, major or minor. People try to pretend there's one by justifying their choices with contrived, pseudo-absolutist notions like, "I play flats because they embody what a bass player's role is all about," or "I play rounds because flats don't work with x music style," or even "I play whatever the song calls for," but really it just boils down to personal preference. If you like it, you like it. If you don't, you don't.

 

Listen to guys like Pino Palladino that are killing it with flats these days (with how much i've been listening/transcribing Pino I might switch all my basses to flats). They sit really well in the mix, and you got to love that extra thump that flats can bring. It IS all personal preference, but electric bass players owe it to themselves and the band to try and see if it helps the sound.

 

Well then!
I guess that's it!
[/THREAD]

Everybody pack up and go home. Last person out, please turn off the lights.

 

My sarcasm sense is tingling...

 

I dig the flats in the studio. Works great every time. Used them on a session for Dennis Coffey's record yesterday and they killed.

Live engineers can't be trusted with them. Even passive and no e.q. they still can't seem to make them punch live. I need that guitar string in the club.

 

It all comes down to personal preference or what tone you're after. I recently replaced the stock rounds that came on my rosewood fretless with TI flats. Because I prefer the sound of flats on a fretless. My fretted Jazz has rounds on. Personally I get the sense that most on here use rounds. Flat users are still the minority. I will say that the common topic in this section seems to be about flats. I wouldn't say the forum as a whole are mostly flat users though.

Bottom line: There is no major point to what type of string you use. They are all good in different ways

 

In all seriousness, flats are probably in the extreme minority of strings used, however I believe there's been a surge in their popularity over the past couple years based on what I read. I have no way of knowing for sure, but there is some other evidence, like Just Strings adding a "flatwound" group to their bass string section. http://m.juststrings.com/category/bassguitar__flatwoundbassguitarstrings.html
That didn't exist a while back.
Why the popularity surge? Music style, variety, advertising, ??. I don't really know. One thing I do know; the flatwound strings available today are totally different tban what was available a few years ago. I bought my first set of flats in about 1980 and the next set i bought was in 2008. I didn't care for either set. I started reading about flats here on TB, thought I'd try some TI Jazz flats & I love them. I only have flats on two of my seven basses, but I know at least one more is getting flats when the current strings die.

 

They sound different. That's it, really. Why P basses? Or J's?

Bass stuff goes through phases. There is, at the moment, a resurgence of popularity of the older tones. Great, hurray. I like it.
Wait a few more years and everybody will be playing headless, active graphite basses. Again. Quote me.

 

I personally could care less which famous player uses what.

I like the way flats feel and sound.

MM

 

Quoted!

I'll happily be in the minority with my old fashioned Fender's and G&L.

 

the point?...they sound good!

 

It's only because people who use flats are more passionate about them, so you always hear them going on about them. If you went by that logic, you could say more people on here ride motorbikes than cars.

I fall under the very small minority that likes both equally... they both have different sounds that can be used in different ways. But for my band, I use rounds and bump the mids 'cause I do a lot of higher basslines, and those two factors project them nicely.

$0.02

 

Old thread, sorry!

Flats are talked about a lot here and I use them on my fretless. You can hear flats on a fretted bass quite a bit on commercially available recordings but fretless is a different matter. Steve Lawson and Bill Laswell are the only 2 players I can think of currently recording fretless with flats.