Flatwound String Choices...

[Marty Forrer]

45-105. They play nice, very smooth. However they seemed a bit subdued, so I put my TI flats back on and bingo! There it is. Some strings just seem to work better with some basses. My jazz has Aero Type 1 pickups, and it just roars with the TI flats. As well as the Dunlop flats, I tried Stringjoy nickel rounds, Dunlop Super Bright rounds and Fodera nickel rounds. The TI flats suited this bass by a long shot.

 

[user362432]

This time, I went total bass porn (like a Russian oligarch)

LaBella Gold Flats on MIJ Fender P Limited edition

Very balanced, little bit stiff, decent growl.

 

[BassBeginer64]

I been wanting to try those Golds, on my Jazz or even the Ricky, how stiff are they compared to Chromes?

 

[user362432]

They have a little bit more tension than Chromes. For the same size of Roto Sound 66, I had to turn up truss-rod for about 1/4 of turn.

 

[GIBrat51]

I see LaBella has both Deep Talkin' (45-105) & Low Tension (42-100) flatwound but only the Deep Talkin' are available for SS (32 1/4"). They also have both black & white tape wounds, now I'm even more curious. And that could get expensive
On a different but related topic... I've read that thru-body stringing is not a good idea for flatwounds. The SWB-1 can be strung either way so I'm assuming I'll string it through the back of the bridge.

This is the only bass I have with tapes on it, at the moment; an old MIK Rogue VB-100 with Roto TruBass 88s. I did have a Carvin LB-20 strung BEAD with Labella Black Tapes for quite a while. Very nice strings they were, too. All the La Bella Tapes seem very well liked around here. However, as with a lot of BEAD strung basses, the B string was just a little too floppy. So, off they came. But, if I'd had the G string from that set, they'd still be on that bass... The Roto 88s don't have that problem, and give me the dark, woody tones I want out of the Rogue. So, that's what it wears... As for thru-body stringing with flats? Most string manufacturer's don't recommend it, but you'll get lots of people here who'll tell you they've been doing it - with no problems at all - since Hector was a pup. So, like Dirty Harry Callahan said; "Do ya feel lucky?" I only have one bass (that Carvin) that gives me the string-thru option. So, as an experiment, I tried it. It was a royal pain in the tuchas; a total waste of time, IMO; and it was something I'll never bother with again. But, that's just me...

 

[russellh86]

45-105. They play nice, very smooth. However they seemed a bit subdued, so I put my TI flats back on and bingo! There it is. Some strings just seem to work better with some basses. My jazz has Aero Type 1 pickups, and it just roars with the TI flats. As well as the Dunlop flats, I tried Stringjoy nickel rounds, Dunlop Super Bright rounds and Fodera nickel rounds. The TI flats suited this bass by a long shot.

I ended up pulling the Chromes off of my P5 and putting a set of GHS Pressure Wounds on which sound pretty good. I also installed a Nordy NP5 which has helped balance the tone out between strings significantly. I've got a set of Dunlop flats I want to try next. I've also got a set of TI flats on my Jazz V that I may swap out too. This string addiction is getting out of hand.

 

[JOME77]

Yeah you need to choose YOUR strings, everyone here has their choice, I tried GHS Flats, and went back to D Chromes Lights Flatwounds, tried the Meds , just too much, and went back to lights , expensive learning curve, I even tried the Thomastik Infeld Jazz Strings just did not feel right, but like I said you need to find what works for you.

"you need to find what works for you"
Boy is that easier said than done! I played Nickel RW's pretty much exclusively over the past 20+ years.
I only recently got back into playing P-Basses and I think that I've tried every flat wound string out there and only recently narrowed it down to TI Jazz Flats, D'Addario Chrome Flats, EB Cobalt Flats and La Bella Deep Talking Flats (760 FS).
The problem is that I like something about all 4 string types but none of them (at least not at the moment) totally give me everything that I want in a single string. That being said, I do like the sound of all of them. Today I finally installed a set of all 4 on each of my 4 basses (2-4 string Fender P-basses, a Roscoe 3005 and a Gecko Fretless 5). Hopefully being able to play basses loaded with each set will enable me to determine a favorite (overall). I'm sure that I'll end up installing 2 of the 4 on my 2 P-basses. That might be the best thing to do.

I really need to get past all this though. I'm spending a fortune on flat wound bass strings!

 

[Abner]

I just do not understand the need to find one string that does it for everything. Different basses require different strings.

No argument about it being expensive finding the right string for each bass, though.

 

[Schlyder]

Dunlop Flatwounds. Have used GHS, LaBella, Fender, in the past, and Dunlop flats sound and feel the best of them. ...and they have black silk as a extra bonus. I also use a TI high C string with my 6ers, and it matches great for tone and tension with the Dunlop 5 string set.