flatwounds on a jazz fender artist series

Obviously, you have not listened to Sir Paul McCartney.

 

I recommend that everyone own at least one bass with flats. It's a cool sound. And that bass is as good as any. As far as using picks on flats, that was a major sound in the 60's. Not only McCartney but Carol Kaye and half the guys in England did it.

 

personally i love the sound of playing flats with a pick. my main bass, fender jazz, is strung up with Chromes and I play 75% of the time with a pick.

 

I use TI Jazz Flats on my Jazz bass

 

Or Phil Lynott. I love his P-Bass gritty grind with his flats. Must've been using Roto's...

 

Phil used Rotosound Swing Bass roundwounds.

 

My sound is rather old school, but I've got Thomastik Jazz Flats on a Precision, Jazz and an Epiphone Casady. Incredible tone with pick or without, and the feel is supreme comfort.

 

I actually prefer flats with a pick. Roundwounds can very very bright when picked. I equate rounds and a pick to that very aggressive punk/metal/heavy modern sound.

Flats retain a little of that rounder, slower blooming attack even when picked. It is much less harsh to my ears. Very old school. There a ton of players using picks on those famous recordings from the 60s and 70s, but you don't really associated it with the "pick" sound because they are playing flats.

 

Here are a few fine "old school" examples of flatwounds with pick:

"Good Vibrations"--The Beach Boys (Carol Kaye on bass)

"Taking it to the Streets"--The Doobie Brothers (Tiran Porter on bass)

"Midnight Confessions"--The Grassroots (Joe Osborn on bass)

"A Little Help From My Friends"--The Beatles (Sir Paul on bass)

The Doobie Brothers track is especially interesting because of the really gritty, punchy bass sound.

 

You can do a search of the forum and find lots of recommendations, but my personal favorites are D'Addario Chromes and GHS Precision Flats.
To stretch the strings the day of the show, you can string the bass up, tune it, and just play it for a half hour or so, tuning again every few minutes. That should do it. Flatwounds are stiffer (higher tension) than roundwounds, so you may find that the de-tuning problem is less pronounced. Some people like to grab the strings one at a time, down by the pickups, and yank them gently. That stretches them, too, but I prefer to just play.
By the way, if you've never played flatwounds, the stiffer feel might come as a bit of a shock. Make sure you warm up sufficiently before that show, to prevent hand fatigue.
Hope this helps!

 

After the strings are on for a little while, like maybe a couple of weeks, you can lower the action yourself to where it feels comfortable. I really doubt you'll have to mess with the truss rod, but if so, you can tighten it by turning clockwise. IMPORTANT: tighten in very small increments, like one quarter-turn, and then wait a day or two to see whether that quarter-turn has been sufficient. It takes a while for the tightening to show an effect, and you can do serious damage by tightening too much, too quickly.
As I said, though, lowering the action will most likely be enough, and you may not even want to do that if you like the feel of the new strings. I've gone back and forth from roundwounds to flatwounds on the same bass without any adjustments. Oh yeah, you do need to check the intonation, especially if the gauges are different!

 

Intonation!

check out the setup forum......

 

Flats+Pick+compression Pedal= One helluva kick-ass tone!