Flatwounds sustain and downtune issue

[JeffreyMcJunior]

IME tunings like yours are difficult to achieve the proper feel, tension, clarity, etc. Not to mention how expensive it can get in contrast with the price of guitar strings. I've butted heads & even had to threaten to quit over guitarists insisting on stupid alternate tunings. These things come tuned to E440 for a reason, those are the pitches most easily recognizable to the human ear.

If your bass is intonated correctly for that tuning, and you've atried altering your technique, maybe some hotter pickups will give you the sustain you're looking for.

If all else fails, tune down to B. You'll have so many more options as far as strings. And an optimal set up will be much easier to achieve.

 

[JeffreyMcJunior]

That said, I do have a p bass with chromes that just insists on being tuned a half step down. For some reason it feels natural that way. Some things are just unexplainably unpredictable, that's what makes it fun!!

 

[lz4005]

Just noticed you are using fairly heavy BEAD strings (065-085-105-128) tuned up to CFA#F, maybe you have too much tension and unnecessarily large gauges? The top .065 tuned up 3 semitones will be extremely tight, a .065 at D is already very tight. The best tension match to the .085 A# will be a .055 F.
Smaller gauges will really help reduce stiffness with flatwounds and therefore increase sustain, you can probably use a .110 for C and likewise reduce all other gauges.

Why are you assuming OP listed his gauges from light to heavy but his tuning from low to high?
And why are you assuming he's tuning up when the thread title says he's tuning down?

 

[ric4682]

Are you sure you don't mean C-F-Bb-F?

If you're having trouble with the whole downtuning thing, there is a very easy solution: Put your bass in standard tuning and learn your scales in all 12 keys.

How does knowing your scales help get more sustain on downtuned notes? Scales and note knowledge are important, but some people want those low notes below E. Scales don't magically turn my 4 into a 5.

To the OP:
I love flats, but don't love the lack of sustain. TI's seemed to have the best sustain for me and I was tuning down a half step most of the time. For your tuning I think you'd have to get the 5 string set and use the 4 thick strings.

There are plenty of string options that have more sustain than flats, but don't have the bright zing and clang of standard rounds though.
Half rounds usually split the difference between rounds and flats pretty well. GHS balanced Nickels also come to mind as having the fat smooth tone and feel of flats while having more sustain of rounds.

A compressor pedal could also help, but that can quite the rabbit hole to jump down.

Also, don't worry about these people saying if you need to tune a certain way you're doing it wrong it don't know your scales or something. Play how you want and work to find what works best for your style.

 

[shoulderpet]

Hi everybody!
I have an issue with flatwounds strings. The sustain is shorter that on the roundwounds of course, but I'm curious with fast decay, some times it works wrong in slow riffs that I play, and in case that my band has no guitar (drums/bass/vox) it could be problem with slow riffage.

Does anybody can give me advice how I could make sustain longer, without jumping to roundwounds (not really love the sound of rounds)?

My current setup is GL L2000 with La Bella's Gold flats 065-085-105-128, tuned to C-F-A#-F.

Any advice will be appreciated.
Thank you!

Ti jazz flats are not lacking sustain but they are pricey, for the tuning you are using you would need to buy the 5 string set and discard the G

 

[LoTone]

GHS Pressurewounds?

 

[fritzk9]

Have you tried a compressor?

 

[lowplaces]

My TI Flats work perfectly tuned a 1/2 step down and still sustaining from Friday nights gig.

I just stepped outside to check the mail. I think I might have heard it

 

[AshInAmsterdam]

Haven't read the whole thread sorry....

I use Rotosound 77s, the ones that are the same gauge as the Steve Harris signature strings. Tuned to D and drop-C they perform very well. Can hold a note forever and no problems with droopage.

I have a Tube Screamer (extra bass modded) always on, and most of the time use either a Rat clone or a Big Muff Pi, which of course helps the sustain...

 

[Greyfoxxero]

Pressurewound strings. They really are the middle ground with characteristics of flats but with some clarity.

 

[monkeyfinger]

Hi everybody!
I have an issue with flatwounds strings. The sustain is shorter that on the roundwounds of course, but I'm curious with fast decay, some times it works wrong in slow riffs that I play, and in case that my band has no guitar (drums/bass/vox) it could be problem with slow riffage.

Does anybody can give me advice how I could make sustain longer, without jumping to roundwounds (not really love the sound of rounds)?

My current setup is GL L2000 with La Bella's Gold flats 065-085-105-128, tuned to C-F-A#-F.

Any advice will be appreciated.
Thank you!

I think a compressor is your best choice. I would look for something that offers smooth compression and good sustain. If you ask around in the effects forum, you should get some good suggestions there.

 

[TonyP-]

I think a compressor is your best choice. I would look for something that offers smooth compression and good sustain. If you ask around in the effects forum, you should get some good suggestions there.

The MXR or Darkglass are the first 2 that come to mind (either one is not intrusive or overly colorful).

 

[HaphAsSard]

Why are you assuming OP listed his gauges from light to heavy but his tuning from low to high?

Because it's very common (string sets go from hi to lo on their covers, whereas tunings are often listed as the open pitches of strings going from left to right holding the neck of a right-handed instrument vertically and fingerboard to the front) and dare I say most likely?
The gauges given are self-explanatory, so the only alternative would be that the notes are also listed high to low. In that case, since the word "downtune" is in the title, the F cannot but be an F0, the "A#" a Bb0, the next string an F1 and the last a C2. I'd say those gauges, the .065 excepted, would be flop city at that tuning. Not out of the realm of possibilities given the data in the OP but, again, less likely.

And why are you assuming he's tuning up when the thread title says he's tuning down?

"Downtuning" is, for better or worse, used for ""tuning lower than what's most common" i.e. EADG, as often (and, for many, at the same time) as "lower than intended (with the same set of given gauges)".
So if, as I suspect, the OP tunes C1-F1-Bb1-F2 - lower than EABG ergo "down" in the first sense - with, respectively, a .128, a .105, a .085 and a .065, then said strings are indeed tuned "up", in the second sense, as in: higher than those gauges are usually tuned to. Namely, the first three a half-step above their canonical BEA and the last as many as three semitones higher than D.

And therein may lie the problem. The .065 in particular must be tight as a bridge cable (hyperbolically speaking) and very short-winded as far as sustain goes. Adding that to the typical decay envelope of flats and the lower output of the bronze winding makes for markedly lower sustain. As said above, compression but also thinner gauge for at least the top string should help. Failing that, flatwounds of a different model or make.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

Makes sense...at standard pitch. Are you using the same tuning cited by the OP? It has absolutely nothing to do with muting and everything to do with the behavior of a flatwound when tuned down. Leo Fender never designed his basses or the strings that went on them with the tunings presented here in mind. You're so completely off base I'm wondering if you bothered reading the OP, or if you just blindly wandered in to espouse the virtues of GHS again.

Who peed in your Cheerios this morning? Strings and bass necks are designed for standard tuning. Yes, EADG has been the standard tuning even before the electric bass. So when you go monkeying with the design in an effort to a cool outsider, you can expect unpredicted results.
If you don't like GHS, that's cool, but no need to go bashing someone who likes them.
If anyone is out of line, it would be you.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

 

[TWood97]

+1 for a compressor pedal, also a professional set up is always good

 

[2saddleslab]

I just stepped outside to check the mail. I think I might have heard it

Yep, that's me.

 

[ixlramp]

When I went with thicker gauge on one of my basses I had to shave down the nut slightly for each string, on another bass I had issues with the bridge saddles and could have shaved the saddles but replaced the bridge anyway. Those two issues killed sustain.

Filing the nut for larger gauges doesn't affect sustain, however if done badly it may affect open string sustain.

it was the decision to tune the G string to the F instead D#.

That's how i knew the tuning is mostly BEAD up a semitone.

IME tunings like yours are difficult to achieve the proper feel, tension, clarity, etc.

There's nothing about alternative tunings that causes problems with feel, tension and clarity, as long as you build a suitable set of alternative gauges from single strings.

I've butted heads & even had to threaten to quit over guitarists insisting on stupid alternate tunings. These things come tuned to E440 for a reason, those are the pitches most easily recognizable to the human ear.

There is no reason behind EADG as opposed to any other tuining, that's just the tuning that was inherited from orchestral contrabass, a tuning that was chosen for it's relation to other members of the violin family and to an orchestra.
EADG pitches are not more recognisable to the ear, all possible tones of the octave are equal to the ear.

Apart from the overtight top string, your set has the tension of a heavy flatwound set, which we know work ok, so any lack of sustain on the lower 3 strings is not caused by the alternative tuning.