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Is there anything you really can't use a P with flats for?

Evil Undead

Evil Undead

Oct 31, 2009
3,844
587
#1
Not being a troll or anything, just genuinely curious. I know there are some styles of music that a P with flats isn't ideal for, but is there anything that it sounds truly awful for, or you really can't one use for?

Thinking about selling off all my excess gear and just having my MIA P with flats as my main bass.
 
#5
Flamenco, (Paco De Lucia stuff with Carles Benavent)... I use my P for most of my work but it just doesn't have the quick sonic response of a single coil J bass when it comes to the flamenco stuff. Also, playing alongside 2 flamenco guitarists I kind of need a bass that doesn't put out such a wide bed of bottom end. But for everything else my P is my go to baby girl.
 
#17
I mainly gig with a P bass with flats in a covers band playing a whole range of diverse music. What I have found is that a P bass with flats can do anything - it just maybe doesn't do some things as well as other basses could. In terms of providing a nice warm fat low end it does that job and that never hurts. Audiences like to hear and feel the defined 'boom' that a P with flats will bring.

My 'nicest' bass is my 2012 AmStd Jazz. This bass is better on some songs than the P but when it struggles it just gets completely lost and doesn't work at all.

For that reason I think of my P bass as my jack of all trades (really good at some, just getting by with others) and my J as my specialist bass (incredible on some songs but rubbish on some others).

That's why I gig with my P with flats.

PS: I know it isn't death metal but don't forget Steve Harris plays a P with flats on (virtually) all the Iron Maiden stuff and some of that gets heavy from time to time (think 'Matter of Life and Death', some stuff off 'Final Frontier' etc.)
 
#20
I'm not so sure about the repeated "wouldn't work in death metal" comments; first off, has anybody actually tried? That would probly give a good idea of whether it works :P and secondly: Geezer Butler from Black Sabbath and Steve Harris from Iron Maiden have always used flats, and it works really well for them in their standard heavy metal category, and we've also seen fretless basses in use in Death Metal to great effect, so why not flats? get som that have a nice pling to them (Steve Harris Roto's, D'addario Chromes), and it might work :b just saying we should all give it a try to test for awesomeness ;)
 

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