Just threw some cheap flatwounds strings on my bass. Actually, I am not even sure if they are flatwound. They say "Strings for fretless electric bass", but they fill as if there are no windings at all so I go with assumption that they are flatwound. This was my first time touching flatwounds. I am quite impressed with those. With MEC active JB pickups on my bass, I always tone down the roundwound strings as I feel that there is too much brightness. Also E and A strings sounded a lot louder and boomier on 12th through 15th than any other strings. With these flatwounds, the sound is a lot more balanced and even across the board. I also notice that with these strings, the notes intonate much better across the board as well. I do not have light touch and get into plucking very hard sometimes. The fretwork on my bass allows me 2mm on the 12th with most rounds. With these, I can easily lower to 1.75mm and pluck even harder. The harmonics seems to be louder and more even across the board. I also kind of like the smooth feel which help adds to playability I think. Slides are also less tonally "bumpy" which I also like a lot better.
Not sure if these cheap strings are pretty good or if I try something more premium I get blown away even more ... Oh and the headstock looks very pretty with that black silk extending almost to the nut...
By the way, I did not read anything about how to string with this, but I felt like cutting of through silk will be a bad move as silk will probably fray especially that I did not know if I keep those or take them off and put the rounds back. So I used my wire ferrule crimps and crimp those on before cutting. I think it ended up pretty clean and still fits in the pegs. The silk on the cut-off piece started to fray and unwind right away so I think my call was correct. The witness points on the bridge ended up looking a bit sketchy, not sure if it is normal. Here some pictures.
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