Hello everyone, I'm new to flatwounds. I recently picked up a Sire P5, and decided I wanted to give flats a try. I just put them on and they sound great, but I noticed that the portion of the string at the bridge is of a significantly smaller diameter. Sorry if this is a newb question, but is that how it's supposed to be? It just looks kind of odd so I figured I'd ask the experts. Thanks!
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La Bella 760FS-B smaller diameter B
- Thread starter Kenny056
- Start date
https://www.talkbass.com/threads/flatwound-problem.1630321/
& replies, of course. Here's mine, hereby self-kindly reproduced:
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The La Bella Deep Talkin' Bass flatwound low B is a ".128T", where the letter stands for "tapered" (aka "taperwound" - not to be confused, but it often inevitably is, with "tapewound").
In other words, the string is thinner than full gauge, around the saddle area.
[If you look closer, the outer wrap is still there: it's the inner wraps, between the flat ribbon and the core, that stop there - one, then two then three - so that the ribbon is eventually wound directly around the core.]
The taper is supposed to have a number of benefits (look up "taperwound" in this subforum).
Ideally, the transition point should be as close to the saddle as possible. If the string has weird overtones, and you've verified the string is not twisted (to do so, detune it until the ball end is free to spin, then retune it), you may consider adding spacers of some kind between ball-end and bridge, so that the thinner section in front of the saddle is shorter.
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https://www.talkbass.com/posts/27971687/
