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Wow, I was asking advice BECAUSE I was planning on getting a Starry 4HH!
Well,I took all the tuners,off and soaked them in the jewelry solution. It got all the hard residue off the tuners. Surface of the tuner heads were like a baked on texture? Got them smoothed out,but going to try getting the stain look little better.
Actually the bridge,and the control plate,not that bad? I can live with those two. The frame of the tuners,are real good,after the soaking,but the tuner heads were unbelievable,looked like a light coat of gray primer? I have some chrome poish,for wheels going to try next.
Beautiful!
So even to my drummer's less trained ear it was a noticeable difference.
I've tried a few different flats and my two favorites, for different tones, are D'Addario Chromes and Labella Deep Talkin' Flats. Currently have Chromes on my L-2500 and DTF's on my Precision V. Both sounds sooooooo good!I just put Chromes on my ceramic 2006 Stingray 5 (H). I've only had them on for a week or two, so I'm still waiting for them to settle in more before I make any broad statements, but I was very pleased with initial results.
They're probably a good bit brighter now than they'll ever be again, but there was no mistaking the tone for flats. For instance, I told my drummer that I had made the swap, and he made some comment like "eh, that's mostly a feel thing". I LOL'd, plugged in, hit a few notes and looked at him - and he promptly admitted how wrong he was.
Here's the thing, there was less zing, and less sustain as you'd suspect, but there was this amazing mid-range punch that was all the more prominent for it. Maybe it's because it's, you know, a Stingray, but it was still a very aggressive tone in my hands.
We'll see how long it stays that way as the strings mellow out a bit. As for now, I'm a big fan.
In general, I've written off Ernie Ball roundwounds because I never got much string life out of them, including the roundwound Cobalts. They've sounded great at first but as they started to lose the zing they seemed to lose everything appealing about them. So I guess that's why the Cobalt flats never got my attention - I just soured on EB strings in general. But, since these are flats, I'd assume they'd have a really long lifespan? has that been your experience?
I have had the Cobalt Flats on my Stingray going on for two years now and the bright tone is still there. I even have them on my Bongo which some people would find crazy, but even the Bongo keeps its characteristic tone. Don't believe the crap that Flatwounds and Musicman basses don't go together because they do, maybe something like La Bella Deep Talkin flats might transform the tone into thump but the Cobalts don't do that at all.I've tried a few different flats and my two favorites, for different tones, are D'Addario Chromes and Labella Deep Talkin' Flats. Currently have Chromes on my L-2500 and DTF's on my Precision V. Both sounds sooooooo good!
In general, I've written off Ernie Ball roundwounds because I never got much string life out of them, including the roundwound Cobalts. They've sounded great at first but as they started to lose the zing they seemed to lose everything appealing about them. So I guess that's why the Cobalt flats never got my attention - I just soured on EB strings in general. But, since these are flats, I'd assume they'd have a really long lifespan? has that been your experience?
And, since you said they Cobalt flats have high tension, that also gets my attention. I love playing bridge cables.
Might have to try the EB Cobalt flats just to see what I think.
