No flat wound strings allowed with fretted basses?

[Deleted member 165050]

flatwounds on fretless sound like poopie

Your perception may not correspond with reality

 

[micguy]

Flats are far less popular than you’d think by sampling this crowd, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with putting them on a fretted bass.

Most flats are higher tension; I wouldn’t change to them without a full setup, but besides that, no worries.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

I have a Warwick BO 4 string bass. Plays very sweet and sounds even better. I have round wound strings on it now and the time has come to replace them.
I have found that I like the feel and sound of Flat wound strings on my fretless. So I was thinking of trying them on the Warwick. In reading some past posts here about strings, apparently flats are not good on fretted basses.
At this time I do not have any experience with flats outside of my fretless.
Could use some
Wise words of other Warwick players or flat wound users
would be very helpful.
Thanks.

?

You have that backwards man. Rounds are (supposedly) bad for fretless boards. Wear and tear. Not, the other way around.

The only thing not good for flats, is stringing through the body. But, a whole lot of people do that too.

 

[Nuage420]

 

[Chicken Wing]

Heresy and I sentence you to 500 major scales to break in your new flats!!!

 

[who]

apparently flats are not good on fretted basses.

I'm very curious about where you got this idea. Some people may not like the sound of flatwounds, or they may not fit in well in specific genres, but you can hardly generalize that as "flatwounds are not good on fretted basses".

 

[bolophonic]

I’m calling shenanigans here.

 

[Richard_K]

Back in about 1978, I bought a new Rick 4001 because I loved the sound Chris Squire got from his with Roto-Sound 'Swing Bass' rounds. You can imagine my surprise when I read in the manual that the warranty was null and void if anything but flat-wounds were used on the bass. For the record, I don't think I ever ran flats on it.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

In reading some past posts here about strings, apparently flats are not good on fretted basses.

 

[conttador]

You could try Half Rounds… I like the tone on my PreGibson Tobias w the Half Rounds.

 

[7dollarbologna]

Me likes rounds on fretless and flats on fretted.

 

[IamGroot]

Played a 3 hr jazz gig tonight. Started out with Fender Jazz with Ti fkats, switched to Warwick BO with rondwounds (probably DR) switched back quickly to the Jazz.

Maybe next week will be different

 

[J-Bass RMR]

apparently flats are not good on fretted basses

You're just pulling our leg - aren't you.

The only rule I know is; whichever string gets you the sound you want - period.

 

[Ryno1330]

Does not compute.

 

[Count Bassie]

It's mildly amusing that flats have once again become socially acceptable because in the 90s, I felt like a sex criminal.

Jack

 

[SloanATX]

Personally, string noise from rounds always really bugs me when I hear it on any bass (squeaks don't belong in the bass register!).

To me, the perfect balance between eliminating string noise and still having some overtones to play with is the GHS Bright Flats. People complain about the texture since the machining leaves sharp edges on the winds and they feel like shark skin at first. 5 minutes with 000 steel wool solves that completely. I bet they'd sell more if they did this at the factory.

I just love the sound and feel of them. They have a great, complex tone. I like the way they break in over time. I'm always reluctant to change them, even though I love that new string feeling!

 

[Ricky Rioli]

reading some past posts here about strings, apparently flats are not good on fretted basses

For every 1 post like that here, there must be 999 posts urging flats on everyone

 

[Hevy T]

I have a set of gold flats on a Jackson Spectra Pro and just bought a set of chrome flats today that I will either put on my Cabonita P bass or if I mod my tricked out jazz to a fretless, I haven’t decided yet

 

[Rip Van Dan]

I have a Warwick BO 4 string bass. Plays very sweet and sounds even better. I have round wound strings on it now and the time has come to replace them.
I have found that I like the feel and sound of Flat wound strings on my fretless. So I was thinking of trying them on the Warwick. In reading some past posts here about strings, apparently flats are not good on fretted basses.
At this time I do not have any experience with flats outside of my fretless.
Could use some
Wise words of other Warwick players or flat wound users
would be very helpful.
Thanks.

That makes no sense at all. Back in the 60's those were the only strings you could buy. Flats often have trouble with through-body stringing to the point that LaBella cautions to ONLY use their through-body flats if you are going to string them through the body. They warn you that the rest of their flats will break if you try to string them through the body. Not all brands say that but some do. I'm not sure if it's an extra angle problem or if it just gets the tapered part of the string below the nut because the string isn't long enough. But outside of through-body stringing no reason not to use them. I finally moved from regular flats to Fender Nylon Tape Wound strings in 1971 and that's what was on my '65 Jazz when it was stolen in early 1976.

 

[Rip Van Dan]

If you want the flats feel while sounding more like rounds, there are options, like GHS pressurewound strings.

I'm using LaBella White Tape Wound strings because they feel like flats but are quite a bit brighter. I used round wounds (Dean Markley Blue Steel and DR Black Beauty strings) on my '82 Jazz for 33-years or so and switched to Tape Wound 3 or 4-years ago. They make 4 different Tape Wounds. The white is the brightest and the black is the darkest sounding. The other two are white over a copper core and white over a gold core. They are in between the black and White Tape Wounds in sound. The white is a semi-opaque tape so you can see the color of the core.