Quick note on the flats vs rounds thing, and forgive me for being a little Get Off My Lawn in my comments.
One of the attractions of rounds is the "zing" and "clang" of a brand new set. I think a lot of folks find that it sounds cool on the bass listening to it by itself (and it does kind of). Others are specifically after the Chris Squire-like grind, even on non-Rickenbacker basses.
But there are drawbacks to this, which are reasons to let the strings die completely and never change them, or go to flats for an even deader sound:
- note-to-note consistency, if that's what you want, is significantly more difficult to achieve. The fundamental and lower harmonics not only need to be generated the same, so does the zing and clang. But zing and clang on new strings is much harder to control, especially finger style on the fretted bass. The string has to smack the frets exactly the same way each time - generally this means hitting the thing so hard you start breaking your arm, going to a pick which alleviates it somewhat but then you got to learn how to play with a pick, or simply accepting inconsistencies in the zing and clang. This gives the clink, clack, thud, clank, thud, grind, grind, thud, clink back-and-forth thing on every successive note. I personally just absolutely climb the frickin walls when I hear (or have) that effect, tho others don't mind it or even like it, and it can be a liability depending on the tone you want to achieve.
- if you use compression, the zing and clang can activate compression more than the other components of the note, defeating the purpose of the compression on the fundamental/low harmonics in the first place. This depends on your compressor, but this can drive you crazy in some cases. The really zingy/clangy notes will lack fundamental/lower harmonics and the less zingy/clangy ones will bloom like crazy. You can control this somewhat with the attack/release settings, but it forces you to do so even if you don't want to.
- in a live situation (IIRC from years ago gigging zing/clang on my Rickenbacker), most if not all of the zing/clang is attenuated somewhat in the FOH once mixed with the rest of the band. Some rooms have certain types of reflectivity that completely mute the treble coming out of your amp period once you step off the stage and get onto the floor. Folks right up at the stage can sort of hear it if they listen specifically to your amp, but generally it's much less audible out there. And once the guy playing guitar runs his finger along the underneath of his knobs on his amp, dooming the rest of the gig as one long guitar solo, it can disappear completely leaving only your fundamental and midbass at the audiences' ears. Usually you standing in front of your amp are the only one enjoying or hating the zing/clang. That doesn't hold if there's a PA and you're running a DI out to it, though, quite as much. But generally in a live situation, zing/clang doesn't actually buy you anything because it's hard to hear anyway.
So all these I have found to be good reasons to let my rounds die and never change them once they get that good thump going without the zing/clang. Or, if I need that effect quickly, put flats on the bass. The only drawback of flats is they have less sustain than rounds and are generally higher tension. So they tend to be less good at, say, the Jaco thing than a set of years-old dead rounds even though they may excel in the Motown thump thing over against dead rounds.
Anyway, that's just some notes I vaguely remember about rounds vs flats from The Good Old Days when I was gigging...
L
