Rounds or Flats for General Recording

[WilbursaurusRex]

Obviously its not ideal to stick with one flavor and it can depend on genres, but what do you find works best for general recording? I love flats and would love to keep them on my Jazz bass (chromes atm) but I had a friend mention that it could be hard to get enough highs out of them for some tracks we were working on. Have any of yall run into this? Which do yall prefer from experience and what brands of each type?

Mods, if this is better suited in one of the recording forums, please move it.

 

[UntitledProject]

In real life, I play flats all the time. When recording, I pull a set of flats off a p bass and string it with rounds. I bring a bass with flats and one with rounds. I almost always end up recording the bass with flats. But when rounds are right, they're right.

If I were only going to bring one bass, is being it strung with flats and bring a set of nickel rounds with me. If necessary, I'd take the flats off and save them, string up the rounds for whatever is necessary, and then put the flats back on when done recording.

Eq can do a lot. Don't just assume that flats won't do this or that without trying it first, especially if those are what you're most comfortable playing.

Oh, and if you're going the two sets of strings-one bass route, check the web to find a set of rounds with similar pull. No reason to do a full trussrod action setup for a quick change of strings.

 

[iiipopes]

Short answer: both, depending on the session. Have a set of each at the ready.

 

[NoiseNinja]

Totally depends on what fits the music in question being recorded.

Ideally you should use the strings that fit the music being recorded best, but when that is said it is relatively easy to make roundwound strings sound like flatwound strings post production, but almost impossible to make flatwound strings sound like roundwound strings.

So if in doubt I'd say using roundwound strings is the safest bet.

You can always pretty easily subtract frequencies from a recording post production, but it is much harder, if not even in by far most cases straight out impossible, to add frequency content that isn't there to begin with, so if in doubt record the instruments you need with as broad a frequency spectrum as possible (even if I still would claim that ideally you'll know what to aim for and record the instruments utilizing as close an approximation as possible to that tone/sound you aim for to start with).