Love both flats and rounds and go back and forth on which is my favorite and lately been really enjoying Fender 7025s mediums with a foam mute on my Classic Vibe 50s P I mean it sounds good!
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Rounds with foam mute maybe better than flats.
- Thread starter MrRiff
- Start date
- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,615
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- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
I feel you can come very close to a flats sound using rounds with muting (palm or foam), but you can't get the rounds sound with flats.
^^^^ Agree.......but I'm really digging Cobalt Flats lately. They seem like the perfect compromise.
Dead round with foam mute has hollow body like sound quality rather than firm thumb to my ear.
Having played both with rounds and flats. The Ernie Ball Slinky Cobalt flats get really close to the sound of nickel round wounds.
It’s more about how flats feel under my fingers, less finger noise and lower cost. Flats don’t wear out as fast. Just my take though.
I was in a New Orleans type band once and stumbled onto the ‘dead rounds foam mute’ combo and it worked out well. You get the initial attack of the note from rounds but absolutely no sustain- very effective for ghost notes and more percussive, inside the pocket finger style playing.
- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,615
- 222,141
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- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
all legit concerns
we're lucky to have so many options!
The thing with flats, to me, is not that they sound muted. It's about the very special attack (thump?) when your finger slides over the smooth surface. Can't get that with rounds. Added bonus is overall nicer, slick feel with minimal fretting noise.
I agree! The character of the tone of foamed rounds is totally different from flats. To me, the foam with rounds does not give you as much of an articulate tone as worn in flats. Like Yahboy says, it sort of sounds like a hollow body sound…and less fundamental.
I use foam mutes on almost all of my basses with both rounds and flats.
I do a lot of palm muting – especially with the pick.
I've tried foam in the past. I wound up keeping it on a '51 style build (along with the "ashtray" bridge cover), but losing it on most others.
I find another great equalizer is thumb plucking. That'll get some dub out of the raspiest roundwound strings – even my ABG! Even on dead heavy flats, it'll coax out appreciably more thump.
I've tried foam in the past. I wound up keeping it on a '51 style build (along with the "ashtray" bridge cover), but losing it on most others.
I find another great equalizer is thumb plucking. That'll get some dub out of the raspiest roundwound strings – even my ABG! Even on dead heavy flats, it'll coax out appreciably more thump.
- Jun 30, 2010
- 49,615
- 222,141
- Disclosures
- musician/artist/owner - Gildaxe
Ditto - when I joined Bond Girl over 10yrs ago I started primarily playing with a pick & palm muting for that Carol Kaye sound. I started with flats but switched to rounds to get a bit more zing. I still have flats on some of my basses, hollow-body's especially.
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Gruv gear, who made original fret wraps, has come up with all kinds of bridge dampeners but i was going to build a few to try out a few layers of velcro topped with microfiber cloth (to get different heights/widths of contact area w/strings):
gruvgear.com
FretWraps // String Muters
String Dampeners / Muters for guitars, bass, and other stringed instruments.
gruvgear.com
I'd have to agree... assuming you'd want to do that in the first place. Personally? I only have one bass - out of 27 - that wears rounds (TI JR324s), and then only because that Gretsch Broadkaster sounds like total crap with anything else. Two basses wear tapes - one because it has to; all the rest wear flats. Some of those have mutes; most of them don't. IMO, flats with a mute are sort of a "niche" sound; useful for some music, but not for everything. I've never liked the sound - or especially the feel - of rounds. I started playing bass in 1968, on a Rick 4001 with it's factory Maxima 4440 Flats; been playing flats almost exclusively ever since...
