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Should I try flats?

#21
I find that flats are not very inspiring when you play by yourself but everything starts to make sense when you play with a band. All the clicky, clanky crap from roundwounds goes away as does finger noise. What's left is all the good stuff that people want to hear and feel from a bass.

My flatwound experience is limited to P-basses so I don't consider them a panacea by any means. But flatwounds and P-basses go together better than chocolate and peanut butter.
 
#22
Is it possible you just never gave flats enough time to ever get fully used to them?
I put chromes on my VM Jag SS a few months ago after reading about how wonderful flats were on this forum. I was liking and playing my Gretsch Junior Jet a bit more than the Jag and my local shop had a special on Chromes with a free re set up, so I thought it would be a worthwhile experiment. I really expected to like them.
I absolutely hated the chromes at first. They felt sounded dead, felt sticky and I almost too thumpy. The ONLY things I kinda liked was the extra tension and reduced string noise and rattle. I was ready to go right back to the store and swap back to roundwounds.
The only thing that kept me from doing that was I still had roundwounds on the Gretsch. I decided to stick it out. For about a month I played the Gretsch only, just trying out the Jag now and then and not liking it. But over time I got used to the flatwounds. After about a month and a half, one day I realized they didn't feel sticky at all anymore and I was swapping back and forth between the two guitars about equally and actually was starting to prefer the sound and feel of the Flatwounds.
Now after a few months I'm about ready to put Chromes on the Gretsch. Really glad I stuck it out with the flatwounds despite hating them at first. I'm playing the Jag way more than the Gretsch now and it's purely because of the flatwound strings, because I actually prefer the Jet. I've got the flats dialed in on my amps now, they sound great and I have much less of a time fighting string noise and unwanted harmonics. I can just focus on playing.
Anyway... my two cents...
 
#23
testing1two said:
I find that flats are not very inspiring when you play by yourself but everything starts to make sense when you play with a band. All the clicky, clanky crap from roundwounds goes away as does finger noise. What's left is all the good stuff that people want to hear and feel from a bass.

My flatwound experience is limited to P-basses so I don't consider them a panacea by any means. But flatwounds and P-basses go together better than chocolate and peanut butter.
Click to expand...


Yep! There's just something about that low mids thump you get from a PBass with flats that is a great foundation in a mix. To me they rob too much tonality from a J style bass but on a PBass. Perfection.
 
#24
After hearing a sound clip of Chromes on a P-basshere on Talkbass, I finally bought a set at the local Guitar Center. They were even on sale for 20% off. Nice!

I put them on and they do sound and feel good. I'm giving the bass a little time to adjust to the higher tension and then I'll do a setup.
 
#25
testing1two said:
I find that flats are not very inspiring when you play by yourself but everything starts to make sense when you play with a band. All the clicky, clanky crap from roundwounds goes away as does finger noise. What's left is all the good stuff that people want to hear and feel from a bass.

My flatwound experience is limited to P-basses so I don't consider them a panacea by any means. But flatwounds and P-basses go together better than chocolate and peanut butter.
Click to expand...

I feel the same about round wounds. The clicky, clacky stuff usually gets drowned out in the mix. There's just a clarity and bite to rounds that I've never heard from flats. Even in a mix.

And I know it's heresy, but I prefer rounds on a P bass.
 
#28
KingRazor said:
I feel the same about round wounds. The clicky, clacky stuff usually gets drowned out in the mix. There's just a clarity and bite to rounds that I've never heard from flats. Even in a mix.

And I know it's heresy, but I prefer rounds on a P bass.
Click to expand...
People have been putting rounds on Precisions for decades. A lot of dumb stuff has popped up since the internet came into existence. Only on the internet will you ever hear anyone say Precisions have to have flats and Jazz basses have to have rounds. Dumbest thing I ever heard of.
 
#30
JimmyM said:
People have been putting rounds on Precisions for decades. A lot of dumb stuff has popped up since the internet came into existence. Only on the internet will you ever hear anyone say Precisions have to have flats and Jazz basses have to have rounds. Dumbest thing I ever heard of.
Click to expand...

+100

iJazz - I think Jimmy in a past life was one of the three wise men.
 
#35
I'm a big fan of Chromes, I just got a MM SB14 that I'm itching to throw a set on, I've got a 5-string that will never have another type of string on it, and my PJ had Chromes on it for the longest time until I got involved with a metal band and I finally switched to Hi-Beams simply because I wanted a tonal difference between my two guitars I used for the set. While I've only ever tried GHS Flats (and the MM has Slinkies on it right now) Chromes do it for me. Plenty of thump, bit still have bite.

Peace,
Greg
 
#36
With the Chromes on the P-bass and setup done, I played the strings quite a bit this weekend. My impressions are that they sound good, but the high tension is something that you have to get used to. The Chromes are the highest tension strings I've ever played. The La Bella and DR flats don't feel as tight. I also find that the Chromes are sticky, but that will probably improve with more play. I'm not giving up on these strings! At least not yet...
 
#37
The soundcloud in my sig. is my jazz with (at that time) year old chromes that I thought were quite dead. Chromes are quite bright when new but they mellow quickly. These 2 recordings though done differently are two day old chromes on the same bass. I have to agree with JimmyM that TI's are very bright but I didn't like how loose they felt so I never let them break in. Roto 77's are also bright but they go dead very quickly and are pretty tight which I think makes them quite thumpy. If you are gunna try flats I would say try Chromes or the current Fender flats (which are apparently in the same ball park as chromes). They aren't that expensive as far as strings are concerned so if you don't like them it's not a big loss.
 
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