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Trend towards flats is Driving me mad!

#65
One Drop said:
I have noticed some big acts on televised performances (from festivals, etc) that are obviously using flats- there is a solidity and supportive thump I instantly recognize that transcends EQ. I love it, but I grew up with that sound.

I would be disappointed to hear it in a Who tribute band but for a lot of modern retro style music it's beautiful, ad a lot of modern rock has great distorted flats tones.

I find a lot of bass players lose a sense of balance- how many times do you try a new bright bass or strings and think: this is better! when often it's just brighter. It's like some sunbathers, they get tanorexia and keep getting darker and darker until they look like they've been turned into beef jerky, but they only see the tan.

Audiences don't care about hearing every subtlety of a bright bass in a mix, they want something that sounds good in the context of the band and music, and often flats do these days. But it's true that the band has to adjust around it, like anything else you can't just change the sound of one instrument and not expect it to change the overall sound.
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"Tanorexia" - I love it. You see that at the end of every winter here as the roaming hordes return from Florida and Cuba. :D
 
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#68
bass12 said:
I can't speak for the world outside of Talkbass (because I don't know who uses flats live) but I've definitely noticed a huge increase in the number of references to flats - and in the number of people claiming to use flats - on TB over the past couple of years. To me there is clearly a bit of a "flats fad" going on right now, just as there is a bit of a Precision trend. I figure it kind of goes along with the "return to roots" trend that has been going on in music for the past few years - which would also help explain the anti-slap trend which has also been in effect. By the way, flats predating rounds has no bearing on whether or not they are trendy today.
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Trend, resurgence in popularity, whatever you want to call it, I tend to agree that flats are getting more attention in the last few years than they did for a long while. Yes, they've always been around and yes, they pre-date rounds, but both have been around for quite a long time now and it seems that people are now starting to give flats more serious consideration than they did for several decades. I suspect that the introduction of rounds in the late sixties and the bright tone they offered (at a time when pop music was featuring bass more prominently) caused most players to push flats to the back burner because amplification and PA systems were simply not as good then as they are now and it was easier to get a punchy live sound with rounds. It's taken several decades now for flats to shake the stigma they got immediately following rounds' rise to dominance as being 'inferior' to rounds.

Modern gear makes it much easier to get great sounds out of flats in a live setting and I think players are becoming aware of that. I have to assume that TB has played a role in that, and it was most probably a big role. Let's face it: there are a lot of bass players on this forum and it's fairly safe to say that most bass players are either on here or know and talk to someone who is. That means that TB exerts a lot of influence on the bass community and, in turn, on the bass gear market and its trends.

For me, personally, I started playing during the eighties when most bass players wouldn't even think of using flats. They were considered by most to be an old, outdated technology and they didn't produce the sounds that were popular at the time. I started using flats sometime around the early 2000s, long before I knew about TB, when a friend of mine who plays mostly blues suggested I try them for a soul/R&B/pop project I was playing in. He had just started using flats again a couple of years before I met him (he's older than I and had used them back in the late 60s), was getting a great live sound from them (using modern gear), and thought I might have similar luck. It turns out I was very happy with the results and have kept some of my basses strung with flats ever since. I still mostly use rounds, but I have some basses that get along great with flats and I like having the option for certain projects. Call me trendy if you like, but in places I think it's appropriate I'll use flats without hesitation.
 
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#72
Well... I started off with roundwounds like most people in 1989. Started playing halfwounds in 1991, flatwounds in 1993, and joined TalkBass in 2007. So at least for me, my personal choice of string has nothing to do with TB trends. Maybe I had an advantage, growing up in Boston, to be surrounded by well-stocked music stores and knowledgeable players?

ps I wish I still had that set of flats I put on my Pedulla back in '93, they would be nice and broken in by now. :(
 
#78
As mentioned several times here already, I think the OP's issue is more due to the venue's acoustics and the soundman's preference / ability than the type of bass strings. And as for trends, I think it's all about feeling the bass now with massive subs than hearing articulated notes. If you can find a sound man who can achieve both then you win!

Personally I converted to flats several years ago. Chromes with a pick mostly. I bought a used P bass that came with La Bella Deep Talkin' flats. From all the TB chatter I was excited to try something different that I wouldn't ordinarily do myself. So the bass arrives and my immediate reaction is they don't feel like bass strings to me at all. Felt like playing a spaghetti noodle. But after a while I did kinda get used to the feel - and even kinda liked the smoothness under my fingers, easy to slide around, no finger noise, etc. The big test was going to be with the modern / classic rock band. Was curious how they would sound in that setting, and I was SURE they were not gonna work, too dull and thumpy. Well, what a surprise, they actually cut through the mix better and bandmates complimented the sound. I think the sitting in the mix thing is due to fewer overtones compared to rounds. Anyhow, the La Bella's got real dull sounding after about 2 weeks of gigs. Switched to Chromes and when new they are easily as bright as rounds. With a pick and a tiny bit of OD (or GK boost) they can be as aggressive and punchy as any round. Or when we play Motown or standards at a wedding, perfect fingerstyle thump too. I love the versatility and also that they last FOREVER! Playing 50+ gigs a year I didn't want to be changing strings every month.

But at the end of the day, this system works for ME. Play what makes YOU feel good and inspires you to play more.
 
#79
For me it depends on the bass, which is dependent on the style I play. For jazz, I can play a set of rounds on my jazz bass or a set of flats when playing fretless. Recently I've been exclusively playing fretless as I prepare to make the transition to unlined fretless, so I'm playing with flats even when I probably shouldn't.
 
#80
zombie1965 said:
Why why why why why why are the some bass players in bands I have been watching for years now following the trend towards using Flats? I find myself walking away mid show when the bass sounds dull and thuddy or worse....like I have an ear full of water. Why are you using flats? In a jazz set-up I get it, anything else and they just sucks the life out of the performance.
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The trend that is destroying music and making everything sound muddy is music producers and soundmens obsession with loud (loudness war) and bass (not the instrument but just low frequencies) (...all about the bass.. no treble).
As a bass player my sonic landscape is the low frequencies. But what you have nowadays is guitarists down tuning there guitars, and producers eqing everything super low and loud with no dynamics and no concern for where the instruments natural frequencies are.
Listen to anything recorded in the 60's when all bassists were using flatwounds and tell me that it is muddy.

I personally think flats when eq'd well can punch through the mix better than rounds, but it just deppends what the other members of the band are playing. Also not all flats are created equally.
 
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