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What flatwounds match well with Relentless J pups?

AK Bass Guy

AK Bass Guy

May 27, 2024
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#1
I have a Warmoth med scale J bass with Relentess J pups that I’ve been using EB Cobalts with and they work well with the pups.
But after playing with flats again on another bass I wanted to go to flats on my J bass.
So I had a set of regular EB flats laying around and decided to put them on the J with Relentless pups and they sounded terrible with the pups.
I mean really bad, no meat, no body, just hollow.
Anyone out there with a J Bass with Relentless pups have a recommendation for flatwounds to use on my J Bass?
All the music shops locally for me have almost no choices when looking for flats, so I’m going to have to order online no matter what.

Any input would be highly appreciated.
Thanks.
 
#3
I tried flats on a J-bass once. I had the same impression. It wasn't good for me and I had to take em off pretty quick. If you're just looking for a change of that nature, I'd comprimise and look for a light set of round wounds. TI rounds are amazing on a J-bass - light weight - smooth sounding much like flats in terms of feel.
 
#4
Peeved T-40 said:
The pickups do not care what brand of string you put on them. More likely, your old strings were just dead. I use La Bella flats, they have fat, meaty tone and are very smooth once you've broken them in for about a week. I guarantee you will not find pickups that don't "match"
Click to expand...
The strings were definitely not “old”, at least for flats. They were lightly used for maybe 2 months, previously on a PJ and we’re still sounding good, at least on that bass, when they were removed.

Maybe “matched” wasn’t the right word, so maybe I should have said “ Flatwounds that compliment Relentless J pups well”.
I’m asking for flatwounds users with the same pups so I have a greater chance of not having to experiment with too many types of flats. $40 per experiment is not cheap.

As far as La Bella’s go, yeah love ‘em, but going to wait to hear back from people who have the same pups as me before I go ordering strings.

Thanks for your time.
 
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#5
DrBnz said:
I tried flats on a J-bass once. I had the same impression. It wasn't good for me and I had to take em off pretty quick. If you're just looking for a change of that nature, I'd comprimise and look for a light set of round wounds. TI rounds are amazing on a J-bass - light weight - smooth sounding much like flats in terms of feel.
Click to expand...
I was very surprised how bad they sounded, I’ve put strings on before that I didn’t like the sound of but this was a whole different level of bad. There really wasn’t any good sonic information coming through the pups, all upper harmonics and clack. No fundamental. Like I mentioned in the post above it wasn’t a dead string thing, those flats I tried weren’t even completely broken in yet.

I was thinking TI flats as another option and heard similar love for them from other J bass users. Never tried TI rounds. Other string was hoping to find out about was the EB Cobalt Flats. If the rounds sound good on my bass maybe the EB Cobalt Flats would be complimentary.

Thanks for the suggestion.
 
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#8
Cobalt strings have more magnetic pull (IIRC), so they have stronger output and some different tonal characteristics. It could be that your ear is used to hearing something that just won't happen in the same way with different material strings. If you haven't already, you might try adjusting the pickups.

Cobalt flats are probably a good place to start in terms of finding the right strings for that bass. If regular SS flats end up just not working for that bass for you, then GHS Brite Flats (made out of Alloy 52) could be something else to try (but those are even more different than the slinky flats compared to "regular" flats—they're groundwound/halfround if you didn't know).

I'd say at this point it's hard to tell if flats just won't work for you on that bass, or if you just need to find the right brand with the right combination of core diameter, gauge, etc. A string journey can be fun, but also expensive.

Oh, that reminds me: In my experience, EB Slinky Cobalt Flats have delicate cores, so you have to be careful not to break them. Be more gentle than normal in bending/rebending around the tuning post and setting the witness points. Actually, I'd recommend against setting the witness points with those (except maybe with an extremely light touch if you absolutely must).
 
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#9
AK Bass Guy said:
I have a Warmoth med scale J bass with Relentess J pups that I’ve been using EB Cobalts with and they work well with the pups.
But after playing with flats again on another bass I wanted to go to flats on my J bass.
So I had a set of regular EB flats laying around and decided to put them on the J with Relentless pups and they sounded terrible with the pups.
I mean really bad, no meat, no body, just hollow.
Anyone out there with a J Bass with Relentless pups have a recommendation for flatwounds to use on my J Bass?
All the music shops locally for me have almost no choices when looking for flats, so I’m going to have to order online no matter what.

Any input would be highly appreciated.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Relentless flats maybe 😊
 
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#10
IMHO the pickups are only a piece of the equation. Pickup location, cab selection, and speakers also play as much of a role on string selection.

There's thousands of players posting up here. Your going to get thousand of different answers.

Start with the most popular flats you see people posting about up here and go from there. In the end, use your ears.
 
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#11
I find the EB group flats to be picky strings. Loved em on certain basses, didn’t on others.

If you like cobalts, Daddario chromes and Dunlop flats may be good options. They’ll both be lower output strings than the cobalts, which may offset the high output of relentless pups nicely. They’re also more modern flats and very responsive to the tone knob.
 
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#12
Does your medium scale bass use long scale strings? My three Warmoth medium scales do not.

I use TI Jazz flats on the med scale P and med scale 'Ray fretless. The strings have great midrange presence.

On my Warmoth medium scale J I tried Model J pickups and did not like their muddy tone. Switched to Area J and was happier. That was with rounds. I can't imagine using flats on dark pickups like Model J.
 
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#19
AK Bass Guy said:
I have a Warmoth med scale J bass with Relentess J pups that I’ve been using EB Cobalts with and they work well with the pups.
Click to expand...
Just clarifying, the EB Cobalts you mention are NOT Cobalt FLATS?

AK Bass Guy said:
So I had a set of regular EB flats laying around and decided to put them on the J with Relentless pups and they sounded terrible with the pups.
Click to expand...
And the “regular EB flats” are not EB COBALT flats?

If I have it all correct, I would try EB Cobalt flats. They sound good on everything I’ve tried them on which is a variety of basses, long & short scale, single coils & humbuckers, single pickup & 2 pickup basses.
 
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