Why do so many players love flats?

[SoulReflection]

Depends on what the bass likes and what music I’m playing. I have two p basses, one sounds better with flats and one sounds better with rounds. Also depends on the style of music, some styles sound better with flats and some styles sound better with rounds.

My taste in music (listening and performing) has changed over the past 30 years. I used to play mainly active 5-string with rounds, and now I play mostly passive 4-string with flats. I chose ‘both’ in the poll because I still use both rounds and flats, but the bass with flats gets the most stage time.




Hi, I’m SLO Surfer. Now you only know two guys who use flats as their main string choice.

Can I be number 3?

 

[Dirk Rockbottom]

I’m interested in why so many bassists love using flats as a posed to rounds.

For me personally, I have never really enjoyed using flats on any of basses. I could never get used to the feel or find a decent tone with them.

So, do you use flats, rounds, both, something else?

As a guitarist, when I first started playing bass, I loved flats because they were so different from what I was used to. But whenever I listened to a band where the bass was using rounds, the texture in the mix sounded much better to my ears so I switched. I still use flats in one of my P basses for flat picking because I think a pick sounds better with flats.

 

[rashrader]

I string my basses up with Fresh Carrots.

 

[BuddhaFingas]

For me, flats are easier and more comfortable to play, and suit what Im playing.

Rounds on a guitar are fine for me, but rounds on a bass just feel needlessly harsh... and they go flat on the bottoms anyway, so why not start there?

 

[cdef]

Back when I started out bass strings were flatwound by definition. Later I spent two decades with roundwounds - mainly DR Lo Riders - cultivating the steeliest, twangiest, most bass-guitar-like onstage roar I could on my Precision copy. It worked for the band (a "power trio" of sorts) as a satisfying tie between guitar and kick drum.

After that context folded I began doing some home recording and found that flats deliver a solid, less complex, fundamental punch that's easy to mix. These days I 'll use either type, depending on the bass and the gig. Currently deploying DR Fat Beams, TI Jazz Flats, La Bella LFs. My Reverend Mercalli now has EB Cobalt Flats, which seem to strike a happy medium.

 

[mike buzzetti]

I have no idea to me they sound like mud, IMO

 

[HaphAsSard]

I know…opening a can of worms here, but I

Dude?! You're LATE! This thread comes up once a month, regular as a Swiss watch, and you almost didn't make it this month! Tut, tut.

4) round wound bass strings represent over 90% of electric bass strings sold retail and nearly every new bass is sold with round strings because bass builders and bass string manufacturers do not concur with TalkBass.

And yet, every now and then, some strictly roundwound player counts the number of flatwound string forum threads and references at that moment, and feels sort of neglected...

 

[mikewalker]

I mainly play rounds, but I do appreciate flats and tapewounds as well. Different sounds! I also have one stratocaster "treble guitar" strung with a set of extra-light-guage flats - for those days when I'm in a vintage mood...

 

[tbz]

They’re just kinda different tools in the toolbox, right?

Growing up I wasn’t taught that flats were a thing. Not sure why. But I’d learn a Doors song on bass, with my teacher. It’d sound too bright and zingy because I was using rounds and the bassists on the recording used flats. I’d ask my teacher why and he’d shrug.

So for me, the minute I learned what flats were, I realized they were just another option. If I want that smooth Doors/Hollywood session musician in the 60s bass tone, flats and a P get you there immediately.

People who love them, love them because they sound like studio bassists from the 60s. Back before rounds and zingy bass tones became a popular thing.

 

[21DaHoagie12]

Flats help mask mistakes

 

[devnulljp]

Flats on P, Rounds on J
Started using flats once I got heavily into playing upright.

 

[walking Bass]

I started with flats on my Gibson EB-2 in the 60s. Kept the round wounds on a Ken Smith Burner 5 in 1992 and SG in 2002. Tapes on Rob Allen MB-2. I replaced the rounds on both a Sadowsky NYC (Sadowsky flats) and a Fender American Player Mustang (TI Flats).

When I replace jack on the SG, i'll restring it with TI Flats. I prefer the tone and playability of the flats in must cases. As I've said more than once, I play bass, not treble.

 

[socialleper]

Don't understand flats. They are expensive, hard to find, don't support 35" scale, and sound like you rolled off your tone. They seem terribly pointless to me.

 

[CaseyVancouver]

In the ‘70s I used flats, then bought a ‘81 Precision that came with rounds, so used rounds for 40 years and finally put on TI flats and not going back for the old Precision. Flats just feel best on my old basses.

Just finished a series of live dates at the Pacific National Exhibition with flats.

Rounds are fine for a 5 string newer bass.

 

[Phalex]

Once you’ve played a P-bass strung with flats through a ridiculously large PA system, you just kinda want to do it again.

 

[gumbynotpokey]

I have basses with both. But I chose "flats" in the poll because I haven't played anything but a fretless with flats for the last 4 years.

Why flats? My ear wanted it. Same answer as "Why fretless?"

In short, my fretless with flats is a bare wood board, passive, with a P-style pickup in the sweet spot. With that bass, the tone is literally in my hands. Listen to any song on the first Bad Company record. Then listen to stuff by Tony Franklin, like the song "radioactive" by The Firm. Then listen to anything Carol Kaye recorded with the Wrecking Crew. My point is that I can get tons of stuff out of this set up.

Upside of flats includes: a focused fundamental, no over-tones, wider range of type of initial attack. Of course, if you're playing "Heart of the Sunrise" in a YES cover band those are down-sides.

YMMV. Best bass for metal. Tort pickguard. And carrots.

Carry on TB!

peace

 

[micguy]

Once you’ve played a P-bass strung with flats through a ridiculously large PA system, you just kinda want to do it again.

I've played my basses a number of times through ridiculously large PA systems (I'll do it again this weekend), and yes, it's a great experience. I never think "this would sound better with flats", though.

 

[Carl Hillman]

I like rounds because they have a wider palette of tonal frequencies and sustain to manipulate.
If I want fewer high and mid frequencies, I pluck higher toward the neck. If I want less sustain, I mute them.
With rounds, you can take away part of what is there, but with flats, you cannot add what is not there to begin with.

 

[Bunk McNulty]

I’m interested in why so many bassists love using flats as a posed to rounds.

For me personally, I have never really enjoyed using flats on any of basses. I could never get used to the feel or find a decent tone with them.

So, do you use flats, rounds, both, something else?

Flatwound Vs Roundwound Strings (What’s The Difference?)

 

[rogerbmiller]

I feel like I’ve seen this movie before but…

Flats have their usefulness in certain applications. As do rounds. As do tape wounds. As do gut strings. As do ground wounds. Etc.

A carpenter doesn’t only use one saw...