Flatwound strings on a USA Fender P-Bass

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  • bbill335bbill335 Frets: 1368
    The heavier LaBella DTB strings are fine if you have the finger strength of a long-serving upright bassist. i.e. James Jamerson and his preference for a ridiculously high action on his Fender Precision Bass.
    i am a devotee of duck dunn, which is why i considered the heavy gauge,  but i just put the labella standards on and they're spot on for me really
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  • As I just bought the sheet music for this lot I thought I'd share the playlist of one of the finest P bass players ever.
    Precision + La bella strings + foam mute

    https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2VThsbR1aAtdtwJ1BpB5gj?si=4fefa68d2bdf4c07

    All the sheets are in the book "Standing in the Shadows of Motown"

    His P Bass was like my 1962 & most others at the time. Had a factory fitted very stiff foam pad fitted to the inside of the bridge cover.  Like a fool I sold my 62 in 63  but finally broke down and bought a `62 AVRI  in 2005. My original bass came with flats & I used Rotop Ks which became round wound and called Rotosound eventually, but I had already sold the bass by then.

     Current one has D`Addario ground wound strings & I also have a set of white nylon taped ones.
    I switch between them, depending on what sort of music I am doing. 

    One other huge advantage is that half round, ground wound, tape wound or nylon wound all offer very little fret wear compared to round wound.
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  • bbill335bbill335 Frets: 1368
    bbill335 said:
     i just put the labella standards on and they're spot on for me really
    just a little update, i had to put a little more pressure on the truss (1/4 turn over a couple of days) but now have nice low action on a nice straight neck. might even be TOO low right now, but that's easily fixed. 
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  • jpfampsjpfamps Frets: 2723
    bbill335 said:
    jpfamps said:

    La Bella Deep Talkin' Bass 45-105.


    i've just ordered these for my old tokai p.  i would have liked to go for the heavy 52-110 (?) original gauges but i'm not much of a bass player so will try to work up to the heavier gauge. 
    A friend of mine tried the "Jameson" 52-110 La Bellas on one of his basses.

    He found them quite hard to play without any real benefit in terms of sound, so he went back to the standard 45-105.

    James Jameson started out as a double bass player, so was used to heavy strings.

    Interestingly Steve Harris uses similar gauge Rotosound flats (50-110).
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  • Flats on a P is always good. I stopped paying for flats when I found dirty rounds with the tone rolled back was close enough, because I am cheap, and have fingers like bricks now.
    Flats are comfier and sound great. Do it.


    I've been using TI Flats for years now on pretty-much all of my basses. I did however, change  a set on my P bass for Ernie Ball Super Slinky Nickels as I wanted to be able to take one bass to gigs and have a bit more zing where needed.

    I totally agree with using the Tone knob to adapt your sound and find that on a P bass (probably more than any other bass at least to my ears) the Tone knob is definitely your best friend.

    Also, when the strings age a bit, it becomes even more difficult to tell the difference between quite middy TI's vs. Nickel EB's plus tone knob. You'll save a small fortune too.

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  • rze99rze99 Frets: 2260
    I play bass when recording mainly. 

    I find with roundwound strings are worn in, I can use a combination of turning down the tone knob and some sponge pushed up under the saddle break to limit the sustain gives a nice round thump a bit like flats. 

    John Deacon from Queen used to use this method. 
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  • RockerRocker Frets: 4942
    I got a set of Thomastik-Infeld Jazz Electric Bass strings, .100 - .043, fitted on my Precision bass last week and I am over the moon.  The sound is exactly what I was looking for and my fingers glide along the strings. Worth every penny.
    Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. [Albert Einstein]

    Nil Satis Nisi Optimum

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  • DodgeDodge Frets: 1430
    That’s the thing about bass strings - there’s a used market.

    Ugh!  Am I alone in thinking that's disgusting?  Other than giving it the once over, the first thing I do to a used guitat or bass is change the strings and give it a thorough clean.  Christ knows what the previous owner's personal hygiene was like.

    Anyway - Pyramid Gold flats on my PJ here, 40-105.
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  • fretmeisterfretmeister Frets: 23913
    Dodge said:
    That’s the thing about bass strings - there’s a used market.

    Ugh!  Am I alone in thinking that's disgusting?  Other than giving it the once over, the first thing I do to a used guitat or bass is change the strings and give it a thorough clean.  Christ knows what the previous owner's personal hygiene was like.

    Anyway - Pyramid Gold flats on my PJ here, 40-105.
    I'm happy to sell used strings but I never buy them!

    Mind you, if I had the money for a really good double bass then I might be tempted to get some used strings as really good orchestral strings can be £600-800 for a set.
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