I know that flats have less surface noise and a more mellow tone, perhaps more fundamental and less harmonics. Can the same result be achieved with roundwound strings by turning down the tone control?
I suppose one other thing to take into account is the different envelope shape with the flats having more of the thump, i.e. a softer transient, and less sustain.
I'm expecting delivery of a short scale Talman bass and there seems to be a long standing fashion for equipping short scale bass guitars with flats. My only experience of flats was an acoustic bass guitar fitted with black nylon strings and that produced a passing resemblance to a double bass.
Comments
For me it's quite simple - roundwounds on a fretted bass and flatwounds on a fretless, The End.
And yes, black nylon tapewounds on acoustics - I've always thought they sound far better than the horrible bronze things they usually come with... presumably because 'acoustic guitars have bronze strings'.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Modern actives rounds
Precisions - need 2 precisions so both strings can be used easily.
https://speakerimpedance.co.uk/?act=two_parallel&page=calculator
I've tried flats but much prefer the twangier tone of roundwound. When I got my Epi Jack Casady bass I was told 'you must try it with flatwounds', so I did. As awesome and booming as it sounded I missed the top end punch that it has with roundwound strings;
My Jazz and Precision bass definitely sound best with roundwounds. I like my bass sounds to have a bit of 'grind' in them that I haven't found when I've used flats.
I'd have a pair on a second bass but not my primary.
Only when I bought a Fender AVRI ‘63 P Bass did I get the full ride. The Squier nut width is 40mm whereas the Fender is 44mm. Finally, all those Duck Dunn moves fall perfectly under the fingers.
I will try @ICBM's suggestion for tapewounds on my Bravewood acoustic. I was supposed to be doing an acoustic gig in a record store with our guitarist, but that's now cancelled until further notice.
The last change I did was to replace the precision bridge with a Hipshot Rickenbacker, to make it look a bit more original! Here it is in all it's glory:
They're expensive but I urge you to try them, a lot of people love them including me.
They can't be made to sound anything at all like rounds though so I wouldn't want to only have access to flats. But the sound they do have is amazing and the feel is too.
The feel of them alone (they're totally smooth) makes them a joy to play.
I know these are cheap strings on a cheap Talman bass but I'm managing to get an even volume and tone after the setup. I'll have a fiddle with the compressor and have a go at recording it tonight. Pity we're locked out of our practice space until after the virus emergency, I'd like to play it through our Trace Elliot amp.
I do it less so these days though. The guy on rhythm guitar has a habit of playing with the neck pickup on his LP Deluxe, so I like to keep my tone at 80-100%.
Did you have any issues like this that necessitated the set up, or was it more for action etc??
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
This is my first attempt at flatwounds , wondering if I've maybe knackered the string when installing it!
The main issue is the height, but don't overlook the width - if the groove is too tight it will restrict the string movement and stop it vibrating freely, which makes the open string play flat, so if you tune to that, the fretted notes then become sharp - this is especially a problem with flats as they're less flexible.
If you fret the string at the third fret, how big is the gap between the string and the first fret? If it's much bigger than the thickness of a business card it's too high. If you fold a piece of paper round the string, will it still go into the groove? If not it's too tight.
Unfortunately the only way to tell it's not the string is to replace it...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I fitted the new strings yesterday and I had to wind the E string saddle nearly all the way back and the intonation is good on all the frets. The A string saddle wouldn't go far enough back because ithe screw was too long and bottoming out in the saddle. Chopped that down by about 4mm and managed to intonate the A string.
The Hofner strings are narrower than the old strings but I still had more work to do to the nut to bring it roughly per spec quoted by ICBM. The only other thing I noticed about the E string is that the tuner post won't take much wrap.
@mbe reassuring to hear you had to move the saddles a fair bit. I'll play around a bit more tomorrow. To be honest I'm not really a bassist so this is just to mess around with at home - should be close enough for my needs