{"id":17,"date":"2018-12-13T22:04:36","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T06:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bassguitarshack.com\/?p=17"},"modified":"2021-09-13T17:59:14","modified_gmt":"2021-09-14T00:59:14","slug":"my-flatwound-bass-string-odyssey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bassguitarshack.com\/my-flatwound-bass-string-odyssey\/","title":{"rendered":"My Flatwound Bass String Odyssey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
At the beginning of your bass playing journey, you may not even know that flatwound bass strings exist. When you hear people talking about them or come across a discussion online, you still might not know exactly what the fuss is. They sound darker, or warmer? They were used by the pros in the “old days” maybe? Whatever you know about flatwounds from reading or interviews, you don’t know much until you play with them. At the beginning of my flatwound bass string odyssey…I sure didn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Flatwound bass guitar strings take some getting used to, and they aren’t for everyone. I switched to flatwounds about ten years ago after flirting with them on and off for about a year on my Fender Jazz bass. The first time I tried them I was shocked at how much I hated them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was used to After only a few months of playing with rounds again, I started obsessing about having that The second time around with flats felt better, but I still had reservations. I still felt like I wasn’t getting the sound I was after. The frustrating part was that I couldn’t pinpoint what it was. In my mind, I had a vision of a slightly more aggressive, over-driven Motown-like tone. All I was getting was a dull thud with my flatwounds. Achieving that mellow but punchy, deep old-school bass sound that I was really after was much harder than I thought it would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About three months after trying them again, the So, once again, I strung flats back on my Fender Jazz bass. I told myself that this was going to be the last time. I was committing myself to flats for good. If I didn’t like the tone, I would either tweak things until I did or simply try another type of The breakthrough moment came a few months later. After struggling with my sound and trying different string makers, I finally found my sound with Labella medium light flats and a passive Fender Precision bass, although I also got a good tone with a Jazz bass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the main lessons I learned was to let the bass speak clearly for itself. I was trying too hard to EQ my sound, usually with too much bass. The other thing I realized was the value of persistence. You have to keep at it and explore all options before giving in, even if it means months of frustration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After keeping everything completely flat on the amp and gradually increasing the drive until I had just enough dirt in my sound, I started to let my fingers dictate the overall tone. I finally felt satisfied that I had reached I now feel that flats are the only strings for me. Their depth, clarity, and solid punch just can’t At the beginning of your bass playing journey, you may not even know that flatwound bass strings exist. When you hear people talking about them or come across a discussion online, you still might not know exactly what the fuss is. They sound darker, or warmer? They were used by the pros in the “old … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bassguitarshack.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bassguitarshack.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bassguitarshack.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bassguitarshack.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bassguitarshack.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bassguitarshack.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bassguitarshack.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bassguitarshack.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bassguitarshack.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bassguitarshack.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Was it the flatwound bass string brand?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
One more time with these flatwounds<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The breakthrough combination<\/h2>\n\n\n\n