Did the Bass VI originally ship with flatwounds?

[Embenny]

Old piano, mandolin, zither, and guitar strings were using ferro-steel core wire, or "mandolin wire" or "music wire" as it was known in the wire industry. There simply isn't another material that would have worked. Steel core wire has been around for centuries.

Hmm, interesting. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the alloys used in acoustic string manufacture have always been very weakly ferromagnetic - that, even if there was a steel core (chosen for tensile strength), the wrap never was back then. There are a lot of "steel-string acoustic guitar" strings that perform extremely poorly with magnetic pickups because the majority of the mass of the string is made of bronze, for example, and bronze isn't ferromagnetic, nor are the silver alloys used in certain classical instrument strings.

I thought that nickel-wound strings, with nickel being ferromagnetic, were the big advance for electric instruments, followed by stainless steel wraps when manufacturing advances were made.

Didnt know about the danelectro bass strings, that's new to me. Spent all this time thinking Rotosound "invented" the modern roundwound bass string, but I guess that's just like Fender's claim to have invented the (mass produced) electric guitar. Apparently they were just the first ones to do it on a large commercial scale.

[Danley]

Original manual suggests yes they did ...
https://www.fmicassets.com/Damroot/Orig ... I_1962.pdf

If they specify flatwound, I assume Fender was aware of other types of string? Otherwise they would have just said ‘strings’ (or ‘wound strings?’)

[Sweetfinger]

Old piano, mandolin, zither, and guitar strings were using ferro-steel core wire, or "mandolin wire" or "music wire" as it was known in the wire industry. There simply isn't another material that would have worked. Steel core wire has been around for centuries.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the alloys used in acoustic string manufacture have always been very weakly ferromagnetic - that, even if there was a steel core (chosen for tensile strength), the wrap never was back then. There are a lot of "steel-string acoustic guitar" strings that perform extremely poorly with magnetic pickups because the majority of the mass of the string is made of bronze, for example, and bronze isn't ferromagnetic, nor are the silver alloys used in certain classical instrument strings.

I thought that nickel-wound strings, with nickel being ferromagnetic, were the big advance for electric instruments, followed by stainless steel wraps when manufacturing advances were made.

Phosphor bronze is a relatively recent alloy as far as use in string winding. Late 60s I believe. I'm not sure about brass alloys. Monel, Nickel plated steel, and stainless are all "non-tarnishing", which was a selling point. You can pull out a silver wound classical string that's been open to air for six months and it's turning black and yellow. You can pull out a vintage Black Diamond string from the 1960s and it's still shiny.
For the first half of the last century, I don't think they ever thought much about whether the wrap was magnetic or not. They were trying to keep the strings shiny.
Certainly any nickel plated steel alloy would be magnetic. Some stainless steel alloys are magnetic. Whatever the wrap is on the vintage string in my earlier pic is magnetic.

[Embenny]

Phosphor bronze is more recent but impression was that 80/20 bronze predated it by several decades at least. No idea what the earliest Martins shipped with, though. Monel? Interesting that they don't tarnish, I grew up with classical guitar strings that got grungy as hell, as you mentioned.

[Danley]

Phosphor bronze is more recent but impression was that 80/20 bronze predated it by several decades at least. No idea what the earliest Martins shipped with, though. Monel? Interesting that they don't tarnish, I grew up with classical guitar strings that got grungy as hell, as you mentioned.

I think I read the earliest Ditson dreadnoughts were meant to use nylon strings - but could also as-intended be strung with steel, as an alternate ‘lap steel’ mode (I believe they also shipped with a removable raised nut for that purpose.) The answer might go back to what players used during the lap steel ‘Hawaiian Craze,’ if we’re talking steel strings.

[JVG]

On the topic of Monel (and yes, we continue to stray off-topic, that’s ok), i recently tried a set on my Jazzmaster. Really interesting sound - great midrange with heaps of harmonic stuff going on. I did, however, feel like they went a bit dull prematurely. For anyone who has a bright guitar they want to tame, i’d recommend giving them a go. It’s a noticeably different sound to the common wrap types.

J.

[crianlarich]

If anyone needs to replace high E string: (i.e. Roundwound)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-BASS-g ... SwNKReexo-
(of course, you'd need to enquire if there really is that string inside the envelope. Very incoonsistent listings and prices - this one seems about right)

[Ceylon]

Isn't there a story about John Entwistle wanting to record the bass solo of My Generation on a Danelectro because he liked the round wound sound, but kept breaking strings. He had to buy an entire new Danelectro bass every time he broke a string because replacement round wound bass strings were impossible to find. He inevitably wound (no pun intended) up recording the solo with a flat wound-strung Jazz Bass.

Might be mistaken, but I think that's what happened.

I always used to think the My Generation solo was played on a Bass VI for some reason, but it looks like you're right.

“I bought this Danelectro bass and it had these tiny, thin wirewound strings on. They were so thin, they sounded just like a piano, an unbelievably clear sound. The only thing was that you couldn’t buy these strings. When we recorded ‘My Generation,’ I ended up with three of these Danelectros just for the strings. The last one I had, the string busted before we actually got into the studio to re-record it, so I did it on a Fender Jazz in the end with tape-wound La Bella strings.”

[øøøøøøø]

Between you and me, I think that's why 50's tone has been fetishized for so long. For 30-40 years, players have been sold magic pickups with "aged" magnets to sound like "old" guitars, when the famously warm tones were all recorded on guitars with brand new magnets and flat wound strings. Plus, between the mics they used, the tape they laid tracks down onto, and the vinyl that was cut from it, they essentially had several low-pass filters applied from there.

And yet, any new guitar you put flats on still makes you think "wow - that's a lot warmer."

Fender bridge pickups sound *very* different with flatwound .013's on them, which is how they were developed and tested (or was it .014s? I forget offhand). Funny how people put roundwound .009's on a strat and complain that the bridge pickup sounds too thin.

Broadly, I agree that judging the sound of a guitar based on famous recordings (really any recordings) is a fool's errand (though not for the reasons you've mentioned here).

But I think most people who fetishize the old instruments do so because they've played old instruments and liked them a lot--regardless of what strings happened to be on them.

That's probably the rationale (however flawed) behind "aged" magnets and the like... people largely like and seek how the old guitars sound now (not how they sounded to them on old records).

[s_mcsleazy]

i'd assume they shipped with flats considering how much fender back in the day hated the idea of basses with roundwound strings. kinda funny since all their basses come with rounds.

[JVG]

The link further up the page has some pretty cool info about John Entwistle’s gear. I also liked these quotes:

“Around 1964 or 65, I had a Fender Bass VI for about six months but I could never get enough bottom end out of the f***ing thing. Nowadays you could probably get a really good sound out of it because of the control you get from modern amplifiers, but playing through a Marshall or Hiwatt, as I was, there was only a certain amount of bottom end available.”

“I decided that enough was enough and sold all three Danelectros and the Gretsch to buy a sunburst Jazz bass. The final version of ‘My Generation’ was played on the Jazz with La Bella tape wound strings.
I’d finally come to my senses. I had been losing basses and money hand over fist so I made the decision — no more selling! I continued playing the Jazz bass on stage and on records.”

[TheMilford]

FYI: All fender basses shipped with Flatwound strings until 1983 or so. Since the VI was discontinued in the mid 70s I assume they all shipped with flats at that time.

There are discussions of this over on the talkbass forums and a few dealers from back then have confirmed this. crazy to think Fender kept the flats going for so long.

[s11141827]

On top of eggwheat's evidence, I'll add that the year Bass VIs were released (1961), there literally weren't any roundwound strings at all. Rotosound invented them, ...

Not true. Roundwound strings had been around for a hundred years or longer. What do you think pianos used? Mandolins? Zithers?
Labella claims to have invented the flatwound steel guitar string in the late 1940s. Upright bass players used gut and steel, but when Rickenbacker, Vega, and Tutmarc were experimenting with the first electric bass designs in the late 1930s, what do you suppose those strings were?
Rotosound simply was the first commercial maker to make a sets of roundwound steel strings specifically for the "new" electric bass.
For the most part, the idea of the electric bass from inception was to provide the sound of an acoustic bass, but louder, so flatwound strings were the obvious choice and steel would be required to work with magnetic pickups. Acoustic/upright players would have been using gut strings or flatwound steel, because roundwounds would have been a big pain, literally, to use on a fretless instrument. That's why there weren't commercial roundwound bass sets.
Guitar strings were readily available in roundwound and semi-flat of various types since the early part of the century.
When you're looking for the "lost" tones of yesteryear, the part that I'm not sure you could truly find is a string like some of the common semi-flats that seemed to disappear in the 1970s as "slinky" nickel alloy roundwounds became the string of choice.
The old formula semi-flats I've seen are not a roundwound string that has been compressed after winding, or ground flatter after winding. These had the outer wrap compressed and flattened before it was wound on the core. How do I know? By looking at how they were made. You can see the wrap on these vintage strings is flat up over the twisted end.

You can't grind that. It was flattened before it was wound. These strings have a lot of mass, thicker cores than you typically find today, and because of the wider surface area on the wraps, they are a lot stiffer than a comparable size roundwound. They have a tone that nothing today really gets and to my knowledge, no string company makes a product with this type of construction. Ground wound strings are closest.

Round Wound Strings came 1st around 1660 when all they had was Sheep Gut Strings so that the lowest strings can be made thinner for bowed stringed instruments. Flatwound Strings came as early as 1874 (they're a late 19th century invention) by Hamilton. Flatwound Strings were originally made for Bowed Stringed instruments to replace the Gut strings because they last longer, hold tune better, & the flat surface increases the contact area w/ the bow hair which makes bowing on the strings easier.

[s11141827]

On top of eggwheat's evidence, I'll add that the year Bass VIs were released (1961), there literally weren't any roundwound strings at all. Rotosound invented them, ...

Not true. Roundwound strings had been around for a hundred years or longer. What do you think pianos used? Mandolins? Zithers?
Labella claims to have invented the flatwound steel guitar string in the late 1940s. Upright bass players used gut and steel, but when Rickenbacker, Vega, and Tutmarc were experimenting with the first electric bass designs in the late 1930s, what do you suppose those strings were?
Rotosound simply was the first commercial maker to make a sets of roundwound steel strings specifically for the "new" electric bass.
For the most part, the idea of the electric bass from inception was to provide the sound of an acoustic bass, but louder, so flatwound strings were the obvious choice and steel would be required to work with magnetic pickups. Acoustic/upright players would have been using gut strings or flatwound steel, because roundwounds would have been a big pain, literally, to use on a fretless instrument. That's why there weren't commercial roundwound bass sets.
Guitar strings were readily available in roundwound and semi-flat of various types since the early part of the century.
When you're looking for the "lost" tones of yesteryear, the part that I'm not sure you could truly find is a string like some of the common semi-flats that seemed to disappear in the 1970s as "slinky" nickel alloy roundwounds became the string of choice.
The old formula semi-flats I've seen are not a roundwound string that has been compressed after winding, or ground flatter after winding. These had the outer wrap compressed and flattened before it was wound on the core. How do I know? By looking at how they were made. You can see the wrap on these vintage strings is flat up over the twisted end.

You can't grind that. It was flattened before it was wound. These strings have a lot of mass, thicker cores than you typically find today, and because of the wider surface area on the wraps, they are a lot stiffer than a comparable size roundwound. They have a tone that nothing today really gets and to my knowledge, no string company makes a product with this type of construction. Ground wound strings are closest.

Those vintage formula semi-flatwound strings were actually made by Mapes when they attempted to make flatwound piano strings. I have versions w/ thinner cores but to get the same amount of volume rather than have thicker cores I changed the pickups out to special pickups that have a twice as high output which compensates for the reduced volume. They're railhammers.

[s11141827]

On top of eggwheat's evidence, I'll add that the year Bass VIs were released (1961), there literally weren't any roundwound strings at all. Rotosound invented them, ...

Not true. Roundwound strings had been around for a hundred years or longer. What do you think pianos used? Mandolins? Zithers?
Labella claims to have invented the flatwound steel guitar string in the late 1940s. Upright bass players used gut and steel, but when Rickenbacker, Vega, and Tutmarc were experimenting with the first electric bass designs in the late 1930s, what do you suppose those strings were?
Rotosound simply was the first commercial maker to make a sets of roundwound steel strings specifically for the "new" electric bass.
For the most part, the idea of the electric bass from inception was to provide the sound of an acoustic bass, but louder, so flatwound strings were the obvious choice and steel would be required to work with magnetic pickups. Acoustic/upright players would have been using gut strings or flatwound steel, because roundwounds would have been a big pain, literally, to use on a fretless instrument. That's why there weren't commercial roundwound bass sets.
Guitar strings were readily available in roundwound and semi-flat of various types since the early part of the century.
When you're looking for the "lost" tones of yesteryear, the part that I'm not sure you could truly find is a string like some of the common semi-flats that seemed to disappear in the 1970s as "slinky" nickel alloy roundwounds became the string of choice.
The old formula semi-flats I've seen are not a roundwound string that has been compressed after winding, or ground flatter after winding. These had the outer wrap compressed and flattened before it was wound on the core. How do I know? By looking at how they were made. You can see the wrap on these vintage strings is flat up over the twisted end.

You can't grind that. It was flattened before it was wound. These strings have a lot of mass, thicker cores than you typically find today, and because of the wider surface area on the wraps, they are a lot stiffer than a comparable size roundwound. They have a tone that nothing today really gets and to my knowledge, no string company makes a product with this type of construction. Ground wound strings are closest.

The Electric Bass was originally made to replace the Upright Bass because it's smaller easier to carry & has more volume. Also the Upright Bass is acoustically compromised because it's scaled down in size from where it's supposed to be for those low notes like a Viola:Figured it out