Flatwound Strings or Rounds - Your Preference?

[JVG]

I agree about using flats to get the early Hank sounds - i do the same, although i use a fairly light set with a plain 3rd. I think that flats seem to be regaining popularity (beyond the jazz world) and pretty soon more people will discover how great they sound on a Strat or Tele!

Like you, I also enjoy Thomastik flats - they have a great richness to their sound. However i also like Chromes, they sound brighter than most flats, and on some guitars this is a good thing.

[Lame Pseudonym]

I just can't live with the sound; it sounds like one of those saloon pianos from the old cowboy movies.

Exactly. Except to be a real bass player you need to have two Precisions, one with flats and one with roundies. Maybe it's the same with Jazzmasters.

[Mechanical Birds]

I was given a set of Fender .12 flats and put them onto my J Mascis Jazzmaster, which has humbuckers and was conceived to be my designated heavy guitar. It’s been like that over a year at this point and I still can’t tell if I like or dislike how it sounds. I absolutely love how it feels but I can’t nail down definitively any preference for the sound.

Do people use flats with any heavy music?

[HarlowTheFish]

Do people use flats with any heavy music?

On my basses, yeah for sure -- flats with a JJ setup has this super grindy, pokey midrange with distortion that absolutely kills for heavy stuff.

On guitar though . . . I could go either way. For something darker, kinda doomy-stonery or where you want a straight wall of sound from the bass to the guitars, it's a different tone but works really well, but at least for the style of heavy that I play I really need the rounds so the guitar sits above that JJ-with-flats grind in the bass.

[Mechanical Birds]

Spot on for me then!

[sal paradise]

You, know, I’ve been playing the guitar for 25 years & I’ve never thought much about strings. I don’t know if I use flatwounds or not. I settled on multipacks of D’addario 10s many years back when I found them to last longer without breaking when I was touring. All I know is that 9s feel thin & 11s thick. I’ve always played punk and heavier stuff, rarely/never use tremolo live, so that might be why I’ve not looked beyond strings “working”. Heavy drive hides a million sins, especially at midnight in some dive bar.

I guess I’ve never geeked out about the technical aspects of guitars- radius, bridges etc. I can’t fix a neck & no change of doing a good setup myself. It’s odd, because I love guitars & my ASD takes me to ridiculous detail on some things I love. Maybe it’s time to do some reading.

[Larry Mal]

You, know, I’ve been playing the guitar for 25 years & I’ve never thought much about strings. I don’t know if I use flatwounds or not. I settled on multipacks of D’addario 10s many years back when I found them to last longer without breaking when I was touring..

You are almost certainly using round wound strings, and if you get a set of flat wounds you really notice the difference. It's not subtle at all.

I don't really like flat wound strings but have come to consider them appropriate for my fretless bass, which really just makes sense. Also, a have a fretted bass that came with that kind of string on there and I noticed that it sounded pretty good also I could get the action much lower than I could when I went back to my usual round wound bass strings. I have another P-bass type bass and when I have them both up and running, one might stay with flat wounds.

Flatwound strings have more tension, and the strings vibrate less, so you can get the action lower with those. I had no idea.

I am thinking about getting a jazz box type guitar someday, and I am wondering if I would put flat wound strings on that. I guess I should try it. Since I don't really play jazz guitar, though, I'll probably just sound like some kind of asshole.

But yeah, flat wound strings sound very, very different, they play different, they change your whole guitar's setup and so on. It's not something you wouldn't notice, and if you haven't made effort to have flat wounds on there then you almost certainly don't have them. They tend to cost more, also. I also buy the D'Addario three or ten packs for cheap because they are good and inexpensive electric guitar strings. On acoustics I care more.

Get a set of flat wounds... you probably won't like them very much, certainly not at first.

[JMFan]

I know his great playing ability, effects and amp have a lot to do with his tone but here is an example of how good flats sound on a guitar, even a Strat. He nailed the Hank Marvin tone. If anyone thinks Hank Marvin used rounds in the early days I think you will know after this that Marvin used flats. The tone matches. This man uses Chromes which sound fine but I prefer round core like Thomastik and Pyramid which also are pure nickel. True cost more but last long so worth it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPmia8g ... 9X&index=2

[Zeus]

Get a set of flat wounds... you probably won't like them very much, certainly not at first.

I do think that's true for many, but when I first put Thomastik-Infeld flats on my Telecaster some 10-11 years ago, it was a revelation!

It was like I'd finally cracked the code on what electric guitar should sound like.

[Shadoweclipse13]

I really should try flats on guitar. I've always used roundwounds for guitar, and finally tried some flats on bass, which I love.

[copacetic]

Personally, to me there's nothing quite like a set of well broken-in flats on just about any electric.
Silky smooth feel, mellows out harsher pickups.. I like that i can run my tone knob wide open with flats, which i almost never do with rounds.. feels like that way you're getting "more" tonal information with the same sort of mellow sound as rolling off the tone knob. Ive heard people say they make guitars sound "dead" or that theyre only good for jazz/clean tones which i think is just plain untrue. Distorted, they sound amazing to me, although the absence of string talk might be a turn off for some..

I use D'addario Chromes ultra light gauge which is a 10-48 set with a wound G. They often feel a bit stiff/gritty when you first put them on, but after a few weeks of sliding on them, they'll be slick and super smooth feeling, which I love. Sliding chords up and down the neck is a breeze, barre chords are easier, just all around lovely smooth feel. I often leave the same set of flats on for a year or even longer, changing the B and E as needed since the unwound strings wear much easier than the wound strings.

I definitely recommend giving them a try, and perhaps giving them a while to break in if you dont love the feel immediately!

[rhythmjones]

La Bellas are a good compromise between price and quality.

[kick_the_reverb]

Flats seem to work well for me. Been using D'Addario chrome 15-65 (for D standard guitar), but I wouldn't necessarily recommend that heavy. 12s seem to work well in standard tuning and the AVRI vibrato spring seem to be able to handle them. Other brands I am using are Pyramid Gold, and Gallistrings. I have a couple more brands I intend to try (already have the sets), but since I haven't installed them, I don't know how they sound.
Recently went to a friend's house to geek about various guitars. His were mostly strung with rounds. Compared similar guitars with different styles of strings, and I much preferred the flats on the Jazzmasters and Jaguars. I think he preferred the sound of the flats as well.
Even though I play Surf, I did try fuzz sounds with the flats and they were great (with Fuzzrite and Maestro FZ-1 type pedals).

Ran

[Lame Pseudonym]

You, know, I’ve been playing the guitar for 25 years & I’ve never thought much about strings. I don’t know if I use flatwounds or not.

This is certainly not a place full of guys who are more into playing than screwing around with gear. But I think that you're on the right road and I wish I could be more like you.

[Downsman]

I have a question for those of you who say how flats tame harsh pickups, and/or you find you don't need to roll off your tone control when switching to them.

My understanding is that the high E and B strings are the same whether using rounds or flats, that it's just the wound strings (which may or may not include the G) that are different. Am I wrong about that? If that is right, how does switching to flats tame the shrillness you were experiencing with rounds?