Flatwound Strings or Rounds - Your Preference?

[JMFan]

Labella Flats for me. I like to have one guitar set up with rounds, but for most things I prefer flats (keeping in mind that I'm playing early-mid 60s instro stuff)

Never tried Labella but curious about them. Have you tried Pyramid, Thomastik, and Chromes? How do they compare and contrast? Thanks.

[slavemaster]

Flats. It's either Pyramid Gold 11s or TI 12s (Jazz BeBop). The latter seem lighter, despite they are one gauge up. Anyway, I like the flats more for the feel, and they sound better to me - they mellow out a bit the Antiquity II pickups and everything sounds great to me. Furthermore, they seem to last for ages.

[thingsthatfly]

I like both, if I had to choose then rounds, but luckily I dont have to, rounds on my jazzmaster, flats on my gretsch.

[HP Hovercraft]

Since my guitars have mastery bridges on them, I'm guessing I won't be able to get proper intonation with flats that have a wound G. Have you guys run into that problem?

I am not familiar with the Mastery other than by name. I hear a big buzz about this bridge but I am not familar with the interworkings of it and why a wound G or flatwounds won't get proper intonation with it. Leaves, please explain why you believe the Mastery won't allow for proper intonation of a wound G or flatwounds. I'm curious about this bridge that's the big buzz now. Thanks.

I'm not Leaves, but I'll take a stab at this.

The Mastery looks like this:



Its design is based on a properly intonated set of strings with a plain G, which would look roughly like this:



A properly intonated bridge for a wound G would look roughly like this:



So, it's just not possible with the Mastery because it doesn't have individually adjustable saddles.

[slavemaster]

I had some problems intonating the wound G of the Pyramid Gold set with the Mastery bridge. With the Thomastics I had no such problems.

[andy_tchp]

So, it's just not possible with the Mastery because it doesn't have individually adjustable saddles.

I use wound G sets (GHS Nickel 'Rollerwound' .012-.054, kind've an 'in-between' flat/round style) on two Mastery-equipped Jazzmasters, and they intonate just fine

Were your real-life/hands-on experiences with wound third string sets and Mastery bridges different, HP HoverCraft?

[noisepunk]

I use flatwound strings on my jazzmaster, half-flats on my acoustic, and rounds on everything else. This may change on a few of them, I've grown quite find of the flatwounds.

[JMFan]

Since my guitars have mastery bridges on them, I'm guessing I won't be able to get proper intonation with flats that have a wound G. Have you guys run into that problem?

I am not familiar with the Mastery other than by name. I hear a big buzz about this bridge but I am not familar with the interworkings of it and why a wound G or flatwounds won't get proper intonation with it. Leaves, please explain why you believe the Mastery won't allow for proper intonation of a wound G or flatwounds. I'm curious about this bridge that's the big buzz now. Thanks.

I'm not Leaves, but I'll take a stab at this.

The Mastery looks like this:



Its design is based on a properly intonated set of strings with a plain G, which would look roughly like this:



A properly intonated bridge for a wound G would look roughly like this:



So, it's just not possible with the Mastery because it doesn't have individually adjustable saddles.

Hovercraft, thanks for the diagrams of the bridges and the info.

[HP Hovercraft]

I had some problems intonating the wound G of the Pyramid Gold set with the Mastery bridge. With the Thomastics I had no such problems.

Good to know.

Were your real-life/hands-on experiences with wound third string sets and Mastery bridges different, HP HoverCraft?

No, it's all speculation on what Leaves was saying. Hence "take a stab."

I should've put "in theory it's not possible." Sorry for the confusion.

Here's some more discussion on the subject: http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vie ... =7&t=48660" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mikeyjames56]

I've played up to 12s on rounds (ernie ball) and 13 flats (d'addario I believe). I liked the feel of the flats, but I missed the ring of the rounds.

Granted, this was on a SX SJM with P90s, not any real Jazzmaster or Jag.

I'm planning on 12 rounds for an upcoming Jazz-partsmaster, and I'd like to put the flats on the SJM again after I put it back together, just to have some variety.

[fuzzking]

I've been playing Pyramid flats for the last few years which are incredible - but also digging the Pyramid "performance" pure nickel rounds. Best rounds I've ha my hands on so far. A friend of mine played one of my guitars which has the pure nickel rounds, and he said "man, I usually don't like flats, but these are the shit". Really, they feel great, somewhere inbetween, nothing like the awful D'Addario half-rounds.

[DerRoy]

I tried flatwound 11s on my Jazzmaster. I loved the tone and feel of them but because I do a lot of string bending, I just couldn't get along with the wound G string.

I had some problems intonating the wound G of the Pyramid Gold set with the Mastery bridge.

You can replace the wound G with a plain one in at least some of the sets, you just have to find out which gauge string (preferrably from the same manufacturer) to use with what set. For Pyramid Gold .011s that would be a .018 plain, and .019 I suppose for a set of .012s. I understand Pyramid Gold round-core sets even come with both, a wound and a plain G string.

[LanceLink]

The Pyramid Gold flats I have do come with both a wound and plain G.

[DerRoy]

The Pyramid Gold flats I have do come with both a wound and plain G.

Are these the ones from Strings By Mail?

[aen]

Flats on bass, round on guitars.
I'm getting one of those Schecter Ultra Vis though, whcih comes with roundwound strings. I will probably stick with those, since I think of that instrument more as an extra super low tuned guitar. If it starts to creep in where my other bass is working now, I might have to switch it over to flats.