Great Rock Flatwound Bass Tones That You You Were Surprised The Player Used Flatwound

[JOLLY]

It always blew my mind when I found out that Steve Harris from Iron Maiden and Cliff Williams (flatwounds only in the studio?) from AC/DC used flatwound strings. I guess when I was younger I just always thought that flatwound strings had that somewhat dullish and non sustaining tone from the likes of Paul McCartney.

Any other rock bass players you can think of that use flatwound strings?

 

[MetalManiac]

Re: Great Rock Flatwound Bass Tones That You You Were Surprised The Player Used Flatw

This is Steve Harris- glad you like my playing Jolly..LOL.

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: Great Rock Flatwound Bass Tones That You You Were Surprised The Player Used Flatw

Roger Waters uses Roto flats, and a lot of his stuff sounds pretty roundwoundy too.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Great Rock Flatwound Bass Tones That You You Were Surprised The Player Used Flatw

Same here with Steve Harris - I always thought flatwound and tapewound were the same thing (cuz, y'know, tapewounds are flat).

 

[One Bad Monkey]

Re: Great Rock Flatwound Bass Tones That You You Were Surprised The Player Used Flatw

Same here with Steve Harris - I always thought flatwound and tapewound were the same thing (cuz, y'know, tapewounds are flat).

Tapewounds have roundwound strings under them though, with the exception of the GHS tapes (which have groundwound strings under them).

 

[Johnny the Kid]

Re: Great Rock Flatwound Bass Tones That You You Were Surprised The Player Used Flatw

Steve Harris is such an anomaly. His set up sound be the bassiest thing on the planet (P-Bass with flats).

Ben Kenney from Incubus uses flats which is a little surprising.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Great Rock Flatwound Bass Tones That You You Were Surprised The Player Used Flatw

With apologies to JJ, I am going to steal the "you were surprised" notion behind this thread and start a new one.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Great Rock Flatwound Bass Tones That You You Were Surprised The Player Used Flatw

The way I see it, "good" rock tone with rounds is the exception more than it is the rule. Most of the "classic" early rock-n-roll stuff, and on up into the '60's and even the '70's was played on flats. Rounds are a later rock and r&b thing, which started phasing in in the mid-'60's, but didn't really didn't take full hold as "the norm" until the late '70's or so. It was extremely odd that John Entwistle used them in his day (mid-'60's).

What would surprise you even more would be how many guitar tones across a wide variety of genres, rock-n-roll included were achieved with flat-wound strings.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Great Rock Flatwound Bass Tones That You You Were Surprised The Player Used Flatw

flatties are the business. They dominate the low end and sound much bigger in the mix.
As far as guitars go...flatties rule for jazz tones.