These Strings Made My Modern Guitar Sound Vintage (flat wound strings)

Flats are aight

makes sense - thank you :-)

ehh flats on guitar are ok I guess, flats on bass however...

I play Bass and I love my la bella tape wounds.

Great idea but it's hard to compare the sound when you play totally different riffs with each change from Round to Flat? and different gauges? Completely unequal comparison

Great info thanks. I put these flats on my Fender MIM Strat which took the country twang out of it, which is what I was really looking for. Also so much of a softer feel and no more string squeak when changing chord positions.

Thank you Rhett. I used flats back in the day, but they were never as good as the flats of today, I just got a couple of sets on Amazon UK. I used flats back in the 70's on a Vox tear drop, I had that guitar stolen :( I have been using Ernies extra slinky's for aeons now, I will put these on my ES-175 copy for that smooth jazzy sound. So what am I saying here? I'me saying thanks for reminding me of the benefit of flats.

I played flat wounds on my P Bass back in the 70s, but I never tried flats on a regular guitar. I'm gonna make the switch, though, because I play a lot of slide, and flat wound strings, especially with a chrome or brass slide, seems like a no-brainer.

Please do a video with flats on acoustic.

10/10 for having a quick comparison demo at the very start of the video. Way too many people will bury it in the video and this immediately grabbed me and gave me what I was looking for. Subbed immediately 👍

i generally prefer the brighter sound of rounds, but the feel and playability are such a night and day thing that i'm more than willing to accept the flatwound tone, which is good in its own way

"Trust me;" men notice these things about women too.

Now I must try these. Had no idea it was such a pronounced difference. Love that warmer murky tone… my Orange Micro Dark is a bit spiky in the upper mids through a V30, perhaps these could help.

👌🌟

If you hate that string noise squeak, flat wounds are the strings for you.

Used your link for flatwounds. What is that first effect you use right before the ephereal atmosphere stuff?

Magma makes super ground wounds (they're called flat strings) which take the ground wound design to a new level in that the wrap wire is flattened the whole way.

I came here for beatles, I got beatles.

TL,DW: It sounds exactly the fuckin same

When changing over to flats do you have to set the guitar up or is it just like changing a set of new strings

Are flat wounds harder on the hands?

Think one of my Telecasters is going to be changed to a set of flats straight away. 😎😎😎

I've been curious about flatwound strings after the band Skating Polly released a song called "Flatwound Strings"

jUst TurN thE ToNe knOB dOwN

i personally just dont change my strings for 2 years, almost the same result

As a frustrated Bass player, I can attest they are easier on your fingers. Might not matter to you if you have thick calluses, but they helped me get a lot more practice in.

I replace one string at a time to keep a more consistent tension on my guitar neck.
Perhaps it doesn't make a difference. Just something I picked up along the way.

Hey Rett thanks for doing what you do then watching you. I don’t know better part of two years now and I feel like I learned a lot from you. I’m at 68 going on €69 frustrated guitar player but you have a lot of insight on the way things work and glad you’re passing it on to all of us, oh yeah PS my amp just died. If you know anybody who has a low very low budget and they wanna sell let me know John P.

Demoing wound strings while mostly accentuating unwound strings during playing. This doesn't seem right.

Great demo / comparison. I've been using flat wounds since the 70's. Love the feel and the sound.

The only downside to me is it gives noticeably less sustain

They sounded so good on my LP that I put them on the electric ukulele as well. Much nicer to play by far.

absolutely no difference

The flat ones sound more round than the round ones.

I’ve never been huge on flats on guitars but I need them on bass

Amazing!

Man your playing is absolutely insane, its the reason i watch the videos. Do you have any songs/albums?

I have a guitar that had a problem with the truss-rod, and needed more tension on the neck. I switched from 10 to 11 roundwounds, and liked it well enough. People worry about not being able to bend heavier strings, but fact is heavier strings require less excursion to cause the same change in pitch (try it: push your G-string over to where your D-string is, then push your B-string over to your G-string. Same amount of bend = greater increase in pitch for the heavier string.) I was working in a guitar shop, and a customer requested a setup with flatwound 12's. Okay, it's your dime, buddy! When I got it done, it was awesome. It was so awesome, I bought a set of flatwound 12's for my guitar and haven't looked back. It was just the increase in tension needed to solve the truss rod problem too.

Flats on a jazzmaster through a Vox ❤️

I just picked up a vintage Rickenbacker 4001 where due to the way the neck and truss rod system are set up, the conventional practice is to use flats. I was initially concerned about not having enough top end (I like having upper mids in my tone for definition) but once I put a set of GHS Brite Flats on it all my worries turned out to be unfounded: I still have plenty of sparkle and bite (particularly isolating the bridge pup) but not only have ample low end for when I’m being “more of a bass player” but the smoothness of the strings surfaces feels about 10 times easier on my fingers for the more fluid and melodic stuff I write to play down the neck; I’m not sure I’m ever going back to rounds, even on the instruments that can handle them…

I’ve been using relatively fat flats (12) on all my guitars since 2016 and among other benefits, I noticed that the intonation setup became quicker and more precise (regardless the scale length, fret profile or neck radius).

I've lost some of my hearing because I'm old. Could someone tell me what the difference in sound is? I hear no difference. Both sound amazing. Is that guitar tuned down? The bass sounds very nice.

i havent watched one of your videos in a few years and it feels like seeing an old friend. I know its just a random ass video, but it got me kinda in my feels lol

You have to try a Fender offset with heavy flats (Pyramid Gold a good brand) into a spring reverb unit to a Blonde Fender amp with JBL speakers.

Thanks!

Tried them once and liked the lack of finger squeak best. Top end lacked the definition I am used to.

this is very very similar to a video Joe Gore did a long time back... and yes flats are a whole game changer if you're a non-jazz player especially on bass.

I can't get into em.

Wound G, whether it’s flat or not, is the right set for an archtop, according to many Luthier’s.
Flats are amazing for everything. I recently had them on my fretless Fender Jazz and swapped to roundwounds (ignoring what I know that does to the neck) because the modern sound is nice. If I had two J-basses I’d probably have both sets but all my guitars are still flats except for my acoustic. I can still play rock and country on the back pickup if I want, but Sundays flats sound really nice for gospel / neo-soul at church, or corporate gigs, records, where being really quiet in execution is helpful. Not having roundwound string noise feels to me like it goes hand in hand with eliminating pops and clicks in our technique that need to be omitted, instead of just deleting in print. Fat strings raised up high enough to avoid any fret noise sound good. Luthiers don’t really like the Martin Standard because it’s too low and chokes out the string from fret buzz. Usually raising the action a little helps with that. Either adding some relief to the neck or raising the bridge… all of that is going to change if you throw a set of these on.