Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I received both sets this week (TI JF344 and Optima Gold 2099 flats for long scale). Let me begin by saying that I have limited experience with flats. I had been using roundwounds on all of my basses until last year when I replaced the rounds on my Ampeg Little Stud with a set of of flats from Webstrings.com. I found the difference between the rounds and those flats a lot more subtle than I expected. I'd been reading the threads on here about flats on ricks, the differences about Fender flats and TI flats, how the TI flats were floppy/dark/mellow, required a different, more subdued playing style etc.

I put on the optimas first and found them to be very similar in tension to the roundwounds that were previously on the bass. I don't have my bass rig here at home so I played them through a 69 Sunn tube head turned up to about 7-8 through a matching Sunn 2x12 guitar cabinet which sounds great for bass. Slightly overdriven, the smoked pork tone i like to call it. It sounded great, and I thought the tension felt very similar to my rounds. I then took them off and put on the TI Jazz flats. The TI's are a a tad thinner (.100/.070/.056/.043 vs .100/.080./060/.045s) and I *think* they are slightly less tight than the optimas, however I was surprised by how similar they are in tension to the roundwounds. Soundwise, I think the TI's have more upper mids - I *think* i slightly preferred the tone of the optimas however it took me about 10 minutes to change strings and tune it back up so I may have imagined it. I regret not recording the optimas to judge the results back to back. I will do it at some point however. The Clank was present at all times. The TI's do have smoother texture than the Optimas who have a tad more of that ribbed feeling (I've felt on my dick too). Although I'm not a fan of gold, I think the optimas look cooler in gold with black ends vs nickel w/ red ends on burgundy.

As I told people asking my impression since I switched from the factory rickenbacker RW to the TI flats after decades of playing only original RWs, TIs may appear and have a smoother and floppier touch than the rick RWs, but they do not show any significant lower tension
When installing TIs on my 4001V63 my luthier did not have to change anything in the neck tension or in the bridge height to keep an unchanged set up....he just had to tune the saddles a little bit

they are much less elastic when loose, but at that tension the difference is minor.

check these ****** recordings using an mp3 player

'97 4003 original roundwound strings thru neck hi-gain: pick, fingers

'72 4001 TI Jazz flats thru neck toaster (no bass roll off cap) pick, fingers

the 72 sounds a bit brighter likely because the 97 strings are pretty dead (i don't mind), however the difference is so negligible in a live setting which is where I play 90% of the time. pick fingers, 4001, 4003, rick, hondo, tube, solid state, ampeg, peavey at the end of the day it's all about oozing sex (and having a playable bass).