Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I just got a set of Rotosound Flats in the mail from Musicians friend. I want to make sure there wasn't some sort of shipping snafu at the warehouse.

I've never used flats before, so bear with me.

Isn't every string supposed to resemble the side of a nickle; as in no ridges?

Granted the ridges on the strings are less pronounced than the factory round-wounds that are currently on the bass. But I thought flats were supposed to be...well...flat.

What are flatwounds supposed to look and feel like?

My Chromes look just the way you describe. Don't worry!

Craig: Flats have varying degrees of smoothness, depending on the material and construction.

Thomastik-Infeld being somewhat smoother that Pyramid and which in turn are smoother than Rotosound Flats.

Stainless flats are perhaps the smoothest I have encountered. So not all flats are equally flat.

If what you got truly are flatwounds, you are most likely seeing gaps in the windings, which some flats seem to be made with. The TIs have fairly pronounced gaps, and the Chromes I use are virtually gapless.

Fender flats are also very smooth, Rotos are very bright for flats. Those are kind of unusual to me, I noticed the same thing when I bought a few sets a few years ago.

This maybe a little off topic... but isnt there a string between rounds and flats? Its like... ground. I had to look it up. I have them on my stand up. They feel really nice. I dont know what they'd sound like on a ric tho lol.

I had a set of "half-rounds" on a guitar once, I think they were GHS.

D'Addario makes "Half-Rounds.' Dean Markley used to make "Ground Round Wounds." Ken Smith has "Compression Wounds." Supermarkets have Super Lean Ground Chuck. The first three purport to be brighter than flats but less "zingy" than rounds. In my experience, TI flats are brighter than any of the xxx-rounds and a lot smoother. Super Lean Ground Chuck is smooth but doesn't last very long. Of course, you CAN eat it after the gig ...

One thing you'll notice with the Rotos, espaecially the big standard set which I think is .105 or so, they are STIFF. I'll be surprised if you don't have some significant neck adjustments to make, especially after a few days. I use the .40-.90 set and they're barely tolerable, at least to my wimpy old hands. Stiffest flat I ever used, other than the LaBella Jamerson set.

I had dead G strings right out of the box with two sets of Rotos. Pyramids are nice flats, the're in between TI's and Rotos as far as tension goes and sound great.

All flatwounds are dead out of the box lol

I use Dean Markley Blue Steels flats on my "other" bass and they are so smooth they almost look like they have no winding at all. I used to use Fenders on it and they had quite a noticible gap in the winding.

Also, Graham Maby from the Joe Jackson Band used Rotosound flats on the album "Look Sharp" and I never would have thought those weren't roundwounds on "Sunday Papers", "Got the Time", etc. Very bright flats indeed!

Jeffery, I disagree...

From what I hear, TI Jazz Flats are very bright out of the box. And the Fender cables I use are fairly bright for a couple of weeks - uncomfortably bright on the fretless J, but pleasant on the 4001. That "piano-like" sustain is very evident in a fresh set of Fender 9050's on my 4001.

Chromes also are bright.

>>Graham Maby<<

Cool player. I think he's played a lot with Marshall Crenshaw as well.