When researching my new bass about a year and a half ago, I came across a web site that mentions flatwound, roundwound and groundwound strings. Groundwound being a combination of the two. I have not seen anything like this and whenever I mention it to someone they give a stupified look. What are the deal with these? Do they exist? If they do and someone has used them, how do they sound and where can I find them? Thanks.
I am so smart! S-M-R-T!
Check out juststrings.com. D'Addario, GHS (and a few others I can't remember offhand) offer them. They're basically roundwound strings which are then ground down about halfway so the profile of the winding wire is half moon shape. Flatwounds are wound with a metal ribbon or tape and are completely smooth.
Flats give a thuddier, mellower tone, where as the rounds create a really bright, crisp tone. Groundwounds or halfrounds (or whatever the manufacturers name them) give you a tone that's halfway in between the two; brighter but with a smoother feel for your fingers and less wear on frets and fretboard. I tried them at one point but couldn't get used to how smooth they were; seems I'd gotten used to the rough feel of the strings over the years to give me a tactile idea of how far I was moving up or down the neck. I went back to roundwounds because it was too different.
Then I got my Beatle bass and put flatwounds on it and really have never gone back to either rounds or half-rounds. I'm totally sold on the flatwound feel and tone now. :)
I even tried a set of nylon tapewounds on a Squier P-bass Special, trying to get a completely different sound to contrast to my Turser Beatle, but they sounded just like roundwounds because, beneath the black nylon outer wrapping, there's round wire all the way through - just like a roundwound.
So, it was back to flats for the P-bass too!
Ground-wounds are great! They are almost as bright as rounds, with less finger-slide noise, and less wear on your fingertips. I have them on my P-bass, and they give me lots of tone options.
I'm amused by DemoEtc who finds the nylon-wrapped strings too bright, but I've learned never to argue with flat-landers. 8)
Here is some techical mumbo-jumbo if you're interested.
https://www.guitarnoise.com/article.php?id=161
-Laz
"Flat-landers" I LOVE that! That's me alright, lol!
