300 vs 700 Quid Precision

fretmeister

I went back to steels on my P.

I prefer them to nickels when they get worn in and deadened a bit, and the tone control does the rest. I do still love TI flats, but broken in rounds with the tone down is close enough in a live setting, and it's nice to be able to turn the tone up a bit for a little bit of treble if I need it to cut through.

And for the 1 song that I need it for - steel rounds on a P gives that excellent Freddie Washington slap sound from Forget Me Nots / Men in Black.

Funkfingers

ICBM said:

What you will also probably find is that one of them suits the flats more than the other, so don't be reluctant to swap them round after the first try.

Another thing worth considering is fingerboard material. 

fretmeister said:

broken in rounds with the tone down is close enough in a live setting

I recall getting into a protracted Interweb disagreement with somebody on this topic. (Can't recall on which forum.) I based my opinion on listening. The other guy was one of those people who feel the need to "win" every thread - even if they know little or nothing about the topic.

thegummy

Funkfingers said:

ICBM said:

What you will also probably find is that one of them suits the flats more than the other, so don't be reluctant to swap them round after the first try.

Another thing worth considering is fingerboard material. 

That actually is something I thought of. If I had plenty of cash and was buying a second Precision in the £800+ range to just have as another permanent bass, I'd go for a RW fingerboard purely for the aesthetic contrast to my current maple one. But if I did that for the comparison it may well skew it.

fretmeister said:

broken in rounds with the tone down is close enough in a live setting

I recall getting into a protracted Interweb disagreement with somebody on this topic. (Can't recall on which forum.) I based my opinion on listening. The other guy was one of those people who feel the need to "win" every thread - even if they know little or nothing about the topic.

lol for me personally I don't feel that rounds with the tone down, even old ones, give the same sound as flats but I wouldn't argue about it and haven't even blind tested myself on it to see if I really can tell a difference myself.

I've always likened the advice to when people advise that soloing the Jazz neck pickup gives a P-like tone. It lead me to get a J as my first bass and found out that, while it might be a good tip if you only have a Jazz and want to get closer to a Precision sound, it's still quite different.

fretmeister

Rounds and flats don't sound the same. I'd be surprised if anyone said that TBH.

But it's close enough live in a mix, and these days that is good enough for me on a gig. I hate faffing with multiple instruments.
The audience won't notice any of these little subtleties and even if they do, they won't care.

I like simple on a gig. If 1 song needs a 5 string, the entire gig gets done with it.


Speaking of which in 2 weeks I have my first big band jazz rehearsal since the first lockdown started all that time ago.

I could go trad with the P or my Sandberg J type, but part of me wants to annoy and take the headless fanfret Ibby!  

ICBM

thegummy said:

lol for me personally I don't feel that rounds with the tone down, even old ones, give the same sound as flats but I wouldn't argue about it and haven't even blind tested myself on it to see if I really can tell a difference myself.

I've always likened the advice to when people advise that soloing the Jazz neck pickup gives a P-like tone. It lead me to get a J as my first bass and found out that, while it might be a good tip if you only have a Jazz and want to get closer to a Precision sound, it's still quite different.

To me - and accepting that they can't sound the same - it's that rounds with the tone turned down can get *into the rough ballpark* of flats, but flats cannot sound like rounds no matter what you do, so... *if you have only one bass and don't want to be constantly swapping strings, and the sound of rounds is more important to you than the sound of flats*, use rounds.

Personally I have two basses, one with rounds and one with flats. Although it is true that the one with flats also has no frets . On the fretted one, the sound of rounds is more important to me, so I use rounds and turn the tone down on the neck pickup (which really is a neck pickup) if I want that smoother tone.

Funkfingers

I've lost track of whether the object of the exercise was for the OP to:
1) make comparisons between string types.
2) to have two workable variations on the P Bass sound - one round, one flat.

Earlier, somebody mentioned Sandberg. They do a model with P and 'Ray type pickups. I can see a good argument for having roundwound strings on a bass like that and flats on the Fender.

thegummy

Funkfingers said:

I've lost track of whether the object of the exercise was for the OP to:
1) make comparisons between string types.
2) to have two workable variations on the P Bass sound - one round, one flat.

Earlier, somebody mentioned Sandberg. They do a model with P and 'Ray type pickups. I can see a good argument for having roundwound strings on a bass like that and flats on the Fender.

It was mainly number 1. Not to "try out" flats or rounds as I've played both for years, but to compare how each fit in to each track I make over a period of time.

Having said that, if the result is that sometimes I prefer rounds and sometimes prefer flats then I'd keep both.

fretmeister

You will keep both.

It is the way.

Bridgehouse

Two basses?


Two basses?

Eh?

If you are going to swap and change then surely you need multiple copies of the same bass:

1x fretted flats
1x fretted rounds
1x fretted nylons

1x fretless flats
1x fretless nylons
And if you want to destroy your fingerboard then 1x fretless rounds

thegummy

Lol I've never had any interest in nylons but I do really like DR black beauties that are quite heavily coated and are kind of some way in the middle between the rounds and flats I've used.

Fretless is for the future. I wish there was a Sterling fretless Stingray so I could be like Pino but there seems to be quite limited models around at any price, never mind my budget.

Bridgehouse

thegummy said:

Lol I've never had any interest in nylons but I do really like DR black beauties that are quite heavily coated and are kind of some way in the middle between the rounds and flats I've used.

Fretless is for the future. I wish there was a Sterling fretless Stingray so I could be like Pino but there seems to be quite limited models around at any price, never mind my budget.

As someone who moved to fretless pretty much full time, it feels like a totally different instrument at first. Um, and it still does

Funkfingers

Bridgehouse said:

fretless nylons 

Are those from Brentford?

I now have this horrible image in my brain of Bridgehouse and nylons.  

Bridgehouse said:

if you want to destroy your fingerboard then 1x fretless rounds

This is clearly an attempt to goad me into posting photographs of my 1978/79 Fender factory fretless Precision Bass. Too bad. The ruts are already hired out to local farmers for next year's new potato crop. 

fretmeister

La Bella white nylons are also awesome.

Bridgehouse

fretmeister said:

La Bella white nylons are also awesome.

This I agree with also