Flats vs Tapes | The String Shootout 🔫

In this clip, Scott and Ian analyze and compare the tonal characteristics of tapewound and flatwound bass strings.

#Shorts #Tone #Bassguitar

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[jonhmusic]

The brand of tapes makes a huge difference. Rotosound tapes are super dark and thumpy, but Labella tapes tend to be a lot brighter.

[alexeliadis]

Love tapewounds. Much less tension across the string than flats. Labella's all the way.

[jazzpunkt]

Tapes sound amazing on a modern active bass too.

[Simbosan]

can't bear the flappy rubber band sound of flats, but tapes just blew my mind on my fretless. Never going back to round wounds for fretless. Haven't tried them on fretted. So yeah if you play fretless I can't recommend tapes enough, game changing. They have loads of punch, they still have a good amount of harmonics and you can really lean into your acoustic bass impressions. Brilliant, totally sold

[quijadriss]

As a guitar player, I have límites bass experience. Have had a old g&l short scale. Put flats on it a few years back, sent me down a whole "maybe I should have taken up bass" phaze.

[TheWongKeys]

I have a fretless pbass with tapes.

What a sound, somehow its muddy and bright at the same time 😂

[Shred_The_Weapon]

My bandleader from Aug. 2001 to Sept. 2003 had a Peavey bass that felt like a brick yolk whenever I strapped it on. When we began working together, he had a set of tapewound strings on it, but he replaced them with flatwounds halfway through the time when we worked together.

[watermelone_man]

All blues, Miles. From the kinda blue record. One of my all time favourite songs.

[dallassurfersclub]

Very cool to see this. I'm considering tape wounds

[FullMetalAnus]

I use nylon tapes on my semi hollow starfire which definitely flavour the acoustic tone to sound way more warm and mellow compared to chrome flats.
I feel that you have to be a little more conscious with your muting with tapes.

Went for flats on my jazz bass.
As a workhorse bass, I feel flats on a solid body give more versatility for what I need it for.

[dacaveman]

And then there's me with the blasphemy of cobalt strings 🤣

[therealbeskarlorian]

Hey Scott. What strings are on the P Bass of Doom? I have standard gauge labella flats on my p bass currently and they don’t hold as much of a deep, rich sound. Are they heavy gauge, or another brand entirely?

[nylesfrench]

I keep Flats on my P-Bass, but dig tge sound of the Tapewounds. Also you can't lose when you Play "All Blues". One of tge Coolest Grooves on one of tge greatest Albums ever, regardless of genre. Long Live Paul Chambers. Mr. P.C. ❤

[erikavery]

I use Flats on my Jazz Bass and Half-Rounds on my Carvin Fretless. I’m thinking about using tapewound strings on my other bass.

[Lobsterino]

Remember guys, every song has a baseline, but not every song has a guitar part

[griegoalex]

I've tried daddario tapes and half rounds and they sound very similar to me but the tapes just feel so much better

[balloonman]

Always loved tapes, so much easier on my fingers

[markdaniels]

In my naïveté, I didn’t think anyone cared for flats and everyone used roundwounds. But of course it makes sense that many people DO like and use flatwounds… anyone going for a round Pop and R&B sound like Jamerson. It’s just not my bag; I’m a rocker so roundwounds all the way for me, for a trebly punch. My heroes all use rounds: Geddy, Squire, and Jaco.

[arnoldfernbladst]

I have flats on my Gibson and round-wounds on my J-bass. I've not heard of "tapewounds"
Can you give a short description of:
Round wound:
Flat wound:
Tape wound:
Ground wound:

[timothylarson]

Got my first set of tapes… shouldn’t have gone for lights… it’s quite a change from the previous set. Maybe in a few days I’ll have it dialed in.