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Flats on a T-Bird?


Painy
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I'm just wondering if anyone here uses flats on a Thunderbird?

It's actually a 2013 Gibson EB5 that I'm thinking of putting flats on but it sounds very much like a T-Bird which I figured are a bit more commonplace so thought I'd be more likely to get a response.

Basically my sound is normally very bright and aggressive (fresh Dunlop Steel Superbrights on a precision and a jazz) but I got this because I wanted a contrasting sound and it is naturally much darker. I put my normal Superbrights on it initially but the bass doesn't really seem to produce the zingy highs anyway so I'm wondering if I should just embrace the dark side altogether with this bass and chuck some flats on it so I get a more complete contrast with my other basses.

I just wondered how other people had got on if they'd tried it?

Edited by Painy
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  • 1 month later...

Well I eventually got around to trying it after getting some LaBella Deep Talkin flats from @krispn .

At first it did sound a bit too dark and lacking in clarity for my normal tastes straight into the amp but I normally use this bass through a Lomenzo Hyperdrive on a low gain setting to bring out the mids anyway. Increased the blend on the pedal a touch more than my previous settings and it sounded lovely in the mix at this week's band practice. Very much that flatwound thump and no zing on the top but still plenty of articulation.

Lovely feeling strings too so all in all a very successful experiment!

 

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Flats tend to sound 'duller' but have more going on in the mid range so a Lomenzo pedal sounds to me anyways as a perfect compliment to what you are trying to achieve. I'm really tempted to put a T bird pick up in a p bass but with a Lull costing £250 it'd nearly be wiser to pick up an Embassy bass for what they cost new!

Edited by krispn
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1 hour ago, krispn said:

Flats tend to sound 'duller' but have more going on in the mid range so a Lomenzo pedal sounds to me anyways as a perfect compliment to what you are trying to achieve. I'm really tempted to put a T bird pick up in a p bass but with a Lull costing £250 it'd nearly be wiser to pick up an Embassy bass for what they cost new!

Try these!

http://www.eyguitarmusic.com/Thunderbird-Bass-Pickup-Vintage-Style-for-GibsonChromeNickel_p_2287.html

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Why not? Thunderbirds are old enough to have only been able to be fitted with flats back in the day! Bear in mind that generally the strings are thicker so you may need to file out the nut a bit. However faced with a similar problem I found that La Bella Low Tension Flats are much thinner than most and fitted without alternation to a bass set up for roundwound strings. Give them a try.

Edited by Grahambythesea
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17 minutes ago, lojo said:

It's always mentioned that flats where the only strings available in times gone by so does anyone know what the first albums with rounds on where ?

I'd hazard a guess it was something by The Who.

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I used flats for 20yrs but when I bought my T-bird a couple of years back I found the zing of the roundwound offset the incredible low end of the Thunderbird. My feeling is it would be too much, unless you went for the brightest sounding flatwound you could find & regularly changed them.

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