Gasp, I've just ordered a set of roundwound strings!

[drTStingray]

Well I’m astonished - I’m afraid I’m one of the Basschat members who was around in the 70s and who remembers only roundwounds available in the UK shops! You went and bought (usually) one bass string (to replace the one you’d broken) and it’d be a Rotosound roundwound. Every high noon and holiday (or if you’d got enough gig money) a complete set would be bought - which would also be Rotosound roundwounds. Even my new pre EB Stingray came with roundwounds (I know the pre 78 ones came with flats). 
 

So back in the day (the 70s and 80s) many things were of a decidedly previous era and extremely unpopular (include Shadows instrumentals from 1960 ish, pastel coloured electric instruments, certain 1960s fashions) and most certainly flatwound bass strings!!! 
 

They’ve only really come back into vogue since Pino reinvented himself in the late 90s, and all things 1960s became the ‘latest thing’, including fitting flatwound strings which have such high tension you need to be a champion weight lifter to play a bass shod with them 🤣🤣

 

Though I say all this, I have a Stingray Classic fitted with TI flats and I’ve been playing it a lot recently - most specifically after watching Scott’s Bass Lessons interview of Joe Dart - I’m afraid I come over like this about every six months as a result of hearing Joe Dart either on a new Vulfpeck concert or like this, just playing some of his stuff. The flatwounds definitely help with fretting hand muting. However I’ll no doubt be back to my Stingray Special with zingy roundwounds in a week or three again!!!

 

One thing I haven’t tried with the flatwound shod Stingray is playing it through my new MXR bass synth - the zingy roundwound one is great at the various preset sounds - I caused somewhat of a stir during setting up at an outdoor gig - the previous band’s keyboard player wanting to know where the very accurate ARP Herbie Hancock sound was coming from 😀😀 must try a flats fitted Stingray or Stingray fretless on it (Ian Allison’s demo on SBL absolutely sold me on getting one and it’s bloody brilliant 👍)