Good quality flat wound strings for a strat?

mostly chrome. You need to experiment based on the the pickups and tone you are after. Chromes are the start point.
 
XploZiveToyz said:
LOL! One never needs to get in a big hurry about such things. Personally, I'm from the one string per night school.:guitar:
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Since this is the first Time I've put them on myself (the store always volunteered to do it in the past), It took me about 20 minutes per string (after watching a youtube video on what not to do). That included tuning it too.

I just ran out of time before beddy-bye.. :listeningmusic:

I also wanted to listen to the difference side by side as best I could. The old ones (David Gilmour blue pak) sounded about 3db louder, but that's ok. I get no string noise (sounds like unzipping something) on these flatwound ones which is what I was after. nice and smooth.
 
jokerone said:
Since this is the first Time I've put them on myself (the store always volunteered to do it in the past), It took me about 20 minutes per string (after watching a youtube video on what not to do). That included tuning it too.

I just ran out of time before beddy-bye.. :listeningmusic:

I also wanted to listen to the difference side by side as best I could. The old ones (David Gilmour blue pak) sounded about 3db louder, but that's ok. I get no string noise (sounds like unzipping something) on these flatwound ones which is what I was after. nice and smooth.
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:thumbs up:
 
Why would you want to put flat wounds on a Strat? I'm kind of curious. They're generally fairly dark, middy, and sort of "dead" sounding, and are generally used with semihollow or hollowbody guitars in a jazz context. They're the complete opposite of a Strat, which is a bright, chimey, attack-focused instrument.

The Texas Specials aren't actually all that hot, maybe a hair hotter than normal Fender pickups, but they're really just a bit brighter and glassier rather than actually louder. If you're trying to make your Strat sound darker, then maybe sticking with round wounds but going with a darker set of pickups would help - something like the Custom 69 set, which has more of a high end shimmer to them but doesn't have the pronounced upper mid bite to it of the Texas Specials. Or even just go for something that's seriously dark - the Dimarzio Heavy Blues 2 gets you almost into P90 territory, and while I thought it was a little dark for my tastes it recorded beautifully and might be right up your ally. It's hot, but that's nothing you can't fix with lower preamp gain and just setting the pickup lower...
 
He was after getting rid of a lot of extraneous finger noise.

FTR I use flatwounds on a my tele style and strat style guitars when I gig them. They actually remove some of what many consider too much bright and add some punch if you dial the amp right.
 
muttley600 said:
He was after getting rid of a lot of extraneous finger noise.

FTR I use flatwounds on a my tele style and strat style guitars when I gig them. They actually remove some of what many consider too much bright and add some punch if you dial the amp right.
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Hmm. Makes sense, I guess.
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
Hmm. Makes sense, I guess.
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You also have to factor in that in my case most of the gigs I do these days are jump jive stuff and blues bands with a full brass section so the guitar doesn't need to be screaming so that the front row have blood dripping from their ears... I like how I can pull a bright attack and a bit of punch from flatwounds but then slip back into the back line without having to worry too much. Mostly I do it with whats under my fingers and not pedals or effects. You just cant do that with bright strings.... But thats just my style... YMMV.. I would have thought that as a fan of the seven string you would have found the joys of flatwounds by now...;)
 
muttley600 said:
You also have to factor in that in my case most of the gigs I do these days are jump jive stuff and blues bands with a full brass section so the guitar doesn't need to be screaming so that the front row have blood dripping from their ears... I like how I can pull a bright attack and a bit of punch from flatwounds but then slip back into the back line without having to worry too much. Mostly I do it with whats under my fingers and not pedals or effects. You just cant do that with bright strings.... But thats just my style... YMMV.. I would have thought that as a fan of the seven string you would have found the joys of flatwounds by now...;)
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Haha, sorry Mutt, that wasn't me not being convinced, that was me thinking, "hmm, I never really thought of it like that" on a busy day at work while I was on here for a couple minutes. That definitely makes sense to me, against a full horn section you're going to want to be all midrange anyway, so dulling your pick attack a little is something I could totally see being useful.

I play with both a lot more gain than you (not a ton by metal or shred standards, but certainly by jump jive standards) and through a fairly dark amp, so for me it's a non issue. And I've always thought on a seven, if you're playing with any amount of gain, you actually WANT a brighter tone on your low strings, as it helps with the clarity under any amount of saturation. For cleaner jazz stuff, absolutely, but I'm sort of an atrociously bad jazz player so that doesn't really factor in...
 
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