Flatwound strings, great article.

[fronobulax]

@frono:
Ads too many to count. Scattered all thru the page and inline with text. I was using Chrome at my workplace. I don't know what their pop up settings are there. Here is a sample from Safari browser:

Perhaps not blocking ads at work is someone's way of encouraging you not to surf the net on company time and equipment?

 

[lungimsam]

Ha! Boss surfs with us on our downtime! It’s just that we are all geezers who only know how to point and click!! I don’t know if the couple younguns know how to block ads but I will ask them.

UPDATE:
The millenial working this weekend (who, incidentally, also likes the looks of the split coil Starfire better than the Bisonic Starfires) says he also does not know how to block ads.

 

[fronobulax]

Does the millennial know how to find and install browser add-ons or extensions? AdBlock and Ghostery might be places to start.

I will say your screen shot was pretty appalling. I could not get anything nearly that cluttered using Microsoft Edge "out of the box" which suggests your environment is a contributing factor. Maybe your IP address maps to a high disposable income location?

 

[lungimsam]

Every location in the USA is a high disposable income area!!!
I think I heard the statistic that only 10% of the people on earth make over 65k USD per year. Where are they..... probly mostly USA!!
No the millenial does not. I think he is in the top 10% though.
I'm too uninterested to do so either, as 99% of my surfing is in ad free territory!! I usually just x-out those articles and do a wikipedia search for my subject.
But back to the flats...I don't understand the tone chasing of the '60's tones. Just put on any flats on a Fender bass, get a tube amp, crank it up, and voila! You are any '60's bassist at the Cow Palace!! That's all they had to work with up until Dallas Arbiter and Alembic.
As an example: I have heard the Jack Casady tones, and all I am hearing is his bass thru an overdriven amp. His fingers do the talking on the rest. People also thought he had a Starfire on early recordings but turns out he was using a Jazz bass. So their ears could not hear a difference between the two basses, that shows. People initially not being sure which album he used the Starfire on is telling. Not even Jack can say if the Starfire was on one of the Airplane albums or not (Baxter's/Crown?). Its in the interview. He doesn't remember to what extent/if he used it.
I believe that some basses have a distinct sound. But : Tube amp, fingers, and pick your distinctive sounding bass, and that's all one can do.
I will say I used Chromes though because they sound the brightest to me of all the flats i have heard/tried. I like bright, but I am not trying to sound like anyone but myself either. Though I find a Pbass and a 4003 bass the most pleasant to my ears no matter who is playing them.

 

[fronobulax]

Every location in the USA is a high disposable income area!!!
I think I heard the statistic that only 10% of the people on earth make over 65k USD per year. Where are they..... probly mostly USA!!
No the millenial does not. I think he is in the top 10% though.
I'm too uninterested to do so either, as 99% of my surfing is in ad free territory!! I usually just x-out those articles and do a wikipedia search for my subject.
But back to the flats...I don't understand the tone chasing of the '60's tones. Just put on any flats on a Fender bass, get a tube amp, crank it up, and voila! You are any '60's bassist at the Cow Palace!! That's all they had to work with up until Dallas Arbiter and Alembic.
As an example: I have heard the Jack Casady tones, and all I am hearing is his bass thru an overdriven amp. His fingers do the talking on the rest. People also thought he had a Starfire on early recordings but turns out he was using a Jazz bass. So their ears could not hear a difference between the two basses, that shows. People initially not being sure which album he used the Starfire on is telling. Not even Jack can say if the Starfire was on one of the Airplane albums or not (Baxter's/Crown?). Its in the interview. He doesn't remember to what extent/if he used it.
I believe that some basses have a distinct sound. But : Tube amp, fingers, and pick your distinctive sounding bass, and that's all one can do.
I will say I used Chromes though because they sound the brightest to me of all the flats i have heard/tried. I like bright, but I am not trying to sound like anyone but myself either. Though I find a Pbass and a 4003 bass the most pleasant to my ears no matter who is playing them.

Jack has clarified the "which bass on which recording" in other interviews so I would not put too much stock in just one interview. No argument with the idea that fingers can compensate for differences in strings, instruments and amps. But I have found that with the only variable being which of my basses I am playing, the vintage Starfire approximates Jack's tone better than anything else. There are numerous examples on YouTube of people trying to sound like someone else and getting closer by replicating the equipment.

"high disposable income" is a relative measure in the context of serving up ads to a US based IP address and the rest of the world isn't really relevant.

 

[lungimsam]

To me Jack's tone sounds the same on everything. He has a very personal/identifiable and nice sounding "plung, plung" sound from his attack that I hear on recordings spanning different basses. But my ears may not be as good as others.

 

[DeArmond Hammer]

Nothing more to add but did anyone notice that the ads in this article were so intrusive (no fault of Guildedagain, of course).
For me, it is getting hard to read online articles these days as I feel I must visually sift thru adds and search for the link up to the next paragraph. In fact, in this article, one of the adds was inline and in the same font as the article.
Advertising is getting rediculous.

I'm using Firefox with the uBlock Origin extension on Windows, and I didn't see any obtrusive ads while reading the article. The uBlock Origin icon showed that the extension blocked about 30 ad links on the page as I was reading it.

 

[chefothefuture1]

I never got along very well with TI bass flats. Interestingly enough, TI flats are my absolute favorite guitar strings and I keep them on both my Gretsch 6191 and my Telecaster. Everything feels substandard since I tried them.

The Maximas are a totally unique flatwound and I hope you're just as happy with them as I am. I love how they punch and how warm they are, while still delivering the perfect dose of mids. Fingers crossed that my sizeable stash never runs dry!!

DR Legends were probably my favorite bass strings until I tried the Maximas. In comparison the DR Legends might have a touch more low end, but the mid profile of the Maximas sits better in the mix and they seem to have longer sustain. The DR strings have just a bit more tension and are smoother feeling. The outer windings of the Maximas have a very soft bumpy texture to them -- the best way I can describe it is to say it's almost similar to an orange peel when you run your finger along them.

You have NOS Maximas too? I have 80 sets of the 32" scale bass strings and use them on every short scale I own. They'll even fit on both of my '60 4000s.

 

[lungimsam]

80 sets of Maximas?

 

[edwin]

Alright, you guys with massive stashes of Maximas need to share!

 

[lungimsam]

I’ll trade a .110 1954 deep Talkin set for some maximas

The only flatwound set that fits a Starfire bass that sounds good (to me) so far are the TI Jazz Flats.
I did have a set of the Maximas but the low E was utterly dead. Could barely produce a note . The other strings on the set sounded great though.
Too bad Ernie Ball Cobalts aren’t made in medium scale because those are the best flats I ever used.