Flatwounds 2020

[Paul Seager]

Hi, I did some searching on this subject and the "most recent" discussion I found on this forum was a decade ago so perhaps things have moved on! I am thinking of moving to flatwounds. My interest is that I am increasingly playing hawaiian styles and notice the difference in tone on those old recordings and I assume that flats were the only strings available way-back-then in the 30's.

I've looked at previous discussions and folks say that flats have less sustain and sound "muddy" in comparison to roundwounds. But that was a decade ago. I recently strung two basses with flats (a Precision with D'Addarios and a Jazz with Thomastik) and I was surprised that they both sound so bright and, the string tensions are far less than the last time I tried bass flats. So maybe things have changed in the guitar world.

I found a local (to me) German manufacturer https://optima-strings.com/shop/en/elec ... lap-steel/ which surprisingly sells an 8 string set of nickel flats for lap steel! They describe this set as E13. This starts very close to my current sets (below) but the Optima set increases a lot on the low end:
Optima set: .014 .017 .018 .022w .025 .030 .040 .060
---- My A6: .014 .017 .022w .026 .030 .036 .042 .052
My EMaj13: .014 .017 .022w .026 .030 .036 .042 .056

The price is 30 Euros which is more than I pay when I order individual rounds (the only way I can get my gauges) but seems reasonable for investment to experiment.

However, this Forum has always been a great help to me and I'd like to hear recent experiences of Flats, regardless of manufacuturer! For reference my main instrument is a 1956 Rickenbacker DW16.

\ paul

[Mike Neer]

Paul, I have no opinion on it, really, but I have had many old sets of guitar strings that were not flatwound. Polished strings were available for slightly more money and they were meant to reduce noise. They used sandpaper and did it by hand but they still weren’t actually flatwound. Supposedly, Labella created ribbon wound flatwound strings around 1940.

[David Ball]

I ordinarily don't really care for flat wound strings on lap steel, but a few years ago I put a set on my aluminum Clinesmith (horseshoe pickup), and they're perfect on this guitar, so might work well on your Rick too. I had to buy individual strings, and as I recall they're D'Addarios. I don't imagine I'll use anything else on the Clinesmith.

Dave

[Cody Farwell]

I order single strings and make custom sets with Thomastik strings. I have used chromes in the past and other steel flats, but I think with flatwounds on guitar & steel guitar, nickel is the way to go. I used to get asked quite often at shows about what strings I use.
On my Fenders, I've had them on for about a year now. I do change the plain strings from time to time, & wipe down the flatwounds when I do.
They're expensive, but well worth it in my opinion!

[Erv Niehaus]

When I played some bass on a Fender, I liked flat wounds.
They're easier on the fingers what with the large wound strings.
Erv

[Jean-Sebastien Gauthier]

Did Jerry Byrd used flat wound? I think I seen that somewhere.

[Dustin Rhodes]

Did Jerry Byrd used flat wound? I think I seen that somewhere.

Half rounds I believe.

[Glenn Wilde]

Both of my 8's have flats, i made up a set of TI's for my Deluxe and the Mag still has the D'adarrios it came with. I like the TI's better but not enough to waste 40 or 50 bux.

[Andy DePaule]

I like flat wound strings a lot both for the feel and the warmer tone.
Have used them on my bass since the 60's.
I also like them on my steel string guitars and now use them on two of my lap steels.
Most steelers seem to like a brighter tone than I do so it's really a matter of personal preference.
If you decide to try them I like the D'Adderio strings.
You can make up a set at https://www.juststrings.com/guitarflatwound.html
Also check the forum shop. https://www.steelguitarshopper.com/categories/Strings/
I think Bob may have them there too and he would know the best gauges to use for the tuning and string length.

[Andy DePaule]

I ordinarily don't really care for flat wound strings on lap steel, but a few years ago I put a set on my aluminum Clinesmith (horseshoe pickup), and they're perfect on this guitar, so might work well on your Rick too. I had to buy individual strings, and as I recall they're D'Addarios. I don't imagine I'll use anything else on the Clinesmith.

Dave

Hi Dave,
I just saw this and I use them on both of my Clinesmith Aluminum lap steels also.
Not that the steels didn't already have great rich tone with the round wound strings that they had when I got them. Both of mine have the Bigsby style pickups.
I just wanted to give them a try and liked the result.
Andy

[Paul Seager]

Hi all, I thought I would revive this thread so to give you my personal feedback. I made the investment of €63 for two sets of the Optima 8 string Lap Steel flat-wounds and strung both necks of my Rickenbacker DW16.

I noted instantly that all the strings (even those plain) felt more ridged than the previous round wound set and that the lowest string, about 4 points heavier than my usual round wound gauge had far less definition. Both observations are contra to my experience of stringing my bass guitars with flats! I played with them for 3 months and decided to revert my A6 neck back to rounds, to get more definition in single string work and keep the EMaj13 neck with flats.

I use the latter tuning only for chordal work and the sound of the strings for complex chords was … well all I can say is different. When one played a chord, plucking the strings one by one, the chords felt and sounded more like a keyboard than a guitar, something like a muted electric piano. But playing a a three or four note chord in one pluck lacked the definition on the lower end. It was ok for comping in a band but it simply annoyed me when I practiced alone! This week I reverted the EMaj13 neck back to round-wounds and to my surprise I regretted it instantly! However I will give it a few weeks to to get used to rounds again.

My current thinking is that the prebuilt set was too heavy for me, even though many of the strings were actually lighter than the rounds I normally use but flats can feel heavier than the equivalent rounds. However this experiment is far from over. I have a couple of old German Framus steels and I installed the flats on those as they have a very different tone and feel compared to the Ricky.

As long as the plague continues and real gigs are non-existent I may as well experiment! In a couple of months I plan to buy a few “jazz guitar” sets and experiment with different gauges. I think if I drop the gauge of the wound strings by 3-4 points each string e.g., a .056 wound = a .052 flat, I may get to what I am looking for.

Hope you appreciate the feedback!

\paul

[Brad Richard]

Paul, The forum store has 8 string SIT sets that are "semi-flat". I put them on my 6 string and like them. Might be worth trying for comparison.
Brad

[Paul Seager]

Paul, The forum store has 8 string SIT sets that are "semi-flat".
Brad

Thanks Brad. I have tried SIT semi flats in the past and my memory of them was positive. I used to work for a US company and had them vshipped to a colleague for collection on biz-trips. But I no longer get paid trips to the US and having stuff shipped from the US when Europe, indeed Germany has several quality string manufacturers, seems unnecessary. But I appreciate your advice.
I will try strings from Thomastk and Pyramid next.

\paul

[Nic Neufeld]

I like the -idea- of flatwounds on a steel guitar. I EQ my guitars for a very warm sound (Fender amp basically with bass at max and treble at minimum) as well as rolling the tone pot a significant way off. So it would seem logical, a warmer, fatter sounding string would be to my taste. I put flats on one guitar but it wasn't a fair comparison, a cheap Morrell short scale (20.5") and it sounded...well, not great, but that guitar has never sounded that good.

The things I would be concerned about...going to flats only changes the sound of your wound strings, naturally...the high unwound strings would be unchanged, so that might upset the existing tonal balance between the strings (low strings get darker while high strings stay the same)...so while I could possibly flatten my EQ settings a bit with darker sounding strings, that would effectively make the unwound ones a bit brighter. Other concern would be chordal clarity. I love flats on my bass, but I'm not (err, usually) playing 13th chords on my bass, so if the strings tended towards flubby, muddy lack of clarity that would not be great. So maybe I should stick with what I have for now, until I feel daring enough to try flats. I have semi flat SITs on a guitar or two...but mostly am using the John Pearse C13/B11 sets. Honestly my Clinesmith still has the factory strings on it and I can't bring myself to change them. Maybe just dead and dark enough at this point that they sound right, ha!

[Carl McLaughlin]

I just installed a set of Pyramid flats on my 6 string Sho-Nuff pedal steel and they sound ok and way less string and bar noise.

[Paul Seager]

Despite my last post on this (wow! Was it really in 2021!) said that I would continue to experiment, I have reverted to round-wounds and given up on further attempts with flats. Once COVID was over and the band started again, flats never seemed get the tonal definition to come through a band's overall sound.

But I'm glad to hear you are trying a German make Carl. Pyramid is a respected manufacturer and I do buy their strings occasionally, being one of the few companies that offer strings as singles.

Enjoy playing with them!

[Phil Iacone]

If you're interested in the 1930s sounds, round wound strings made of Monel are the authentic approach.
I've been searching through scans of 1930s-1940s Gibson catalogs on Archive.org, and aside from bronze strings for acoustic Hawaiian guitar, all electric Hawaiian strings offered by Gibson were their Mona-Steel strings which were wound with Monel, the same exact strings used for their electric Spanish guitars at the time, and these were round wound.

There's a renewed interest in Monel strings these days, the most popular are the Martin Retro sets. You'd have to piece together a few sets to create the right gauges for your steel, but that's as close as you can get to the 1930s.

By the way, Gibson's 1939 catalog has a list of what they deemed the most "popular and practical" tunings for Hawaiian guitar at the time: seventeen different tunings listed for 6-string Hawaiian guitar, ten tunings for 7-strings, eight tunings for 8-string, and an E7th/C#m for 10 strings.