Hello fellow bassists. I was just wondering if there are any basses that come with flats out of the box. I recently found out that Hofner sells flatwound basses so I wanted to know if there are any other companies that do this. Thanks.
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I’m not aware of any other than Hofner. I know the EUBs come with flats, but I don’t know of any EBs that come with them (other than Hofner).
Interesting question though.
One of the first things I do whenever I buy a new bass is rip off those dreadful round wounds and replace them with flats.
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I hope not 
(j/k)
More seriously, I doubt there are many. Statistically, a lot fewer players use flats than rounds. Flats are also a lot more expensive. It seems like an unlikely choice to ship a fretted bass with.
You might want to check fretless basses though; they are a more natural pick for flats.
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Sire Fretless basses come with flats out of the box.
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i would think most fretless would.
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Yeah, fretless seem like a natural choice.
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Oddly, my Ibanez fretless came with rounds
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just guessing, I could easily be wrong 🤷
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It was a good guess 
I would agree with you, all fretless basses SHOULD come with flats…
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You can special order a bass from BITE basses and they give you the option to choose round or flat. I would guess most bases come with rounds because they can play a wider range of genres and one can easily swap them out if your looking for that sound.
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I just checked out Bite Basses and they’re so cool. I’m definitely gonna consider them as an option when I buy my next bass. Thanks.
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Squires come with rounds too. Dopey.
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Yeah, fretless is the one case I can think of where it would seem to make sense to ship with flats.
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Many (most?) people are looking for that “mwah” sound on fretless and use rounds or pressure wounds. I’ve got ground wounds on mine because that’s what the previous owner put on there, they’re ok but kind of unremarkable.
I would NEVER play a fretless with rounds on it. NEVER!
Oh I definitely would; I was just saying I can see why they would come with flats. I’d probably swap them out too, now that the fretboard life myth has been widely debunked (it turns out flats wear them just as fast as rounds.)
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As long as you don’t do sideways vibrato or bends, there’s not that much wear. I have an ebonite FB too so it’s pretty bulletproof! If it gets scratched, you just buff it up and it looks like new again
I’m mildly tempted to try some flats or tapes on it but i didn’t get it to sound like an upright; I like that mwah sound… it’s kind of addicting when you play up high on the D and G strings and i’m saving the next flats for the precision bass, maybe… i’m pretty happy with how it sounds right now with rounds. The poor PJ bass with the flats gets no love anymore lol.
I’ve never heard a fretless that sounds like an upright. The only thing I have ever heard that sounded like an upright to me is a Kala U-Bass with the rubber strings. Now those things sound amazing.
Same with hollow bodies. They sound amazing, but they don’t sound like uprights.
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Not without some extra work and nothing truly sounds like an upright… maybe EZBass 
The Ibanez SRH500F sounds quite a bit like an upright and one of the ones from Godin but I prefer the semi-hollow Jack Cassidy (fretted) for an upright type sound. You have to kill some of the sustain (I like a little foam by the bridge) and play with the EQ a bit… I prefer playing up over the fretboard (because I’m better at that than palm muting) and turning the volume down a bit to attack it more. You can throw a bit of octave pedal on it too.
I wonder if drop tuning would help, to get the strings flubbier.
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