Finger Scraping

Pam,

I (literally) just switched to half rounds to eliminate finger buzzing, which it has done, though they definitely feel “stickier” than round wounds. Have you always played flat wounds? If not, did it take awhile to get used to a different feel and/or sound?

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I’ve pretty much always played flats or tapewounds. I hate round wounds with a passion.

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Hail @gipsj!
I’ve had a very hard time adjusting to flatwounds on electric.
I’d love to have an extra bass that I could keep them on for just that flatwound sound, but I’m not there.

I dislike that stickier, choked feeling and sound of the flatwounds for most music I like to play. I keep roundwounds on mine, and then put foam or piano felt under/over the bridge when I want a muted sound.

Having said all that - when I’m in the studio, I LOVE to borrow a P-bass with flatwound strings on it. It has a unique and perfect sound that I can’t get anywhere else!

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I’m not a flatwound fan for the ones I have tried either, especially tone-wise. I also find the finger scraping “issue” with rounds (for me anyway) was 80% or so sloppy technique on my part, which got better.

Gotta say the tone on the ones in the BassTheWorld video above were by far the least dead sounding flats I have heard though.

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Hi kwt, thanks for posting about this. After reading your post, I have been working on my fretting hand technique. I am currently stuck in Module 13 Slapping, so I have been reviewing everything prior.

  • I am attempting to minimize the scraping (since I am a beginner aiming to be a badass, the most important thing to me was getting to the next note),

  • The heavy finger lift off from one string to transition to the next. Again, getting to the next note.

  • And softening my finger placement once I do get to the next note.

Wishing you the best as you work on your playing. I just wanted to share how your post influenced my “15 minutes a day that is actually an hour” rehearsing time.

–Liko

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Hello @liko.puha !

Likewise sir. It’s nice to know there’s someone else working on this.

Yeah, me too. What really helps me though is thinking about it like reading aloud or singing. When I read aloud or sing, in my head I am constantly reading ahead one or two notes. I try to do that with my bass, and it works pretty well. The idea is to “free my mind” to think while I play. If I can cache those notes while I read I can pay more attention to technique.

I think you have the right idea! If we don’t try to stangle the bass, and have some confidence in transitioning to different notes, maybe the drag on the strings can be reduced.

Ain’t that the truth!

Ken T.

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