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I have a dreadnought style flat-top guitar (nothing special, although it has a good action) which I want to put flat-wounds on (I hate the finger scrapes with round-wounds).
I was never really into folk or anything so I won't mind at all if the sound changes a bit to the mellow side of things.
BUT I can hardly find any flatwounds specifically for acoustic guitars, either archtop or flat-top.
I have come across some by Galli (French) which have only a .47 low E which is a bit low tension for me, and also Thomastik Plectrum strings but these have a roundwound low E which I don't want.
Is their anything else out there?
Or would I be OK just putting Chromes or similar on the guitar?
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09-11-2009 11:19 AM
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Look for the D'Addario Flat Top strings. They're a ground/round style of string, with greatly reduced finger noise. You can get them in light and medium gauges.
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You might want to check out the Newtone Archtop strings, which are nickel wound round wound strings but with two layers of wrap. I've tried flats on a flattop acoustic and they just don't sound good in my opinion. The double wrapped nickel strings have less finger noise due to a thin outer winding and really mellow out a guitar in the same kind of way flat wounds do, but not so much that it kills the tone of the guitar.
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Do you want to use flatwounds simply because of the finger noise issue, or are you actually looking for a more mellow tone.
Originally Posted by Meggy
If it is purely a finger noise issue, you might want to try a set of Elixirs, either the nanoweb (brighter) or polyweb (more mellow). The come in 80/20 bronze (brighter), or phosphor bronze (less bright). They are roundwound, so they still have that crispness, but there is no finger noise. As an added benefit (to me anyway), they have a nice slick feel, real good for moving around on the neck
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Well the finger noise does really bug me, although I guess if I could make the flattop sound a bit more "archtopy" that would be good too. Might be a tall order I guess. The thing is I just love the feel of the flatwound strings on my jazz guitar so I'm not sure I would really go that much for anything else. It does not seem like there is much choice at all for this sort of string for acoustic guitars. So... I'm going to try putting a set of cheaper flatwound jazz strings on the acoustic to see what I think. If indeed it is too dull then I will admit my mistake and look at other options like those suggested above. The idea is just to have an easy to pick up guitar handy that I don't have to plug in to do a bit of practice here and there. We will see I guess... Originally Posted by riovine
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I have the same problem!
I'd never used flatwounds until I got an archtop and now that I've played them, I hate the feel of bronze/ wound strings. I was going to stick a set of chromes on an Ovation I have that I rarely play but lazyness is overtaking my curiosity....
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Well, I've just put the cheap flatwounds on it (11-50) and it's OK. The finger noise issue is resolved for me and it works quite well for practising chord melodies and whatnot on - I can play sequences of chords without the horrible cacophony of fingers scraping on the way to the next shape. It does NOT sound like a vintage acoustic archtop (surprise surprise
just a bit less bright really) nor is it a brilliant guitar otherwise, but then it never was... It's a bit tougher to play on than my jazz guitar, but I think that is quite a good thing as it should toughen me up a bit too!
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Yeah its not a bad thing to put nickel flats on there. I do it all the time with my flat tops. they didn't even make bronze strings until what the early 70's?
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I didn't know that fauves, but I think the cheap flats will do the job for me. It's not worth the expense of using anything more expensive either, at least for me, so there we are. Originally Posted by fauves
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I've read a very positive review of the "Nightclub" flatwound strings for acoustic guitars made in Italy by Dogal. The strings however are quite expensive (a set is sold at over 20 euros in Italy). Do you know any cheaper alternatives?
Thanks.
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I've never heard of a flatwound string set designed for acoustic guitars. Even the most expensive and prestigious set of flatwounds, Thomastic Infelds, don't bring out an acoustic instrument's better qualities.
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Garrison Fewell plays Dogals, and a champion for TI's he does admit he likes the Dogal's more. I've heard them live and yes, they do bring out a woodiness and transients that contribute to the acoustic sound. He plays his on a Benedetto and it sounds truly acoustic and they last a long time (like the TI's).
But I've also found that though maybe marginal to the listener out front, differences this subtle are felt much more by the player as a matter of taste and feel.
Bottom line in my pretty useless opinion: Forum opinions based on non empirical experience has its own value. That's fine. If you really care, you're going to have to A/B them yourself.
Some days I like Labellas, some days I like TI's, some days I'm playing and I don't really remember what I put on there. Too, the term "acoustic sound" is going to change depending on so many factours: the instrument, set up, pick, fingers, and truly, some instruments sound more ideally "acoustic" with different strings than the choice for a different guitar.
Grain of salt, informed perspective and first hand experience.
David
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It's not better or worse...it's just different.
The Beatles used flatwounds on flat top acoustic guitars quite a bit and it's very obvious in the tones they produce.
Chacun a son gout
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Thomastik Infeld Plectrum strings are a bronze flatwound A, D, & G with a conventional roundwound bottom E.
They have a nylon core for low tension. Never tried them tho'.
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Only other thing similar I could find would be D'Addario Flat Tops Acoustic Strings, which AFAIK are a polished round wound, so not quite the same.
You could always try a set of Rotosound Top Tape. 012's only but cheap!.
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I love the Thomastik Infeld Plectrums on my Larrivée acoustic, for me it's like playing an acoustic grand piano. Nice round tone, the strings are really neat and really light. Flatwound bronze!!
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No shiiiit. €30.39 with VAT https://schneidermusik.de/shop1/prod...ucts_id/145048 .
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D'Addario too makes semi-flats for acoustic guitar: D'Addario Strings : Flat Top Phosphor Bronze Wound : EFT16 Flat Tops, Light, 12-53
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Dogal's very kind customer service noticed me they have just opened their online store: Nightclub extraflat - Dogal Unfortunately the (Nightclub) strings are too expensive for me... Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
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The D"Addario Flat Tops sound good and have a very mellow sound. The polished string gets rid of string noise and they are very easy to play, similar to flat wound strings. I'm using 13's on my Ehlers guitar and really like them. Originally Posted by pubylakeg
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well i have put standard d'addario chromes like i'd use on my archtops on a western style flat top acoustic i teach with and gig acoustic (but plugged in) in gigs with......... try it ... like someone said it's different...you lose that typical flattop ring ...and the strings are more balanced...and of course it's softer in volume acoustically than bronze strings....BUT sounds very jazzy .......... to my ears it sounds more like a very loud archtop than a typical flattop ...in fact none of the archtops i owned sounded this loud NOT plugged in ...and i use a soundhole pickup so the plugged in sound is also very archtop like ...not exactly but closer to archtop than flattop plugged in tone.......
so yes try it ....maybe the expensive flat acoustic strings will be more flattop sounding ...
but if you like me ...more gonna play jazz on the flattop the cheap d'addarrio chromes sound decidedly jazzy acoustically and sound even more archtop plugged in with a floating/soundhole pickup
so test it ...don't take other peoples word for it .....maybe you love it maybe you hate it ...we all have our personal taste and the test will cost very little for chromes ... and if you hate it in 20 min you can change strings back to elixers or whatever you use and no harm done.
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I've "pulled the trigger" on a Yamaha SLG110S I found at a discounted price, and while I'm still getting to know her, I've already begun experimenting with strings. The Yamaha is a silent guitar, it has no soundbox, an undersaddle piezo transducer, and a 12v powered onboard preamp-eq with additional modulation effects. The bass and treble pots of course make her sound much more tweakable than that of a real acoustic guitar; with roundwound phosphor bronze strings, rolling off treble and bass gives her a mellower, jazzier sound. However the piezo is probably designed to make her resemble a dreadnought, that is, if I'm not wrong, to give her a slightly mid-scooped sound with powerful bass. So the goal of my experiments is finding the strings that give her more pronounced mids and less boomy bass.
Although I must say the roundwound phosphor bronze strings the YamahaSLG110S came with sounded good, I've put D'Addario Chromes on it. I have yet to understand how she sounds with Chromes (having owned a Yamaha AEX1500 I suspect electric guitar flatwounds don't sound very well picked up by a piezo), but I've already noticed that TI Swings would be a better choice because their sets have thinner, less overpowering bass strings. Unfortunately Swings have silk-wrapped ends that don't fit in the guitar's pinless top-loading bridge.
I've followed pubylakeg's and Bosko's advice and ordered D'Addario Flat Tops. Flat Tops hovever have thick bass strings, so I'm not sure they'll be the ideal choice (by the way, the very expensive Dogal flatwound acoustic strings mentioned above do have thin bass strings, like TI Swings). So I've ordered yet another set of strings that I wish to try, even if they're not flatwounds: D'Addario Gipsy Jazz (silver-plated copper wound on steel core). They have thin basses and seem to have richer mids (and trebles?) compared to phosphor bronze strings.
(The nice Gibson in this video is strung with GJs.)
The experiments continue...Last edited by Fidelcaster; 01-26-2015 at 03:35 AM.
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Update: I'm trying this set at the moment, and I'm very pleased with the sound of the wound strings; not so much with the quality of the two plain ones, but I think I'll replace them with heavier ones. Originally Posted by pubylakeg
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I appreciate the info here. I’ve been flat picking classic country music, and some classic rock, for about fifty years now. In my old age, I’ve become interested in finger picking, which is a lot of fun, so now I’m into Jazz. I’m seriously trying to decide between an Ibanez afk95 and an afj95. In the mean time, I bought a set of the cheap flat wounds .011 - .050 to put on my flat top acoustic to see how I like them. I haven’t put them on yet, so I was looking for feedback. I also experience random pain due to past injuries to my left hand, so I’m wondering how that might work out…
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Elixirs just attenuate finer noise. They don't get rid of it, period. Even the polyweb.
Using Elixirs and trying to minimize finger noise by adjusting your technique is great, it's what i've been doing quite a while BUT it is still very annoying not to be able to slide a chord shape wihout noise, this is beyond technique.
I recently tried TI Swings and i like them on my acoustic archtop (and i'm not so much paying "jazz").
Duller ? Fortunately no, i was actually surprised by the good definition in the lower register.
Less overtones ? Yes, definitely, and i actually like it.
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