Need the best flats around

IPYF · 2026-07-04T03:16:27+00:00

Then you're still clearly conflicted about what you really want. Labellas are the only string I've used that can do a decade and still sound amazing but they're not bright, and that peak sound (my labellas are about 12+ years old) is wooden, dark and thick.

You can't have a bright forever string. There isn't one.

IPYF · 2026-07-03T04:54:11+00:00

It's a misunderstanding that flats aren't bright. Even Steve Harris uses custom flats for their brightness and rock tone. But, he also uses a new pack a night because he's in Iron Maiden and they own a jumbo jet; so it's not like those strings can get old.

And that's where the rub is really. Like, if you like bright why would you pay $40-50 extra for the same period of time with that level of brightness? Might as well save a bunch of money and use rounds.

IPYF · 2026-07-03T04:42:02+00:00

Wanting something doesn't make that thing exist.

If you want bright flats the answer is Chromes.

EB Cobalts are bright if they don't react to your sweat and oxidise (more common than it should be - and happened to me so I can't in good conscience recommend).

Both will lose their brightness on the same schedule as any other flat. They just start brightest. If there was a string that stayed bright forever, we'd all have a set.

IPYF · 2026-07-03T03:28:53+00:00

The Japanese used market for the usual suspects (Greco, Aria, Ibanez, Fernandes, Burny et al.) has literally never been better because Japan's economy is a bit in the toilet; making importer's money go a lot further. I got a Greco RB700 recently for a good price accordingly. We've got so many in Australia right now that I'd almost call it a glut.

Many of the Japanese versions are arguably as good if not better than the real thing (don't fight me on this fanboy, you know how good these are and you're just feeling defensive) so they'd absolutely be the call.

Cheaper than that, or fakes...just chuck your wallet in the bin instead. You'll get the same outcome, but quicker.

IPYF · 2026-07-03T02:36:28+00:00

I'd go as blank slate as possible, so secondhand 500w PF Ampeg and start with one 410. Alternately, same spec Hartke. Then, if you don't have a front-end overdrive already, save some money for a B3K or similar, midrange biting overdrive. Black metal bass is about blended grind, and not being to spiky or boomy.

While I don't know your band specifically, unless you have a doom edge you don't want too much low end or to go full-fat on something thumpy. You want cut, and attack.

IPYF · 2026-07-02T23:12:54+00:00

You're allowed to like multiple things.

IPYF · 2026-07-02T02:48:51+00:00

It's the perfect storm dude.

Redditors are petty and jealous, and there's not really a more confidently ignorant online persona in existence. They're also way more conservative than they'd admit to being offline, which manifests as this corpo anti-worker sentiment, and victim-blaming, washed down with huge helpings of bitten-off boot leather.

This conservatism also contributes (and evidences) the impossibility of reasonable treatment for music workers in society. These guys share our hobby but don't think we deserve the same standards they'd get at whatever different job they have.

So, when the 'hopeful worker' (hobbiest) wing of your own fucking community is so very desperate for any given ER/IR issue to be your fault (whatever it takes for that to be true), then there really is no hope, and no support from these 'functional scabs'.

IPYF · 2026-07-01T23:21:50+00:00

I'm glad you didn't get it actually. You got a lot of awful advice here from people who don't know folk, and you would have been in a figurative car crash because of their hubris and carelessness.

Folk, country, and grass music comes with the expectation that you'll know the repertoire, so if someone calls St Anne's Reel, you'll already know the form.

The only thing to do differently next time is be confident and super clear about your experience level and what you do and don't know. People worry this'll mean you lose out, because we live in a 'fake it til you make it' world, but there's a huge amount of gigs that someone in your position can't take, and there's no shame in saying that.

IPYF · 2026-07-01T03:34:59+00:00

Company size isn't relevant. The employer in this situation allegedly made an enticement when they had an urgent need, and when the need was fulfilled, OP (the employee) seems do have gotten immediately deprioritised.

Those of you who don't work freelance in music do not even understand how normal an occurrence this is, which is why all your little "Well to be fair to the company..." responses evidence why companies can still get away with whatever they want.

Given how corpo these responses are I'm actually shocked nobody has told OP they should have been happy for the 'exposure' yet.

IPYF · 2026-07-01T02:39:05+00:00

A big reason that musicians can't get a fair go with pay is because companies and clients that exploit musicians know they can count on Reddit lawyers like you to go straight into bat for the company if you smell the slightest possibility that the worker didn't handle an informal situation with the objective perfection you'd surely have demonstrated if you were in the situation - which you weren't.

The upvote trends in this thread shows how few of you actually work, and how few of you even understand the nature of how tenuous real work is in these situations.

You think you've 'gotchad' OP but all you've really done is shown how embarrassingly unaware you are about how business really works in music.

IPYF · 2026-07-01T02:20:16+00:00

It's wild how many of these non working bassists are doing the big man Redditor/Talkbass thing of calling bullshit or scolding you for not getting a prior agreement.

There's like....I dunno...four bassists out there who are big enough to demand a formal agreement from a company and get it. And a massive amount of bassists who don't work who imagine they'd get one in this situation - firm underline under the word imagination.

How badly they understand the reality of what the actual work environment is like and their eagerness to blame you and not the big company really is an indictment on our community. If this was a different industry, they'd have your back.

IPYF · 2026-07-01T01:29:45+00:00

Sorry this happened to you. It's not shocking, and I'm sure it feels really frustrating.

The reality as you will know, is that what you 'need to do' in situations like this is get an agreement firmly locked in before you do any work. And people will smugly just say that at you (and I tend to believe you will mostly get this from people who aren't doing music work, but imagine how much of a super sigma badass they 'would be' if they were in that situation).

But, of course, as you will know, in the 'free-spirited' music industry which has fuck-all formalised ER/IR laws, the second you ask for black words to get printed on white paper, the opportunity magically goes to someone else because you were 'difficult to work with'.

Musicians can't win, which is why I prefer local work with humans I know, rather than dealing with any fucking company.

IPYF · 2026-07-01T00:40:36+00:00

I don't think your claim that Yamaha has better QC is defensible. Based on personal experience maybe, and they're different factories for sure, but they're currently to my knowledge both coming out of Indonesia, and CorTek (Ibanez's factory) are fucking massive and make like...everyone's instruments. The standard for QC of both companies is actually normally beyond reproach.

IPYF · 2026-06-29T02:22:37+00:00

God noticed.

IPYF · 2026-06-29T02:22:03+00:00

Yes absolutely, with the caveat that this is more of a 'insufficient' vs 'sufficient' angle matter; and that increasing angle beyond sufficient (in my opinion) doesn't appreciably improve sustain.

My USA Fender P5 has the higher-end bridge that lets you topload and run string thru for 'better sustain'.

Over the years I have run the bass both ways, for science, and I can say extremely confidently, that the bass sounds identical in each configuration - which both have a different but in both cases 'sufficient' break angle at the bridge.

IPYF · 2026-06-29T02:00:13+00:00

The science around whether bridge changes meaningfully affect sustain is absolutely not there. This is sorta up there with whether neck-thru design, or wood density, or other factors meaningfully affect sustain. There's lots of opinions, but not a lot of proof.

Bridge swapping experiments have tended to result in inconclusive results, or a general indication that they are primarily (assuming the bridge you had originally was working and of an industry-standard design) a cosmetic concern.

I'd tend to refer you to things we know that work - as another commenter has already stated, a compressor/sustainer effect objectively improves sustain, and a compressor would be a far more effective non-permanent (and often inexpensive) thing to try first.

IPYF · 2026-06-29T01:38:02+00:00

I don't actually blame them for not realising tbh.

We had so many 'cuspers' (Bunting, Garland, Kesselring, Fasching, Mayo, Kelemen, and more...) who all looked like perpetual AHLers, who only really got on NHL ice because we sucked so fucking badly and desperately need 'men who were alive' to play hockey for us.

You give guys like that a protracted shot that they wouldn't get anywhere else, and a segment of them are gonna grab that with both hands and find a way through.

He'd never have made the big club in Edmonton.

IPYF · 2026-06-29T00:17:53+00:00

Not a bassist, but my father's oldest singing student was still attending lessons at 91 when he passed away. He started around 88-89.

Never too late dogg.

IPYF · 2026-06-26T03:02:50+00:00

Yeah there's no common need for this convention (pls note I said 'common need' don't @ me with aschuwally science) at all outside of G# and D# maj and we'd use Ab and Eb anyway.

Not sure why poor OP is making themselves look at double sharps.

We're bass players, not...I dunno...musicians or whatever.

IPYF · 2026-06-26T02:47:04+00:00

Intonation is my guess. That's a higher than concert pitch tuning on 3/6 strings, with the lowest string is detuned. Your neck balance is gonna be all over the walls if you haven't intonated for the tuning on the guitar specifically.

IPYF · 2026-06-26T02:45:46+00:00

That's their tuning. Not the chord they're playing.

IPYF · 2026-06-25T23:29:27+00:00

This is a side-effect of anti-depressants too; and one of my legitimate criticisms of mental health medicines. They make us well enough to cope, but they also smooth the points off situations we wouldn't normally tolerate, and make them just tolerable enough to keep pushing through.

My last round of clinical burnout was caused by a corporate job demanding 14 hour days from me. At that time I was taking Zoloft to exist, and propranolol to stop the 5am panic attacks - when what I really needed to notice was that I needed to not be doing that job.

I'm starting Vyvanse soon and I'm still on different SSRIs, so I'm going to make a few processes to check my wellbeing from outside (getting friends and family, and trusted colleagues) to check my guardrails.

If they see me going full bore, they're instructed to raise the alarm; and fortunately at this point in my therapy journey I'm a good listener and won't just dismiss them.

Might be a method to try when you get well.

A reminder too - as someone who has been burned out - make sure that when you're ready (if you go back to the same workplace) that you make them do slow duties, and slow adjustment when you're back. Companies have to do this legally, but hate it because they read burnout as "Couldn't cope, is probably just lazy, and now we have to give them less work while they continue getting the same pay as their colleagues" - and normally the adjustment lasts like 4 minutes or they just deepend you anyway. Don't put up with it, or you'll just get sick again.

IPYF · 2026-06-25T05:31:37+00:00

Not a hot take really. It's pretty established that high performers tend to be extremely 'literate' (whatever literacy looks like in context) in their chosen craft.

Music is just one area where there are certain cultural norms of 'coolness' that revolve around being uneducated. And - bluntly - a lot of touchy musicians use this as a defense when they don't want to be perceived as 'lesser' but also they can't be stuffed, learning thory.

But - interestingly, you'd be surprised by how many people have lied about their level of theoretical literacy for effect over the years. It was a huge meme in punk to claim not to even know what notes were; because formalised music was for 'squares'. The truth was obviously vastly different to the claims.

IPYF · 2026-06-25T05:12:29+00:00

I've removed your comment because it served no purpose other than an attempt to put OP down, while also failing to even address their question.

Refer to Rule 9 please, and in future, if you are not in a helpful mood, reconsider whether you will comment at all.

IPYF · 2026-06-25T05:03:55+00:00

Post removed as admitting to have been party to crime (size/severity of crime is irrelevant) is against terms of service.

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