my new SG reissue has arrived - which brand flats are you guys using on yours?

patman · September 14, 2009, 10:12:29 AM

that's what led me to to regular slinkies...i.e. they vibrate properly, intonate pretty well, and they lose the annoying zing relatively quickly, settling down to a great user friendly bass tone that lasts a long time.

Dave W · September 14, 2009, 12:44:16 PM

That's my string of choice now too.

Hornisse · September 14, 2009, 05:30:10 PM

I recently purchased a NOS set of D'Addario Slowounds and love them. I bought another 4 sets from the same seller. Since they are sealed in that nice package (as all D'Addario's are) they stay fresh. Plus i really like the different colors on the silks. I like the EB's too. Used them on my SR5 and they'll be on my DDII Bongo 5H when it comes.

Shirt on the way Mark! We'll see which package makes it to you first.

uwe · September 15, 2009, 03:46:51 AM

The slowwounds were deleted a few years ago, the official argument being that by then even fast computer winding had become so accurate that there was no relevant quality dif anymore. Have they been reintriduced or was this NOS?

I wish they's make XL Reds again. My string throughout the first half or the eighties.

Hornisse · September 15, 2009, 03:59:36 PM

These were NOS from Ebay seller Bass Place in Arizona. I bought 4 sets of .045 - .130 5 string sets and 2 of the .040 - .095 4 string sets. I used them when they first came out but they have been discontinued for a while now. He had them at a great price for 2 sets a pop. I never did try the XL Reds but have heard a lot of good things about them.

Aussie Mark · September 21, 2009, 05:04:19 PM

Quote from: uwe on September 13, 2009, 06:07:25 PM
Send me your postal address and I'll send you a fresh set of Pyramid "Gold" (they're not, just branded that way) nickel flatwounds in shortscale.

Thanks Uwe, package arrived today. Much appreciated! I owe you a few beers.

Hornisse · September 21, 2009, 07:49:21 PM

Uwe's package beat mine! Must have been delivered via ME-262!

Aussie Mark · September 21, 2009, 07:56:25 PM

Quote from: Hornisse on September 21, 2009, 07:49:21 PM
Uwe's package beat mine! Must have been delivered via ME-262!

Better a 262 than a V1 ! :-)

uwe · September 22, 2009, 09:37:58 AM

We had our beloved Junkers 390 ("New York-Bomber") dusted off for the drop-off.

Or perhaps the stylish Arado E 555?

Hornisse · September 22, 2009, 03:12:28 PM

Uwe, send me your address and I'll send a packages of Slowounds. That is if the .040 to .095 set are not too light!

Aussie Mark · September 22, 2009, 04:30:08 PM

Uwe, these Pyramid flats are very nice. I've always found that Chromes and TI Flats require a week or so of playing to settle down, but these were sweet right out of the packet. The tension is obviously just right for the SG RI, the truss rod required not adjustment after putting the Pyramids on, and the action is nice and low and buzz free. Did I get lucky and managed to buy a Gibson that was not made on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, or has their QA improved recently? Or did they hire an entirely new workforce from Japan?

Dave W · September 22, 2009, 04:49:21 PM

Mark, it's still hit and miss. I have no QC complaints - or any complaints - about my new Melody Maker guitar, which was actually made in 07. And I heard no complaints from anyone else who bought that unadvertised special. OTOH back in 07 I bought and returned a Les Paul faded bass which was badly sanded and finished.

OldManC · September 22, 2009, 04:52:22 PM

Uwe, is that supposed to be a 1940's era Manhattan skyline? Wow, you guys were optimistic!

drbassman · September 22, 2009, 05:07:45 PM

I used TI's, they sounded the best to me on my SG bass.

uwe · September 23, 2009, 06:15:04 AM

Quote from: OldManC on September 22, 2009, 04:52:22 PM
Uwe, is that supposed to be a 1940's era Manhattan skyline? Wow, you guys were optimistic!

Bordering on the belief in the supernatural more like! Yes, there were plans to bomb New York (there is even a claim that one of the Junker 390s made it to New York and back on a secret test flight and there was a confirmed test flight to Cape Town, SA, and back), even with a nuclear bomb or some bio-warfare "Vergeltungswaffe". I don't believe though that even with the Nazis there could have been someone who believed that the US' economic might could be bombed into submission, but a painful counterstrike was deemed possible to then force the US to the cease fire bargaining table. Frankly, that was pie in the skies and ignored how the US acts under such circumstances. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor too to bring the US to the negotiation table to accept Japan's desired influence in Asia, crippling the Pacific Fleet was deemed as a demonstration "we little yellow men can show you white colonialists where it is at, better talk to us and take us serious", well, we all know how the US reacted to that. Couple of years later the little yellow men had graciously served for nuclear testing and were taking bows on the deck of a US ship signing capitulation papers.

The Third Reich's initial Blitzkrieg successes, unorthodox tactics and modern to futurist weapons tend to overshadow that, at its core, the Wehrmachtsheer was an old-fashioned land army with Marine and Luftwaffe relegated to tactical support. Send in the midrange-bombers and Stukas, send in the tanks, conquer with the army units. Job done, jawohl! Next bordering country please. There was not even the faintest concept of a strategic navy (U-Boats excepted, they were comparatively cheap and quick to produce; building the super-battleships Bismarck - sunk by a WW I biplane - and the Tirpitz without a fleet to embed them in was a huge material waste, the lack of German aircraft carriers unfogiveable for any meaningful naval operation) or a strategic airforce like the US or Great Britain both had. The Wehrmacht was utterly ill-equipped for long-distance wars, laughably so, it couldn't even invade the puny and embargo-starved British Isles (while the Allies would invade North Africa, Southern Europe and the Atlantic Coast within less than two years!) nor conduct a long range war in North Africa or Russia (once German troops were at the outskirts of Moscow and supply lines overstretched), much less bring war to the US. Great military Allied achievements such as D-Day or the reconquest of the Pacific could not be replicated by the Wehrmacht because it hadn't been created and honed for those types of military operations.

All that Wunderwaffen mythology is just a small aspect of that. Wartime Germany simply did not have the resources and time to ever create a meaningful fleet of Arado delta wing jet bombers to sweep over Manhattan, all technology issues aside. And even if it had done so, that wouldn't have stopped the production of myriads of Liberty ships and B-17s. Except in bad sci-fi B movies, the US was and is inconquerable.