flatwound 10's on a Sweet 16

[JimmyTheSaint]

I went to buy a set of flatwound 11's to replace the 12's on my Sweet 16 because going from my solid bodies with 10's to the jazz box is real annoying. I have to be playing the 12's all the time or else I get way too unused to them, making them a pain in the ass. For convenience, I had fallen into using my solid bodies for jazz too, making it even tougher to switch to the Sweet 16. Nothing like jazz on a Rich Bich. So the dealer was out of 11's, but had a set of flatwound 10's. I didn't even know they made those, so I tried them, and this guitar now has a whole new lease on life. Yes, you lose some bass, but as a jazz box it still sounds great. The big surprise, though, is how good the Sweet 16 now sounds with distortion. With the 12's it was a one-trick pony, and I was probably going to sell it, but it's now much more versatile and not a challenge to play when switching from a solid body. The acoustic sound is better (to my ears) with the 10's too. I once tried roundwounds on it, which sounded so good with distortion I looked into getting another HRW in the bridge position too, but Ren said that's not possible. And it had a shitty jazz sound with the roundwounds too, and a worse acoustic sound. What's more, roundwounds required raising the action quite a bit, so I was resigned to using only flats with this guitar, and was probably going to let it go until I tried these flat 10's.

[Dick Seacup]

Sounds like you had a lucky accident with the 10s.  Funny how changing something seemingly inconsequential as strings can change the character of a guitar, eh?   I noticed some changes just switching brands of strings!

 

I stick with flatwound 11s on everything but acoustics (which get PB roundwound 12s).  The Milly DC showed up with some exceedingly light roundwounds on it, though, which were a PITA to get used to, but had me thinking...then I realized I didn't like the tone.   I still need to get that thing setup with flats and cleaned up so I can take pictures. 

 

Nothing like jazz on a Rich Bich.

 

Hey, (one of) my hero(es), Ed Bickert, gets the tastiest jazz tone out of beat old Telecasters!  Why not a Rich?  Use what works, I say. 

[Gitfiddler]

Changing string guages is the cheapest tone change/modification out there. 

 

Plus with a solid wood archtop, the acoustic and electric tone will be more dramatically altered by ANY changes...strings, pots, pickups, picks, etc.  They can be very sensitive and responsive..................like women.

[JimmyTheSaint]

I stick with flatwound 11s on everything but acoustics (which get PB roundwound 12s).  The Milly DC showed up with some exceedingly light roundwounds on it, though, which were a PITA to get used to, but had me thinking...then I realized I didn't like the tone.   I still need to get that thing setup with flats and cleaned up so I can take pictures. 

 

You use flats on all your solid bodies? That's radical. Why, exactly? If it's for tone, it seems to me flats make a solid body less versatile tonewise. I did once try roundwounds on my Sweet 16, and it was a disaster because I had to raise the action a lot. Tonewise it didn't offer much except a better distorted sound and a louder acoustic sound for practicing, but the clean sounds were much harsher. I don't have a tone knob, and eq'ing didn't produce as good a sound as flats. But, to my ears, I'd never narrow down my solid bodies' range of sounds by putting flats on them. And my basses out and out suck with flats. I've tried that many times because flats on a bass have such a nice smooth feel, but I always quickly revert.

 

The flat 10's on the Sweet 16 threw the intonation way off. Actually the A string is way off relative to the other strings, and I could not come close to intonating the guitar with the new 10's. I thought that was strange and I talked to a couple of people about this and they concluded I must have gotten a bad A string. Unfortunatey no one in town has the same, or any, set of flat 10's (D'Addario Chromes ECG23), so I went and put a Nashville bridge on just to intonate the guitar until I get a new set of strings and replace the A. Even with the Nashville, I had to angle the bridge a bit toward the nut on the bass side (weird) and adjust the A's saddle almost all the way toward the nut while the D's is all the way toward the bridge. I.e., the Nashville gave me barely enough adjustment headroom to accomodate these strings, so apparently the A string, not the guitar, is bad.

 

It's kind of an interesting idea to put a tune-o-matic bridge on this archtop. Has anyone tried this and do you have an opinion of the results?  I'm having the stock ebony bridge adjusted a bit, so I don't have it right now to A/B to be sure of the differences. I wonder if it makes this guitar more Gretsch-like. Gretsch has even sold their Country Club with a solid spruce top, making that guitar spec closely to the Sweet 16. One person dissed me for sacrificing the traditional jazz sound by putting on a tune-o-matic, but the 10's already did that, making this guitar more of a hybrid than a true jazz box, but a little more versatile while still jazzy enough to my ears, for a bass player.

[Dick Seacup]

You use flats on all your solid bodies? That's radical. Why, exactly?

 

Yes.  It is?  Because I like them, I guess.  The first guitar I put flatwounds on was a tele-clone of some sort (maybe a Cropper Classic) and I thought it sounded pretty cool.  Then I put them on the next guitar I restrung (probably a Hamer Studio) and on and on.  I haven't noticed any limitation caused by the string selection.  My limitations are directly tied to my inability to play beyond a beginner level (but I love guitars!).  I don't gig, so I guess I'm not terribly discerning.

[JimmyTheSaint]

Do you use distortion, or primarily clean sounds? Do you prefer the sound of flats with distortion to roundwounds?

[Dick Seacup]

To be honest, Jimmy, I play mostly unplugged.   But, when I'm plugged in, mostly clean sounds.  My attitude is that distortion will cover a multitude of sins, and I'd rather hear my clams and wrong notes.  However, there are times when crunchy, loud guitar is good for the soul.

[JimmyTheSaint]

If you use distortion, flatwounds would be a huge sacrifice because a lot of the usual distorted voices depend on trebly harmonic content. There are good distorted tones with a less trebly sound source too, but I find that limited. If there was some way to swap strings in under five minutes (like I can do with pickups) I'd definitely try flats on my solid bodies. I like to use a Womanizer tube preamp for distortion (see http://www.damagecontrolusa.com/). Great range of distorted (and clean) sounds that you can play at any volume level you prefer, and this box preserves the guitar's dynamic response in a way other distortion boxes don't. Distortion just means more voices available from the same instrument, with the added bonus that it can cover for sloppy playing if you want, but you can also get caught committing sins with distortion too. For example any solid-topped hollow body (like a Sweet 16) will feedback like a madman if you're not careful to control your string muting.