You would have to MIC the guitars in order for someone to really be able to hear the difference between flatwound and roundwound string choice. And back off of the amplifier distortion, plus digitally record at a bit lower gain staging.

I run my L5 with flatwounds, but I also run a great little "lawsuit" japanese ES-175 clone that features a spruce top with roundwounds. On the neck pups, both being basically mini humbucker designs, what comes out of amp only via tha pups doesn't really change in sound all that much, I find I can duplicate the old fashioned swing style comping (inside chord comp stuff) on either string style. Same goes with single note bop lyrics and phrasing. But heck, I can also get those same sounds using my Strat or Tele as well, more or less.

Anyway, the two recordings given, well, the gainstaging and amp distortion issues are different in each, with all that tone tweaking (perhaps in an attempt to mask), it could be either way to my ears.

The most thing that came with runinng the flatwounds was greatly reduced FRET NOISE. I don't find that to be a kill, though.

Consider that the great Freddie Greene used Bronzewound Acoustic strings on his D'Angie all those years sittin' there DEFINING "that" sound, with no amplifier, no less.

Or listen to any of the early Pat Martino stuff, where he bops out on a Les Paul strung with roundwounds - and it sounds like an archtop with f-holes and a single Bartolino pup...

"Run what ya brung" -- I firmly believe that a large percentage of the actual sound is the PLAYER, give or take.

Okay, I'll bite:

The Blues offering sounds like the Flatwounds to me.


--Mac

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