The bass guitar as an instrument, an industry and a recorded sound.
Section 04
Roundwound versus flatwound, the 1960s changeover, the pickups that changed the midrange, and the parts trade that keeps old instruments in service.
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Flatwound strings were standard on bass guitars until Rotosound's Swing Bass 66 set arrived in the mid-1960s and roundwound steel became an option — and then, slowly, the default. Covers the construction difference, the tonal consequence, and why flatwounds did not disappear but instead went to a specific subset of recordings.
The split-coil Precision pickup is two halves of a humbucker staggered along the string path — each coil sits under two strings, cancels hum and produces a mid-range peak that sits in the mix without equalisation.
The active preamp — first in the Music Man StingRay, then retrofitted to everything from Fender Jazz copies to boutique instruments — changed the relationship between pickup output and onboard EQ.
Fender's Custom Shop relic'ing process artificially reproduces fifty years of stage and studio wear on a new instrument — scratches, checking lacquer, worn frets, oxidised hardware — and the question of whether that is preservation or fabrication has animated the vintage-parts market for thirty years.