Correct Strings Yet Again (re flatwounds this time)

[cockroach]

Maybe Hank replaced the original Fender strings on 34346 when they wore out or broke, then had to put the paper in the nut slots to stop rattling British replacement strings, as seen in a few photos?

I would guess that many types of strings were always available in America back then - Gibson, Black Diamond and Fender at least all came as roundwounds as well as flatwounds.

I would think nearly all new US electric guitars came with flatwounds from early on, as they were considered to be THE professional high tech (hi-fi)solution to string noise. Watching and listening to the old US TV shows like Town Hall Party, you can see and hear the top players like Joe Maphis, Larry Collins and others using flatwounds. There's something about the way TV/stage lights reflect on smooth flatwounds..

Not all guessing on my part either, for when I landed in Australia in 1963, there were always American strings available, in flat and round, often new old stock.

I can remember buying flat and wound Black Diamonds for instance. The UK light gauge roundwounds came out here a few years later, but shortly before the USA brands.

[Bill Bowley]

'Roach,

As I remember it, ye olde Black Diamonds were the common string in the early '60's in Sydney, and IF you could afford them a set of 'flat wound' strings to get rid of the 'string noise' was fashionable for the 'Surf Sound' for a while - but the flat wounds went 'dead' a lot faster than the rough (round) wounds so most of the guys I knew stayed with the Black Diamond rounds. I think it was 1965 I bought a set of VOX rough wound, and they were really rough and a grey colour, not bright - cut deep grooves in my 'pinkies' too! I only had one set and gave them away as too expensive (about twice the price of Black Diamonds) and no real advantage.
Those were the days..............

[cockroach]

Bill,

I also remember that the American La Bella strings were made of that dull dark grey wire and were very coarse and rough on the fingers- particularly the heavy gauge.

Not everything was better back then!

I often wonder whether young kids today would bother taking up guitar playing with the low standard of gear that was all that affordable back then- awful necks, high action, and stiff, rough, finger punishing strings, weak unreliable, often microphonic pickups, knobs that did bugger all, and rickety crackling buzzing low powered amps- with everybody plugged into one amp including vocals etc etc!!

Fancy being able to afford to buy say, a nice squier Strat and a Roland Cube, small Fender or Vox amp with inbuilt effects back then?!!

[tommybird]

My 1962 strat came with round wound not flat or tape as they were called then.

Cheers Tommy.

[geoff1711]

I got my first guitar an acoustic Rosseti in 1959 and it had wire wound strings, however, about 9 months later I got my first electric (a Broadway) and that came with flat wound, my local guitar shops around Ilford were Berry Pianos, Freedmans and Ron's Music, they all reckoned that these were far superior, and after those on the Rosseti they felt great.

At that time a friend's elder brother was in a band he played a Burns (the little 3 pickup job that looked like a cricket bat) through a Copicat into a Watkins Westminster, they had Apache, FBI in their set and sounded for all the world like the real thing. he played then on flat wound because they were the fashionable strings to play on.

By the time I'd joined a band in '64 The Stones, Who, Kinks, Beatles were chart topping, the Shadows were playing Burns and stringing had reverted to round wound, by then I had a speaker cab with two 12" Fanes, a Linear amp and a Copicat, I was playing an Eko Florentine and a Hofner Galaxy, the Galaxy with flatwound nailed a Shad's tone to a tee, the Eko with round wound did the others.

Geoff

[jimuc]

Geoff,
My Hofner Galaxy came with tapewounds and I still have tapewounds on it to this day (not the originals I might add)
Cheers JIM

[franz]

For what it's worth, my Hofner Galaxy which I got in 1963( A 14 year old couldn't afford a strat then) had flatwounds as standard. When I finally got the strat (secondhand of course) in 1965, it came with roundwounds although I imagine they must have been changed several times (The guitar had been round the block and some!) My experience of flatwounds, and i have some on a Joe Pass jazz guitar, is that they come nowhere near the spikeiness(is that a word?) required for the pre 63 shads stuff, easpecially compared to the incomparable 12 gauge Golden Sixties which I have on now.I've got a post somewhere else about those because i can't find any more.

Franz

[Bluesnote]

That guitar in your pics is almost the same as the Hofner I had as my first electric in 63/64. Mine did'nt have as many switches and the tremolo arm on my model was a broad flat piece of chrome plated metal that came to a point, kinda like a knife blade shape, I remember it being pretty cumbersome to use at the time.
But all the other features are the same, I cant remember the model name and number, I've got an old pic somewhere that I'll now need to dig out as you've got my curiosity going. It also came with flatwounds (which I played til they became all broken up and threadbare, then I'd change em) and I did get a pretty good shads sound out of it also through a small Selmar amp and Copycat echo unit (or so I thought at the time ). I think it cost me around £40 which at that time was a fair bit of cash to be paying. The Copycat which I got a bit later cost £38 .10 shillings.
Couple of years later it was gone and I'd entered the world of semi-acoustics, an AC 30 top boost, fuzz box and a whole lot of noise plus that amazing new invention.....Gibson extra light 9 guage strings with crisp clean sound and really bendable, and an unwound third
And the Shadows were but a distant memory. Til now.

[fullerton62strat]

I got my first Strat in August 1962 - ''Flamingo Pink'' fitted with round-wound strings! I was frightened to death of it when I first had it as it was nothing like the Futurama's I'd had before. It was beautiful!

In the early sixties we used Monopole, Cathedral and Gibson Strings. Fender, Gretsch in mid sixties along with Rotosound. Fender strings were hard to get hold of at the time so we used to boil the old strings in water and put them back on. They sounded great again, but were inclined to suddenly break! Usually the third wound string as the wrapping was very fine and it would wear out on the frets. Sorry for the trivia, but if you were one of those guitarists in the sixties you'd probably remember these things. Hope your all still gigging too.

As they became so common it didn't bother me much when I sold it in 1968 for £57 when I got married!!!! Aaaagghhhh..... Also sold my 1962 Vox AC30 supertwin faun-coloured amp and cab for £40 at the same time... now I'm really hurting!!

Luckily I ordered a Vintage replica (now called Fiesta Red - and I've still got the coloured catalogue) of my 62 Strat when my local music shop told me in 1982 that they were contacted by Fender about orders for the First re-issues. I ordered mine immediately (£600 then) and got it in August, 1982, with a very low 4-digit serial number. V00600x. If anyone gets offered one or has chance to purchase one, they'll be getting an identical guitar to that of 1962. I think they changed slightly in 1984, so 82 to 83 are the ones to look out for. The body shape is totally different to other Strats, its lighter, and the pick-ups sound virtually identical (very powerful and bright) to my original and even had the wax sealer that they used to use covering the pole magnets. The neck is very slim in depth (like the original) and is so easy to play. Its my main axe and I still use it for gigging today. Its had a professional re-fret though after all this time.

So, the main part of this load of trivia is the point that Strats came fitted with Round-wound strings when new in the early 60s - at least mine did. Its possible they were strung or re-strung by the agents in the UK as air travel would have warped the necks if they had been air-shipped tuned to concert pitch - who knows!

Interesting subject though.
John

[Bluesnote]

Its amazing how we all talk about our guitars past and present
You dont get this with any other instrument I dont think. It must be the best thing to take up musically, there's such a differences in guitars, styles of music you can play on them, sound you can get out of them etc.
I'm as crazy about them now as I was at the tender age of thirteen, and still get a buzz when I enter a guitar store, like a kid in a toy shop
The feeling of nostalgia I get when guys post about what they have and what they once had never goes away.
I'd have had a really dull boring existance I think had I not taken up such a brilliant pastime in my life.
It can be costly, it can be frustrating and so on, but its like an addiction that you can never shake, In a nice way.
The sixties was like some kind of magical time where there were bands everywhere doing a multitude of music styles.
So many influences to learn from.
I always thought it was probably just me that had it so bad, but after signing up for in here, I see that you are just as afflicted, some much much worse than myself
And the wives have the cheek to suggest that we love these bloody guitars more than we love them
Well of course we bloody do
Its a love affair nothing else can touch

Back to the strings....I think it was Monopole flatwounds that I put on my Hofner in those days, but like I said, they would come apart after a bit of playing and as you say especially the wound G. I started off with Cathedral for the acoustic I had as my first guitar, and they were awful as far as I remember.
The Gibsons appeared in the mid to late sixties as far as my memory serves me, and I still use them to this day. Never liked Fender strings as I found they lost tone and pitch not long after putting them on, and broke fairly easily sometimes.
I've tried loads of other makes but always end up going back to the Gibsons.