Seems to me that if you wanna "try flats" then you'd wanna
steer clear of any extremes that would be unrepresentative
of the general idea of flats.
Now I know my flats. I have very little use for RWs, so to me
flats are the real world, and not a special string, and so I'm
used to all the variety and the extremes in My Flat World.
OK. the extremes amongst generally available flats are D'A
Chromes and TI Jazz. Chromes are the brightest and rather
high in tension. TI Jazz are mellow but not muddy, and quite
low in tension. I'm ignoring compression wound and ground
wound strings here, sticking with real "ribbon wound" flats.
On the same note, I'll ignore black nylon flats.
Fender Stainless flats are easy to find, cheap, and kinda
punky sounding. Lotta folks may like them, but I'm thinking
those folks are not Warwick freaks. Roto 66 is also easy to
find, not too pricey, and a bit on the brighter and higher
tension side of the spectrum, but less so than Chromes. My
experience with LaBella stainless flats is limited but it spans
a lotta years ... and I'd say they're in betwen the Roto 66
and the D'A Chromes.
A new, well distributed, nicely priced flat that I play lately
is the DR Flats. I really recommend these as representative
of flats in general. Not muddy, not bright, nice hummmm,
average tension and surface feel. EBMM Slinkies are easy to
find and budget-friendly. I tried them a long time ago and I
no longer recall why I don't play them.
Rather than recommending a string cuz I looove it, I'd say
start at a logical starting point, near the center of the Flat
World [don't wanna fall of the edge .... ]. IMNSHO thaz Roto
66, or DR Flats. The DRs are more centered in the flatwound
spectrum, the Rotos being a bit brighter but nothing crazy.
GHS Precision Flats are also near the center of the spectrum
but once they're broken in, which doesn't take long, they're
prolly too un-brite, with just a hint of mud, for me to think
that Warwicksters would enjoy them.
