EB Cobalts are the brightest modern flatwounds known to man. If you're after an old-school tone, that's a puzzling starting point.

What a concept, definitely need to try this out! Great video, man!

I love hearing the process of fresh flats aging naturally with playing. Personal favorites are Pyramid Golds

Whatever you try to lose the zing , you cant beat age ,time and grime.

I actually WANT zingy flats!🤭

Never heard of doing this to Flats before. I’ve done it to roundwounds, although definitely not Vaseline. Just a little Hemp hand cream, and you can make a new set of roundwounds sound almost like flats in a matter of minutes.

They sounded same to me via by mobile speaker. I''ll try another round with headphones 😊😊😊

I don’t really hear much difference with the Vaseline, but maybe I should take out my earbuds and put on my headphones. That bass sounds great with those strings. Great playing too. I think new flatwounds are underrated. They have some of the snap and bite of roundwounds but with greatly-reduced finger noise.

The vaseline acts as a lubricant allowing your fingers or pick to slide off the string rather than grip it thus reducing the sharpness of your attack. A good silicone spray lubricant would do the same job with less greasy residue.

Who doesn't love a good greasy bassline?

Vaseline helps darken the tone a bit. I’ve done it myself. I recommend removing the strings before applying it. Keep your fingerboard gunk free. Get LaBella’s, too. Darkest vibe fresh out of the pack.

I though it was a bit warmer with the vasoline. Not as warm as regular flats compared to tape wound though.

Try applying the Vaseline using your fingers. The rag seemed to remove some of the Vaseline back out of the crevices.

Are you putting it on the fretboard as well, or just the strings?

New flats sound so cool I wish that tone lasted haha, I want *that*. If y'all want your flats broken in, I'll do it happily!

Sounds amazing either way, but I dont hear too much of a difference. It's barely noticeable in my opinion. A set of aged rounds always sounds amazing though.

I kind of like the crisp tone of new flats, however I don't like some flats that are just too bright in my opinion (Thomastik's, for instance, to me at least). I like Labella Deep Talking Flats. They sound about right to me straight out of the package. But, everyone's taste is different, which is good cause it promotes a diversity in terms of sound and styles.

I think with vaseline sounds better when muting the strings, otherwise without the vaseline sounds better to me.

If your new flats are zingy then you're using the wrong flats. My La Bella's have never sounded zingy.

I swear, I think bassist are the dumbest when it comes to tone creation. You can get better results using preamps (pedals) with multiple mid frequency bandwidths, and use them to cut a lot of the mids and treble to get a mellower and darker warmer tone. You can use those same preamps to give life to your strings and make them sound new again too.

you just need to play your bass with dirty hands

Just roll back the tone a few weeks. As they die off, roll tone up. Keep your strings clean ffs.. Thats so nasty.. I clean and oil mine after each use. If I want dampening. Kitchen sponge under the bridge. People that dont clean or change strings are just nasty animals. Disgusting.