Why do Pros use a P Bass...

[probonopublico]

I'll keep my head down.  I've got a P and a Rick.  I've not got piles though.  Or an IPhone.

[Newfoundfreedom]

6 minutes ago, probonopublico said:

I'll keep my head down.  I've got a P and a Rick.  I've not got piles though.  Or an IPhone.

As Meatloaf said, "Two outa three ain't bad". 

[Skol303]

5 hours ago, tauzero said:

Could it just be that studio engineers are flipping crap, because live engineers appear to  be able to work with everything?

I'd hazard a guess that your well-considered hypothesis is wrong.

Engineers of all sorts can of course work with whatever instruments and musicians are put in front of them. But throughout the world of sound engineering, it's common to find that the 'classic' gear choices are often the most simple. And the passive P-bass seems to fit that category. Not much that can go wrong. No faffing around. Does the job well.

But if you want to rock up to a studio with your Ritter then I'm sure nobody would turn you away.

Edited December 30, 2018 by Skol303

[chris_b]

6 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Plenty of "pro" bass players are their own bosses and can play what instrument they like when they like - not all pro musicians are "wage slaves".

Certainly, in the US, unless you are at the Nathan East, Lee Sklar or the late Louis Johnson level you play what the client wants. Most of the top working session guys will get porterage to bring anything up to 6 basses to the studio. They will run through them and the client will choose. There are a lot of interviews with these players on youtube, and as a lot (most?) of the guys say, they'll usually end up on their late 50's, early 60's P bass with flats.

A lot of the UK session guys will play Overwaters and Fenders. Ian King, for instance, plays 4 different basses on his show. Not because he wants to, but because that's what is written.

If anyone in this thread thinks that bravado and "their" sound is of interest to the client, it's a good job none of you are trying to make a living in the pro session player world.

[chris_b]

6 hours ago, tauzero said:

Could it just be that studio engineers are flipping crap, because live engineers appear to  be able to work with everything?

Really? Do you think that there are crap producers and engineers working at Stax, Motown and almost every other studio in the US for the last 60 years?

The pro players can use what they want when they are working on their own projects. In the studio they are at work and their job is to turn the music into what the client wants. There seems to be a lot of confusion here about this simple fact. In the studio both you and the engineer are working for the client. That can also happen on many gigs, but as has been previously pointed out, where the sound engineer isn't calling the shots he is usually working for the band, where a totally different set of rules apply. In the 70's I knew a guy who wanted the best, so they hired Herbie Flowers. When the session started the bass sound wasn't right, so they asked him to take the foam off his bass. Herbie refused because that was "his sound". Another bass payer replaced him for the rest of the recordings. Herbie's lines from that session were over dubbed.  If you're the "best" sometimes you can get away with that attitude. Most session players can't. 

A P bass has a relatively tight range, mostly in the low-mids, and it can be easily EQ'ed in the studio where the tone stays away from the other instruments. If you turn up with "your" sound which tramples all over the other instruments you're not going to be popular and you're not getting called back. Good move if you want to make a living in the studio.

[mcnach]

21 hours ago, TheGreek said:

I don't actually own a P, though I do have basses with the p/up....I'm thinking about getting one

https://scottsbasslessons.com/blog/why-do-the-session-legends-all-use-p-basses-heres-why?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Ever+wondered+why+they+all+use+P+basses%3F+(new+lesson)&utm_campaign=Ever+wondered+why+they+all+use+P+basses%3F+(new+lesson)+(non-acad)

 

Ugh... one of the worst articles I've read in a while.

[Drax]

Do Guitarists (*spits*) have an equivalent issue in the studio? 

[JapanAxe]

Surely this is completely uncontentious (this thread having now reached its 5th page!) - most pro session bass players will keep a Precision as an option, in the same way that a pro session guitarist will keep at least a single-coil- and a humbucker-equipped guitar to cover the different sounds that may be required.

Personally I don't operate at these rarefied levels, but it was a fairly interesting video. Don't forget the purpose of these videos is to generate custom for SD's lesson packages...

[stingrayPete1977]

A lot of these sessions sound like they will be to create something for artists stuck in the era they came from in studios built around the same time. 

[Beer of the Bass]

3 hours ago, probonopublico said:

I'll keep my head down.  I've got a P and a Rick.  I've not got piles though.  Or an IPhone.

I don't have a P or a Rick, or an iPhone.  Lucky me...

[Al Krow]

9 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Plenty of "pro" bass players are their own bosses and can play what instrument they like when they like - not all pro musicians are "wage slaves".

 

2 hours ago, chris_b said:

Certainly, in the US, unless you are at the Nathan East, Lee Sklar or the late Louis Johnson level you play what the client wants. Most of the top working session guys will get porterage to bring anything up to 6 basses to the studio. They will run through them and the client will choose. 

My bad - I was making the schoolboy error of assuming that "pro" is not necessarily the same as "session" i.e. some pro bassists may do radical things like be in their own bands! But maybe that's just ancient history these days  

I completely agree if you're a session bassist you do what your client wants. 

 

Edited December 30, 2018 by Al Krow

[chris_b]

11 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

. . . . some of pro bassists may do radical things like be in their own bands!

I don't know that this still happens in the UK, (might still happen in the US), but there were many instances when the guys in the band weren't even allowed to play on their own records!

Bass players, it seems, were/are regularly at the mercy of the producer, band leader or record company. Another question, do we know that the guys in these bands made their own decisions or were they asked to "try" a bass suggested by someone else? There seems to be a huge conformity to Fenders in the "pro band" world.

I was once handed a real 1962 P bass at the start of a session. "Here, use this" was how the discussion went!!

[oldslapper]

One of my favourite bassists is/was Kenny Passsrelli. When I saw him playing a fretless P that was me converted.

He tells a story about turning up with his trusted P for an Elton John recording & being told by the producer (Gus Dudgeon) that they couldn't get the sound from it they wanted. They shoved an old hofner in his hands with an "unplayable" action and told him that was what he was to play. He didn't flounce out, just got on with it.

I spent most of my youth imagining this wonderful tone was as a result of me & Kenny's P bass love.... I didn't go out and buy a hofner with an unplayable action as a result, I still play cheap & nasty looking P's

Scott may be right but it's just his opinion...it's just advice, not the law. I don't know why peeps get so worked up about these things.

[drTStingray]

54 minutes ago, chris_b said:

I was once handed a real 1962 P bass at the start of a session. "Here, use this" was how the discussion went!!

I guess if you were Jamerson you'd have been entitled to throw it at the wall afterwards and exclaim 'never give me this pile of s**t to play again'!! And let's hope frets 5 to 7 on the G string weren't huge dead spots requiring playing a C scale from fret 8 on the E string. 

Id love to understand what this concept of 'sessions' bass player is in 2018 - I was led to believe this was a 1960s concept along with sessions players playing on pop band's songs. 

All I can say is back in my day (when a lot of people played Precisions or Jazzes but a lot didn't) we had exciting players like John Deacon, Andy Fraser, Jack Bruce - whose playing truly inspired people - none of them were the 'mere bass player' whose role could be taken at a moment's notice by a hired hack with a 'generic' bass sound.

If today's players are intended to aspire to being clones of Joe Osborne, the bass player out of the James Last Orchestra etc, then I think we have to worry for the state of music.

As has been said, many pro players are in bands - others play in musical shows (where the Fender P bass is not ubiquitous). 

I certainly did not aspire to play on Nana Mouskouri records when I started playing bass - I really can't see kids today being inspired by these concepts of bass players or their skills having a lack of worth and being worthless unless transferred to the lowest common denominator of instruments to allow people in the control room to cop off for a smoke after they spent 3 hrs getting the drum sound right. 

Trevor Horn said they spent days if not weeks getting the bass sound (including the sequencing) to what they wanted on Two Tribes. That sort of suggests the concept of the bass being a mere plug and play is a bit of an oversimplification. Now if you aspire to playing on Grandad by Clive Dunn then fine (but even Herbie Flowers played a Jazz)!

The idea of enforced choice doesnt sit well - smacks of totalitarianism!! 

Edited December 30, 2018 by drTStingray

[fleabag]

11 minutes ago, oldslapper said:

One of my favourite bassists is/was Kenny Passsrelli. When I saw him playing a fretless P that was me converted.

 

I loved his work on Joe Walsh's The smoker.  Sublime

[oldslapper]

37 minutes ago, fleabag said:

I loved his work on Joe Walsh's The smoker.  Sublime

Him & Dee Murray were massive influences on my love of bass 🤩

[Dan Dare]

This thread highlights some interesting (not to say depressing) differences in attitude. At the extreme, attitude 1 is "I have MY sound and that's what I'm going to use. So there". Attitude 2 is "What suits this piece/song? How can I achieve that?" A number of previous posts betray some pretty sad snobbery (jibes about "playing on Nana Mouskouri records", "hired hacks", etc, etc). I'd bet that most in the attitude 1 camp are weekend warriors.

It isn't just the sound of your instrument or what you play that's important. It's how it fits/blends with what else is happening and with the overall feel that the writer/arranger/producer of a piece wishes to achieve. There is an enormous difference between doing your own thing and playing for someone else. Part of being an adult is to appreciate that you and what you do are often not the centre of the universe.

The sound we like when we're playing at home/with ourselves (oooer) isn't necessarily the one that works best in a given context. I love my old J bass, for example, but I'd be the first to admit that it doesn't always suit. That's OK. If someone is paying me, I try to give them what they want. It helps me make a living and lessens the likelihood that I'll have to clean toilets in order to put food on the table. I can always indulge myself/be "creative" at another time.

If someone handed me a '62 L series P bass and asked me to use it, I certainly wouldn't turn my nose up at it. For certain things, they're pretty hard to beat. I guess I shouldn't say all this. After all, the more people there are with attitude 1, the greater the chance "hired hacks" like me will continue to be offered work.

[Drax]

 

20 minutes ago, drTStingray said:

Id love to understand what this concept of 'sessions' bass player is in 2018 - I was led to believe this was a 1960s concept along with sessions players playing on pop band's songs. 

All I can say is back in my day (when a lot of people played Precisions or Jazzes but a lot didn't) we had exciting players like John Deacon, Andy Fraser, Jack Bruce - whose playing truly inspired people - none of them were the 'mere bass player' whose role could be taken at a moment's notice by a hired hack with a 'generic' bass sound.

If today's players are intended to aspire to being clones of Joe Osborne, the bass player out of the James Last Orchestra etc, then I think we have to worry for the state of music.

As has been said, many pro players are in bands - others play in musical shows (where the Fender P bass is not ubiquitous). 

I certainly did not aspire to play on Nana Mouskouri records when I started playing bass - I really can't see kids today being inspired by these concepts of bass players or their skills having a lack of worth and being worthless unless transferred to the lowest common denominator of instruments to allow people in the control room to cop off for a smoke after they spent 3 hrs getting the drum sound right. 

Guess the hit factory isn't as prevalent now, but session work today is broadly the same, from friends I have that do it. 

Don't underestimate those pearls of inspiration that might turn someone onto bass from hearing a Nana Mouskouri(!) record - you don't have to look too far into Nathan East, Guy Pratt, Pino discography to find some very vanilla artists they brought their magic to. 

[dmccombe7]

Haven't read the full thread so my apoogies if stated before but is it not simply that the P bass is a tone that fits most styles of music and can be easily adapted using EQ.

I've had P basses in past and recently went for the PJ config to give me best of both worlds however most musicians i play with do seem to prefer the P bass sound over my Jazz bass. They reckoned it has more depth of tone than the Jazz bass i prefer.

That was until i played my Jazz thru my new Mesa rig and the depth of tone was there with the Jazz.

I'm now at a point where i just don't know the answer to this question anymore 

Dave

Edited December 30, 2018 by dmccombe7

[Lozz196]

4 hours ago, chris_b said:

If anyone in this thread thinks that bravado and "their" sound is of interest to the client, it's a good job none of you are trying to make a living in the pro session player world.

A very good point there, Chris. Reminds me of a band I was in a few years back, the bassist - I was on rhythm guitar at the time - had "his sound" and wasn`t for budging. We recorded some tracks and the only way to have "his sound" not decimate the songs entiely was to have him so far down in the mix that there really was little point in him having turned up for the session. Not saying a P-bass would have saved the day, but imo in all cases the sounds should fit the band, not the individual. 

[scalpy]

We’re musicians, he who pays the piper calls the tune. They want a precision, they get it.

[Hobbayne]

5 hours ago, probonopublico said:

I'll keep my head down.  I've got a P and a Rick.  I've not got piles though.  Or an IPhone.

I have a P bass, Piles and an iPhone. What do I win??😋

[mcnach]

19 hours ago, ped said:

Just because a producer is narrow minded and would rather I use a P bass so they can go and smoke a joint doesn’t mean I’m going to pander to them!!

 

Thank you!!!

I was struggling to find the right words, but you nailed it here.

I love Precisions (as my avatar may suggest), although I use Stingrays and PJ types mostly... If I use a specific bass for recording, it's because I want its specific sound.

Of course, if I were a hired gun and they tell me "hey, we want the bass to sound like a Precision" then I guess you use a Precision. But I don't think there's anything inherently superior about the sound of a Precision in any given style. The thing is the Precision has been historically used in a LOT of well known recordings, so it makes sense that any decent producer would be familiar with Precisions, possibly more than with other basses. However, to insist on a Precision, unless you really are looking for THAT sound, is either narrow-minded or lazy. Probably both. I think.

 

[mcnach]

19 hours ago, PaulWarning said:

glad you put a smiley after that statement might have thought you were trolling 

... about Stingrays? Never!

 

[Lozz196]

I must admit I dread the day a producer wants me to use a different bass other than my Precision. Mainly as if the result was much better then I`d want to use the same type of bass for live shows, which would then cost me a fair bit in buying new basses. Additionally I`d then be in a quandry as all our previous stuff was done on a Precision, and wouldn`t want to be swapping basses on-stage between tracks. I doubt the audience would notice or care, but my levels of OCD just couldn`t deal with not using the type of bass the track was recorded with.