P Bass - am I missing something??

[TheGreek]

When I first starting playing back in the 80s, because of the period of poor quality control, many of the 70s Fenders were pretty much unplayable and, as a result, Fenders of that era gained a poor reputation. This stuck with me.

When I went in to buy my first bass, eventually a Westone Thunder 1a, I tried (well my Bass player friend, Chris, did) several against the active Westone. To my ears the Westone was head and shoulders above the passive Fenders in the shop.

 I still don't own a "standard", passive P bass and I can't remember ever owning one. None that I ever tried ever impressed me enough to be parted with my hard earned.

I have several PJs (Bass Collections, a Squier Standard PJ), a custom with SimS pups which cover the whole spectrum of tones. I love to be able to combine the J and P pups for a richer tone.

TBH I still don't get why bassists limit themselves to just the P pup....

[onehandclapping]

I had a 58 maple p gold guard for 25 years and really tried to love it,but in the  end decided it was not for me.While I had it I bought numerous p basses to try,59 gold guard maple,59 slab gold guard,62,64,65 but kept coming back to my old jazz basses.I had a couple of mid 50s single coil p basses and did like them a lot.Out of all the p basses the one that I liked the sound of the most was the extremely beat up slab/ gold guard that eventually ended up in a friends studio.

[Geek99]

2 hours ago, Mastodon2 said:

I can't believe I missed "Leo got it right first time" from my cliche list! I particularly enjoy that P bass trope since his "first time" bass wasn't even a P bass. 

You forgot “accept no substitute” and “keep it simple”

[tauzero]

2 hours ago, Geek99 said:

You forgot “accept no substitute” and “keep it simple”

And "coming home".

I've had two Fender Ps, one fretted, one fretless. I now own zero Fender (or any other) Ps, and have every intention of keeping it that way.

[CamdenRob]

P Basses give the standard bass sound. Tried, tested and time honoured. 99 times out of 100 it’s what an audience (and a studio engineer) wants to see / hear. IMO a American Fender P is still the yardstick to judge anything else against.

Ive been through a few. Every time I don’t have one I keep telling myself I need one, as they are the classic bass. Then I buy one and it sits unused as I never use it in preference to my other basses I prefer the sound of. Then I sell it and the cycle begins again...

I think if I was trying to make a living from playing bass I would have one as they are just so much what people expect to see.

Edited August 31, 2019 by CamdenRob

[Defo]

You're not "missing" anything except maybe a really great bass for you - I've tried with a number of them and my advice would be to make sure you try all the options on the fingerboard, it makes a hell of a difference on a P.

[Lozz196]

That’s so true, I was pretty much the same as @CamdenRob only with Jazzes, kept buying/not gelling/moving them on. Then tried a Squier VM77, finally found the Jazz for me. So def worth pursuing and trying out as many across the ranges/prices as possible, not always the expensive ones that fit the best.

[dave_bass5]

On 29/08/2019 at 09:44, Osiris said:

As @Ed_S says, try it without the Sansamp. The classic P sound has that big low mid rich kick that sets it tonally apart from classic J and MM type sounds, but the Sansamp has a huge void in the mids that will be detracting from the classic Precision sound. A Precision through a Sansamp is a tried and tested sound that a lot of guys use but it's not the same as a P through a clean amp. Just don't scoop out those mids 😀

Spot on. Ive used a BDDI for years with my P basses, as i too felt it needed a bit of a kick. Couldn’t play without it. Since I stopped using it my tone has become brighter and in fact more ‘P’ sounding. Not as thick as with the BDDI, but as much as I love the BDDI tone it’s been clouding the basic tone. I’m happier now with just adding EQ, without the BDDI ‘blanket’ over it. Saying that I never used the blend knob past about 10 o’clock, so it wasn’t adding too much. Also my BDDI has a mid knob so I wasn’t missing any of those. 
 

Ive recently got in to Yamaha basses, and these sound much more open and modern to me, even though still in the same P bass ball park tone. A bit more clarity and growl, but still with the P punch. 

I have noticed the bass rig can make a huge difference as well. Playing through some of the amp sims in my Zoom or Helix multi effects has produced very warm , to way too bright tones. Also my GK head can get much brighter than my MarkBass or TCE BH800 heads. 

Edited September 1, 2019 by dave_bass5

[Al Krow]

On 29/08/2019 at 10:22, Lozz196 said:

I’ve found that in order for my Precisions to really cut through the mix I boost the upper mids at around 3kHz. The Sansamp really scoops mids so is removing a lot of the main area of the Precisions sound, may be why you find it’s not cutting through so well in comparison to your other basses.

Really useful tip, thanks Lozz.

[dave_bass5]

5 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Really useful tip, thanks Lozz.

And this is where the Q/strip was/is so useful. Ive got almost Jazz like growl from my Fender P by being able to play with the upper mid frequencies. You can even open the upper mids up so much that it sounds like its slightly breaking up. Never underestimate the power of a Parametric EQ lol. 

 

[Al Krow]

47 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

And this is where the Q/strip was/is so useful. Ive got almost Jazz like growl from my Fender P by being able to play with the upper mid frequencies. You can even open the upper mids up so much that it sounds like its slightly breaking up. Never underestimate the power of a Parametric EQ lol. 

So has the Q\Strip won a reprieve? Save you buying it back for a third time after you next sell it on 😀

Thread seems very relevant to me (so thanks to the OP for starting) when using Yammy PJ and previously finding that it was getting a little lost in the mix with my BF SC on a solo'd P setting, although that issue has completely disappeared with the more mid punchy Fearless F112 and its dedicated 5" mid-focused speaker.

However, whilst my DG M900 amp isn't as fully sweepable in the mids as your Q\Strip, it does still give a fair bit of flexibility and I've got the low mids set at 250Hz following @Dood's recommendation on another thread a while back, and the high mid switch will now be set to 3kHz rather than it's current setting of 1.5kHz when I'm using my Yammy PJ with the BF SC, following Lozz's recommendation earlier in this thread.

 

[Aside: speaking of DG M900s...I noted from another thread that you're loving the B7K sim on your Stomp and were thinking of getting a B7K pedal. The B7K = B3K in terms of drive circuit but it has a preamp & DI in addition. Well there is also a B3K circuit, preamp & DI all present on a DG M900 amp (and has a VMT drive on top). There's a DG M900 in the FS that has just been reduced from £650 to £500, whereas the B7K pedal by itself is nearly £300... just a thought!]

[dave_bass5]

No, the Q/strip (and most of my other pedals) have been shown the door by the Stomp. 
If the Q/Strip had a proper Drive section like the BDDI I would never have stopped using it. 
I said it before but I found both BF cabs I owned to lack mid punch, but I know others like them. This was with and without a BDDI I should add, and with jazz and P basses. 

You don’t really need a sweepable EQ, just something that can address the upper mids to bring out the clarity. My GK head can certainly go over the to[ with that, my BH800 can also open the tone up a bit more, but have it more control over the actual frequency seems to be the best option IME.

I have 3 heads, i couldn't Possibly buy another. Plus I’m hoping to just use the preamp section of the BH800 and let the Stomp do the rest. 

Edited September 1, 2019 by dave_bass5