Jazz basses - they all sound the same

[skankdelvar]

3 minutes ago, Frank Blank said:

A true pioneer, sadly missed.

One of the good 'uns. We shall never see his like again.

[Frank Blank]

4 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

One of the good 'uns. We shall never see his like again.

Amen.

[skankdelvar]

Just now, Frank Blank said:

Amen.

Selah.

[Frank Blank]

3 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

Selah.

Gesundheit.

Edited December 29, 2019 by Frank Blank

[Paul S]

18 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

As long as you follow a great circle route. you'll always be getting closer to somebody else's Jazz. Keep on going and eventually you'll be getting closer to your own Jazzes again.

Here's how:

 

Surely that's a P in the top right corner, not a J? 

This is assuming a globe has corners, as in 'all 4 corners of the globe'.

[Ricky 4000]

I think fingernail length is an underrated and highly important factor in all this.

[Ant1972]

All mince pies taste the same and all taste like a mouthful of sand (except M&S Collection mince pies, which are lush!)... Discuss.

Of course the experience may vary depending on the quantity and quality of liqueur you are drinking with it.

[songofthewind]

44 minutes ago, Ricky 4000 said:

I think fingernail length is an underrated and highly important factor in all this.

This is heretical. Fingernails are NOT allowed.

[hooky_lowdown]

Just now, songofthewind said:

This is heretical. Fingernails are NOT allowed.

Yup, keep fingernails out of this.

[TheGreek]

33 minutes ago, Ant1972 said:

All mince pies taste the same and all taste like a mouthful of sand

I'd rather have the sand TBH.....Mince pies...yuch!! There's a good reason they're only eaten at Xmas!!

[Ricky 4000]

44 minutes ago, songofthewind said:

This is heretical. Fingernails are NOT allowed.

 

43 minutes ago, hooky_lowdown said:

Yup, keep fingernails out of this.

Apologies. I must have momentarily lost my mind. 😬 🤐

[skankdelvar]

1 hour ago, Ricky 4000 said:

I think fingernail length is an underrated and highly important factor in all this.

Hello! I'm Dr Fu Manchu the evil criminal genius and occasional player of the bass-guitar. 

Many people have asked me: "Dr Fu Manchu, how do you play bass given that you affect one exceptionally long fingernail, itself encased in a precious metal sleeve inlaid with the richest jewels of all Cathay?'

The answer is very simple. I keep the other three fingernails short and work on my stretching exercises. After years of dedicated practice I can now cover seven frets between my index and ring fingers, a feat at one time matched only by my old enemy and nemesis Commissioner Sir Denis Nayland Smith of Scotland Yard, his accomplishment being now moot since I pitched Sir Denis from the gondola of my command Airship to a screaming death impaled upon the pointy bit at the top of St Paul's Cathedral.

If you want to know how to grow an unfeasibly long fingernail and still play bass just go to my online shop and buy my book 'Increase Your Stretch in 28 Days Or Your Money Back' by Dr Fu Manchu (includes DVD and nail buffer) only £19.99 including shipping. 

Crazy Deal! Buy before midnight 31/12/2019 and I'll throw in a vial of forensically untraceable scorpion venom!

 

[FinnDave]

3 hours ago, skankdelvar said:

As long as you follow a great circle route. you'll always be getting closer to somebody else's Jazz. Keep on going and eventually you'll be getting closer to your own Jazzes again.

Here's how:

 

All I know is that the further I got from my J basses, the more I needed a P.

[skankdelvar]

37 minutes ago, FinnDave said:

All I know is that the further I got from my J basses, the more I needed a P.

Outstanding work, Sir. 

[Maude]

4 hours ago, Frank Blank said:

 A true pioneer, sadly missed.

Everything I've ever read of his has been truly fascinating. I'd been after a copy of The Monkey's Tail for years now but only had a quick browse of the Internet every now and then and could only find beaten up old copies for far too much money. Your post jogged my memory and I had another quick look, a copy is now on its way from the good ole US of A for a fiver all in. 

Thanks @Frank Blank 

[Frank Blank]

10 minutes ago, Maude said:

Everything I've ever read of his has been truly fascinating. I'd been after a copy of The Monkey's Tail for years now but only had a quick browse of the Internet every now and then and could only find beaten up old copies for far too much money. Your post jogged my memory and I had another quick look, a copy is now on its way from the good ole US of A for a fiver all in. 

Thanks @Frank Blank 

Bingo!

[Skinnyman]

5 hours ago, Ricky 4000 said:

I think fingernail length is an underrated and highly important factor in all this.

It's certainly been a topic of discussion between Mrs S and myself on more than one occasion

[Linus27]

21 hours ago, NancyJohnson said:

With all due respect to everyone who has posted (and no offense), the thing I have issue with is that just because someone owns a bass that looks like a Jazz Bass, this doesn't make it a Jazz Bass.  Same goes  Epiphone Thunderbirds, Rockingbetters etc. 

I've owned two Fender Jazz basses in my time (CIJ Geddy Lee and an Aerodyne), I've also played a few 60s and more copies than I can actually remember; none of them were exact replicas of each other, so where is the actual reference model?  It's like all these people saying that the new Epiphone Thunderbirds are the closest thing out there to a 60s Gibson Thunderbird.  Err, no.  They're just saying this stuff because a) someone else has said it, b) to justify their purchase, c) it makes them feel better about paying a twentieth of the price of an original model and because d) they've never played a 60s Thunderbird.

At the SE Bass Bash in 2018, Gary and I did a fairly extensive blind-test of about 20 basses and it was very clear the results just reinforced that nobody really had a clue which bass was being played - even their own - and that I still haven't been able to shake Carry On, Wayward Son from my head 18 months later.   Every bass pretty much just ponks if you just plug it into an amp and play it clean and every bass will come alive if you pass it through a usable pre-stage. 

After 40 years of playing, I'll let you into a secret. The real tone comes from your hands, technique, string choice, pickups and whatever you're plugging into.  Forget about 'tone' woods, fingerboard material, neck radius, how wide the neck is at whatever fret and so on.  It's a nonsense.  Just remember that your desired tone is not someone else's; find out how to achieve your tone and learn to replicate it on whatever bass you're playing.  If you can play, you'll make a bass sound decent to your ears, irrespective of what it is.

I would agree with 99% of this and certainly the part where it's in the individual players technique and fingers. This is very true and I've had people play my best sounding Jazz bass and it sound totally different to how it sounds when I play it. The closest was Silverfox but even then, he even sounded darker than when I play it. The only part I would not totally agree on is being able to recognise the difference between certain types of basses. Running everything flat and with the same strings, I would say that I would be able to recognise the difference between a Stingray over a Jazz/Precision and a lot of other basses but that is purely down to knowing the sounds of those basses. I wouldn't however be able to tell you if someone was playing a Thunderbird, a Status, Rickenbacker or an EB3. I did a similar test on my wife and played my two Jazz basses, my Stingray, my Precision and my Kala Ubass and she could pretty much identify each one.

[Beedster]

On 29/12/2019 at 13:17, Beedster said:

I realised recently that I can't, especially if it's my fretless Jazz versus my fretless Precision (both with flats). In fact I was going to start a thread about it but realised it would just have turned into this thread, which let's face it, is nothing new!

I should add that I find it slightly easier with fretted versions of Js & Ps as I tend to play rounds on the former and flats on the latter. 

IIRC there's a thread somewhere on TB which they discuss the isolated bass line to Sympathy for he Devil, and they can't agree whether it's a Precision or Jazz (this despite the evidence of KR playing a Precision in the film of the session). 

The line itself is well worth taking the time to listen to......

 

[Paul S]

38 minutes ago, Beedster said:

 and they can't agree whether it's a Precision or Jazz (this despite the evidence of KR playing a Precision in the film of the session). 

 

This reminds me of something my brother-in-law told me once.  He is a huge Shadows fan and a regular visitor to a Shadows discussion group.  One time they were arguing about what guitar Hank Marvin used to record a particular track, forget which now - was it the Strat or the Burns?  Most people reckoned the Strat but one fellow said he had analysed the sound and it couldn't have possibly been a Strat because of x,y and z that appeared on the read out and therefore it could only have been the Burns. 'Jet' Harris, who was at the time an occasional poster said he was there when the recording was made and it was the Strat.  They guy said, 'No, you are wrong, it was the Burns'.  😅

[Lozz196]

48 minutes ago, Beedster said:

IIRC there's a thread somewhere on TB which they discuss the isolated bass line to Sympathy for he Devil, and they can't agree whether it's a Precision or Jazz (this despite the evidence of KR playing a Precision in the film of the session). 

The line itself is well worth taking the time to listen to......

 

Sounds more P than J to me. Great playing and another case of a recorded pro bass line being much treblier/toppier than would be expect, given how it sounds in the mix.

[hooky_lowdown]

1 hour ago, Lozz196 said:

Sounds more P than J to me. Great playing and another case of a recorded pro bass line being much treblier/toppier than would be expect, given how it sounds in the mix.

This. It's definitely a P bass. The sound is fuller than a J, especially in the low end. It's this sound signature I like, and is why I prefer a P to jazz bass. The brightness of the roundwounds is what's confusing, with lots to high and mids which is characteristics of jazzes.

[ezbass]

1 hour ago, Lozz196 said:

Sounds more P than J to me. Great playing and another case of a recorded pro bass line being much treblier/toppier than would be expect, given how it sounds in the mix.

It certainly has that, what I call, Town Like Malice/Pump It Up tone, which says P to me.

[Muzz]

If that godawful sound doesn't teach the lesson that a bass is best EQ'd to the whole band sound and not soloed, nowt will... 😕🙂

[Pukie]

Jazz basses sound more like they used to do than they do today.