Guess the bass! 5 way shootout!

[Bassmingo]

*FIVE WAY BLINDFOLD BASS TEST*

I present to you, five basses from my collection. But which one is which? Answer in the comments below. All basses were recorded direct with no processing and no input gain changes, this is the raw sound from each bass. They're all strung with roundwounds, and to my knowledge are all stainless steel. All volumes and tones are full, or pickup blends favouring both pickups, or Eq centred. The basses are:

A. 1998 Musicman Stingray H 3EQ maple neck (active)

B. Circa 1980 Westbury Track 2 with Dimarzio Model P and Hipshot Supertone bridge

C. Parts Jazz made from Japanese Geddy Lee body, Allparts Maple neck, 75RI pickups and Hipshot Kickass bridge, mid to late 2000's

D. 2015 Harley Benton B650 6 string (active) Black Walnut fretboard

E. Parts bass consisting of Squier P Bass special body (PJ config) and Harley Benton neck (unknown fretboard wood, unknown year)

One bass has a slight red herring going on, see if you can spot it. Kudos if you do.

Comment on which sounds nicest to you also!

So which one is which? GO!

bass_test.mp3

Edited April 6, 2020 by Bassmingo

[MrWalker]

Not much response here! 🙂

These tests are usually quite hard, but I'll give it a shot.... with all danger of making a complete idiot of myself! 

1: PJ-bass (E)
2: Westbury (B)
3: HB (D)
4: Stingray (A)
5: Jazz bass (C)

The red herring... I thought that sample no 1 and 4 was similar, so I presume the red herring is the Westbury?! 🙂

For this recording, I thought sample 3 sounded the best.... which is maybe the Harley Benton B650?! But that's probably due to the "direct into the computer" recording 😉

Edited April 7, 2020 by MrWalker
Swapped Westbury and PJ because I didn't read carefully enough... Thought it was a P and not a PJ bass!

[mcnach]

On 06/04/2020 at 11:31, Bassmingo said:

*FIVE WAY BLINDFOLD BASS TEST*

I present to you, five basses from my collection. But which one is which? Answer in the comments below. All basses were recorded direct with no processing and no input gain changes, this is the raw sound from each bass. They're all strung with roundwounds, and to my knowledge are all stainless steel. All volumes and tones are full, or pickup blends favouring both pickups, or Eq centred. The basses are:

A. 1998 Musicman Stingray H 3EQ maple neck (active)

B. Circa 1980 Westbury Track 2 with Dimarzio Model P and Hipshot Supertone bridge

C. Parts Jazz made from Japanese Geddy Lee body, Allparts Maple neck, 75RI pickups and Hipshot Kickass bridge, mid to late 2000's

D. 2015 Harley Benton B650 6 string (active) Black Walnut fretboard

E. Parts bass consisting of Squier P Bass special body (PJ config) and Harley Benton neck (unknown fretboard wood, unknown year)

One bass has a slight red herring going on, see if you can spot it. Kudos if you do.

Comment on which sounds nicest to you also!

So which one is which? GO!

bass_test.mp3 4.22 MB · 11 downloads

 

I'll play!

#1... I had it as a Jazz at first but after listening to all, I'd say it's the Squier PJ

#2 Westbury with Model P

#3 that one sounds very dark... I wasn't sure what it was, so after listening to the rest, I say it's the Harley Benton. Why so dark?

#4 Stingray, no question

#5 Jazz

 

I'd only bet money on #2 and #4. Basses #1 and 5 could easily be the other way around, although I think I get the PJ vibe on #1.

[Bassmingo]

Damn, both you guys got it spot on! It wasn't even a challenge!

The red herring was the Jazz, it's tuned DGCF so the riff was played at the 2nd position rather than open.

[MrWalker]

17 minutes ago, Bassmingo said:

Damn, both you guys got it spot on! It wasn't even a challenge!

The red herring was the Jazz, it's tuned DGCF so the riff was played at the 2nd position rather than open.

Actually I don't agree with you. 😊

It WAS a challenge. And great that you took the time to do it! Thanks! 

I think that the differences are subtle, but you covered the main genres of bass, so you made it a little easier that way. But all in all... The difference isn't THAT big.. It still sounds BASS! 😅

Thanks for taking the time to record it! 

[mcnach]

11 hours ago, Bassmingo said:

Damn, both you guys got it spot on! It wasn't even a challenge!

The red herring was the Jazz, it's tuned DGCF so the riff was played at the 2nd position rather than open.

 

Ah!

I thought you had a more difficult trick up your sleeve. I'm glad my ears still work

 

[gjones]

1 stingray

2 P bass

3 PJ

4 jazz bass

5 harley benton

[mcnach]

If you feel like doing another challenge, how about addressing the whole P vs PJ vs Jazz deal?

There are clear differences, but in the large scheme of things, they aren't HUGE differences, yet sometimes you see some heated exchanges (mostly at TalkBass , a bit more belligerent over there) about how a PJ can never sound like a P, and how a PJ with both pickups on sounds NOTHING like a Jazz with both pickups on, etc... 

How about... (and this is only a suggestion, please, don't take it like I am 'ordering' you to do anything  ) recording multiple clips of a few combinations, and see what people think? You can even create a poll (it's one of the options when you start a new topic) so that people can vote and the results will be there in graphic form for all to see until the end of days

I would do, say... three clips (all play the same riff, but three different tone control positions) of:

1) Precision alone (your Westbury?)

2) PJ with the P only.

3) PJ wit both pickups on full

4) Jazz with both pickups on full

5) Jazz with only neck on

 

The Jazz neck vs Precision should be easy, especially with that Model P which is pretty distinct and meaty.

The PJ vs Jazz with both pickups on should be interesting. They both have the same kind of character. The sound depends a lot, in my experience, on the actual pickups and how their relative heights are set etc... but yours seem good examples in that they are similar enough but there's still that little "no-se-que" [1] that differentiates them.

The PJ vs Model P will not be the best comparison as they're quite different pickups, but they both will sound like a Precision of some kind, so it'd be good to see the spread in votes too. [2]

 

[1] I don't know how to spell it in French, so I'll use Spanish instead

[2] My girlfriend has one of those PJ special basses. Really good! I actually bought it for her, but she chose it. She plays bass a little (that's how we met [3]) but she's very shy to play in front of others. One day she told me during one of her walks at lunch time she saw this bass at a local second hand store, and went in, and asked to try it... and she loved it, it was light, comfortable, the neck was perfect, it sounded great... and she was thinking of buying it after payday (two weeks away). I really wanted her to have a bass she liked, because she was using the first one she got and as it's often the case, once you become a bit more experienced and you know what you like, you realise your first bass was not the best choice. I looked at the picture she took, nodded, and feigned disinterest... but she was really in love with that bass, next morning she kept talking about it. I nodded politely, yes it's a beautiful bass and you should get it if you like it so much. Of course, what I did was go explore the area near her work place until I found it, and I bought it. I hid it for a month (waiting for her birthday), during that time she was kicking herself for not having bought it while she had the chance...  I loved it too. I actually borrowed it a few times to play gigs with it when she was in the audience (she likes to tell people "that's MY bass"  ). Completely stock. Very nice.

[3] She was a fan of my main band and I had seen her coming to a lot of our local shows for several months. We had talked a bit, but just hello and little else. One night during the break she comes to me to ask me about something I was playing. It turns out she had our first album and was learning to play one of the songs but when she sees me play it it didn't seem right. I told her that's because I changed the bassline compared to the recording  Anyway, we got talking and... 5 years later we're still talking about basses, only now we live together so we don't need to wait for gig nights

 

 

 

 

[NickD]

Just Googled the Westbury.... Interesting, I didn't know it existed.

I have a 1979 Westbury Standard 6 string and it's a beautiful instrument. So nice to play and sounds awesome.

[Bassmingo]

8 hours ago, mcnach said:

If you feel like doing another challenge, how about addressing the whole P vs PJ vs Jazz deal?

There are clear differences, but in the large scheme of things, they aren't HUGE differences, yet sometimes you see some heated exchanges (mostly at TalkBass , a bit more belligerent over there) about how a PJ can never sound like a P, and how a PJ with both pickups on sounds NOTHING like a Jazz with both pickups on, etc... 

How about... (and this is only a suggestion, please, don't take it like I am 'ordering' you to do anything  ) recording multiple clips of a few combinations, and see what people think? You can even create a poll (it's one of the options when you start a new topic) so that people can vote and the results will be there in graphic form for all to see until the end of days

I would do, say... three clips (all play the same riff, but three different tone control positions) of:

1) Precision alone (your Westbury?)

2) PJ with the P only.

3) PJ wit both pickups on full

4) Jazz with both pickups on full

5) Jazz with only neck on

 

 

 

 

 

Funny you should say that, I have two more basses that I left off this shootout:

2005 MIM Standard P with Dimarzio Model P

2015 MIM Standard Jaguar (my profile pic) with stock PJ pickups.

 

Perhaps they'd be better to do along with my Jazz? All three are tuned DGCF (well the P is CGCF, but close enough)

[mcnach]

2 hours ago, Bassmingo said:

Funny you should say that, I have two more basses that I left off this shootout:

2005 MIM Standard P with Dimarzio Model P

2015 MIM Standard Jaguar (my profile pic) with stock PJ pickups.

 

Perhaps they'd be better to do along with my Jazz? All three are tuned DGCF (well the P is CGCF, but close enough)

 

Why not? Or do all, it could be cool to hear multiple variations of the same type of sound.

I might do one too, once I re-install Reaper on my laptop... but right now I can't do many of those 'classic' options.

I have one Precision only. The other 'precisiony' basses are a Schecter Model T (PJ, active EMGs and the P is a bit closer to the bridge than normal), a Maruszczyk with a reverse Precision pickup but also a bit closer to the bridge than normal (and it's currently in bits as I was installing a MMSR preamp and then life happened... but it'll take me all of 15 minutes to finish), and a Sandberg VM4 (reverse P pickup). Oh and my girlfriend's Squier PJ, of course, but it's got Labella White Nylons on, so too distinctive a sound to fool anyone

Still... it could be fun. Then add the Stingray, the double MM Tele bass, the JJ (two J pickups close to the bridge)...