Anyone else not get on with PJ basses?

[Doddy]

I'm using a Fender PJ bass for a buge chunk of my gigs lately. The way I use it is that essentially it's just a Precision, but I can turn the Jazz pickup on if I need any extra bite for playing any harmonics or slapping.

[Paul S]

I like what a J pickup adds to a P but miss what it takes away even more so, generally, if I encounter a J bridge pickup on a P-type bass I'll ignore it.  I actually removed one from one of my Yamaha BBs to the consternation of one or two BB fans here  

 

I do have 2 basses at the moment with twin pickups, albeit not P/Js, where I actually prefer the bended tone.  I have a Retrovibe Renegade faker with Rick-style pickups.  For me and that particular bass the sound I like is everything full on and the pickup selector centred.  It isn't as clanky as a proper Rick but, actually, I think that is in its favour as I prefer the mellow tone more.  But it still has that odd hollow Rick thing going on.  Also I recently acquired an Epiphone Thunderbird IV Classic Pro - the one with a through neck and Gibson pickups, on which the controls are VVT.  With that I stick everything on full then just back off the neck pickup V a touch - there shortly comes a point when there is a sudden sweet spot, almost a boost.  That is the where the money is for me.  Haven't used it in a band context yet (Friday, can't wait ) but feel it will claim it's place just nicely.  

 

As an aside - having owned, sold and missed a Gibson TBird I thought I'd take a chance on the Classic Pro, believing it would somehow be a lesser thing but sufficiently TBirdy to scratch the itch without spending Gibson money.  But you know what? - I can't actually tell the difference in how this Epi plays or sounds compared to the Gibson.  I am sure there must have been corners cut with hardware and electrics but clearly not where it matters.  If I were to stick a Gibson truss rod cover on it (which I won't) I bet no-one would be able to tell the difference.  Quite an astonsihing bass, all things considered - especially the price   But nowt to do with PJs, so apologies for the ramble.

 

 

[Jonesy]

1 hour ago, Paul S said:

As an aside - having owned, sold and missed a Gibson TBird I thought I'd take a chance on the Classic Pro, believing it would somehow be a lesser thing but sufficiently TBirdy to scratch the itch without spending Gibson money.  But you know what? - I can't actually tell the difference in how this Epi plays or sounds compared to the Gibson.  I am sure there must have been corners cut with hardware and electrics but clearly not where it matters.  If I were to stick a Gibson truss rod cover on it (which I won't) I bet no-one would be able to tell the difference.  Quite an astonsihing bass, all things considered - especially the price   But nowt to do with PJs, so apologies for the ramble.

 

 

 

The Classic Pro is a beast of a bass for not a lot of dosh. Those pups have a really dark rumbly growl to them that I absolutely love. Tis the only bass I regret moving on.

 

4 hours ago, chris_b said:

I've got 2 and love them.

 

IMO a PJ is always a P, but with extra tone shaping options.

 

I've got TI flats on my Mike Lull PJ5 and a piece of foam under the strings. I've been playing this bass for 10 years, as I say, I love it.

 

I was never really a fan of PJ's and thought they'd be a jack of all trades and master of none - it can do a P and a J sound all in one bass, right? Nope.

 

After picking up a G&L SB2 I came to this way of thinking and reckon its the best outlook - essentially its a P with a bit more bite if you need it. I wouldn't use it solely with the J pup, but I wouldn't do that on my J either, so I'm no so fussed.

[Vanheusen77]

Interesting points! I find myself going back and forth with this. Sometimes I like it and sometimes the difference in timbre between the strings annoys me and I use the P only.

[jd56hawk]

With so many better options, they're completely off the radar.

[MichaelDean]

I feel like I've had the opposite epiphany!

 

I didn't like a p bass on its own or a jazz bass on its own. The Revelation PJ I picked up the other day is an experiment that's really paying off for me. I'm loving the P full on with a bit of J rolled in. Gives it a bit more clarity to my ears.

[AndyTravis]

Just have all the options to hand.

 

out of shot passive J and fretless…

 

I must say if I was stuck and had to have just one bass…erm. 
 

P/J would do it - specifically a passive bb

[AndyTravis]

To point out something, I’ve read that post back and it comes across as an arrogant bumhead.

 

Ive been in a position where I’ve gone from 26 basses down to two, and now at 8.

 

I’m currently very fortunate to have what I have - lucky. Granted, it’s not a rack full of Fodera, Alembic and Wal…

 

And If it all went belly up tomorrow, I’d keep the bb414 which owes me £150 but I wouldn’t sell for £1500.

 

A passive P/J works for me. In response to the OP.

 

 

Edited February 22, 2022 by AndyTravis

[Guest]

For me it has been mixed results. Most of the time I use a PJ as a P bass only. However with the right pickups the J does add a nice colour and bite to the tone. Many of the PJs I have come across don’t seem to have a well paired set of pickups. Particularly most of the Fenders I have owned that were a PJ configuration. This despite owning and playing a Boxer which works if I keep the J pickup around 30% volume. At the end of the day I think a stacked J would work best for me. 

[SonnyBassPlayer]

I actually haven't played a PJ that I truly liked, but I didn't try many. I really love P and J tones and when I had a PJ in my hands I was maybe expecting just too much.

Edited February 22, 2022 by SonnyBassPlayer

[Machines]

9 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

To point out something, I’ve read that post back and it comes across as an arrogant bumhead.

 

Stop it, that's my job.

[AndyTravis]

Just now, Machines said:

 

Stop it, that's my job.

As you were…

 

😏

[AndyTravis]

Just now, Machines said:

 

Stop it, that's my job.

As you were…

 

😏

[NancyJohnson]

So many factors affecting tone that are simply not down to the shape of the pickups alone; avoiding to go down the route of everything sounds more or less the same anyway, I can hear subtleties in the P/J sets on the four basses I own that have them - all have different characteristics (for the record, a pair of Hamers (one with EMG GZRs and the other with the stock 80s DiMarzios), a Spector (Barts) and my Ibanez project (Warmans)).

 

I don't like an isolated P pickup tone (nor for that matter the ponky tone of a Jazz pickup in the bridge position), but both on at the same time just seems to work.  I suppose I'm a two pickup bloke.  Always have been.

[4000]

I’ve only ever owned one PJ, which was an ‘88 (IIRC) Pedulla MVP. It was one of the best-sounding basses I’ve ever owned. And it had Barts in, which I normally hate! 

[Misdee]

Well, there's PJs and PJs.  

 

My most favoured bass is a conventional Fender- style PJ (USA Lakland 44-64 with a Jazz neck), albeit with some pretty hot pickups that seem a bit better balanced in terms of output than a typical Fender PJ setup. By comparison, my Yamaha BB2024x  PJ sounds radically different, despite being a bolt-on neck PJ, same alder body and rosewood fingerboard construction as the Lakland.  It's a completely different animal.They are both great, just very different to each other.

 

Yamaha have somehow nailed all the problems of imbalance between the P and J pickups. A traditional Fender-style PJ is idiosyncratic in so much as you have to allow for the P pickup sounding a bit more dominant than the J to some extent or another, depending on the pickups and how they are adjusted. It's not necessarily a big deal, just something you have to be aware of and work around. I think a J pickup can make a P Bass much more versatile and ( to me) more useful. Obviously, if you don't use a bridge pickup anyway then it won't be useful to you at all. Some folks think that they can hear a difference in the P pickup just because a J is wired into the circuit, even when it's not on use. This is very much what I would call a theoretical problem rather than one that you  would actually be troubled by in real life.

 

Part of the reason I love my Lakland PJ is the Lakland PJ pickups on it sound so raunchy and are much better balanced in terms of output between the P and J than most other PJ sets I have tried. Fender-style PJs always take me back to my youth and the basses I learnt to play on. I know where I am with a decent PJ and I know how to make it work for me.

 

[fretmeister]

7 minutes ago, Misdee said:

Well, there's PJs and PJs.  

 

My most favoured bass is a conventional Fender- style PJ (USA Lakland 44-64 with a Jazz neck), albeit with some pretty hot pickups that seem a bit better balanced in terms of output than a typical Fender PJ setup. By comparison, my Yamaha BB2024x  PJ sounds radically different, despite being a bolt-on neck PJ, same alder body and rosewood fingerboard construction as the Lakland.  It's a completely different animal.They are both great, just very different to each other.

 

Yamaha have somehow nailed all the problems of imbalance between the P and J pickups. A traditional Fender-style PJ is idiosyncratic in so much as you have to allow for the P pickup sounding a bit more dominant than the J to some extent or another, depending on the pickups and how they are adjusted. It's not necessarily a big deal, just something you have to be aware of and work around. I think a J pickup can make a P Bass much more versatile and ( to me) more useful. Obviously, if you don't use a bridge pickup anyway then it won't be useful to you at all. Some folks think that they can hear a difference in the P pickup just because a J is wired into the circuit, even when it's not on use. This is very much what I would call a theoretical problem rather than one that you  would actually be troubled by in real life.

 

Part of the reason I love my Lakland PJ is the Lakland PJ pickups on it sound so raunchy and are much better balanced in terms of output between the P and J than most other PJ sets I have tried. Fender-style PJs always take me back to my youth and the basses I learnt to play on. I know where I am with a decent PJ and I know how to make it work for me.

 

 

 

The difference is that the Yamaha (and the Fender Duff McKagan) PJ have a 3 way selector switch and not different volume controls or a passive balance control.

 

Getting rid of the other volume / balance pot removes a lot of the signal loading / insertion loss that happens with the other forms of controls. Ok - you only get 3 tones rather than balancing them, but the 3 tones are all good ones.

 

If I was going to have a passive PJ again, I'd mod it to have the 3-way switch.

[Misdee]

3 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

 

 

The difference is that the Yamaha (and the Fender Duff McKagan) PJ have a 3 way selector switch and not different volume controls or a passive balance control.

 

Getting rid of the other volume / balance pot removes a lot of the signal loading / insertion loss that happens with the other forms of controls. Ok - you only get 3 tones rather than balancing them, but the 3 tones are all good ones.

 

If I was going to have a passive PJ again, I'd mod it to have the 3-way switch.

That is very true, but their are also other reasons why traditional Fender pickups are imbalanced between the P and J, most notably string excursion. The closer to the bridge the pickup is the quieter it will be.

[fretmeister]

4 minutes ago, Misdee said:

That is very true, but their are also other reasons why traditional Fender pickups are imbalanced between the P and J, most notably string excursion. The closer to the bridge the pickup is the quieter it will be.

 

Sure - but that can be solved with a much higher output J pickup.

Insertion loss can't be solved that way.

[Al Krow]

4 hours ago, fretmeister said:

 

 

The difference is that the Yamaha (and the Fender Duff McKagan) PJ have a 3 way selector switch and not different volume controls or a passive balance control.

 

Getting rid of the other volume / balance pot removes a lot of the signal loading / insertion loss that happens with the other forms of controls. Ok - you only get 3 tones rather than balancing them, but the 3 tones are all good ones.

 

If I was going to have a passive PJ again, I'd mod it to have the 3-way switch.

That's very interesting - the current series Yamaha passive PJs have gone for a volume blend knob rather than the 3 way switch which is on older models. 

 

How does having a switch deal with this "insertion loss" that a blend knob doesn't? It's not really a term I've seen used much on BC before - I guess I've always thought of it as being more simply as a phase cancellation.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Al Krow

[Lfalex v1.1]

As referenced earlier;

 

Vol/pickup pan or VVT are better than a 3-way switch, insertion loss notwithstanding.

 

A "hot" J seems to help. 

 

Can't fault my SB-2 Tribute.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Lfalex v1.1

[dclaassen]

I’ve only played the MVP in a band situation, but love the subtle tone variations when trying to sit in the mix. I do have access to a BB that I’d like to try in that situation as well. All said, it also makes me appreciate the genius the is the standard P Bass.

[Misdee]

I must confess, nowadays I think that a straight P Bass looks more elegant in its simplicity than a PJ. And I do use the P pickup far more than the J.

 

 Thirty( and indeed fourty) years ago, who could have predicted the seemingly unassailable revival of the P Bass? Nowadays it's P Bass Uber Alles or risk being denounced as a heretic. But I remember when adding a J pickup to any P Bass was considered an act of kindness, enabling it to sound more articulate and making it more suitable for contemporary styles of music. I know younger bass players might not believe me but it's true!

 

And as for flatwound strings....

 

[TheGhostofJaco]

I have a Sadowsky P/j and it sounds glorious. No phasing with both pickups engaged. In fact that attack is pointier, more pronounced. 

 

Also like that the bridge pickup stands on it's own, volume and tonewise. Sadowsky explained how he did it, but I can't remember. I think the key is have an active bass that lets you put a little more bass into the back pickup. 

 

I have also owned some P/Js that didn't really have this magic and the back pickup was useless on it's own. With the Sadowsky I have a legit 3 tone bass, so I am very happy with it. Owned mine 4 years now.

[MattM]

I’ve recently acquired my first PJ, a 78 P fretless fitted with EMGs and tbh love the P sound so much I rarely ever blend or use the J.  Was never a fan of Jacos tone (heresy!), too nasal but ideal for what he did.  A good P with flats is one of my two favourite bass tones alongside a 2EQ ‘Ray so would be happy enough with just a P pickup.