Baloney Balderdash Posted July 13 Share Posted July 13 42 minutes ago, tauzero said: Why would a non-bassist have one? It worked for Sid Vicious... 1 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reggaebass Posted July 13 Share Posted July 13 1 hour ago, tauzero said: Why would a non-bassist have one? Perhaps I should have said bass players I know 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeEvans Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 To me the P bass is the original, basic, primal bass and every other bass is a kind of elaboration or variant of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walshy Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 (edited) I started with a P bass, only because it was cheap to get started, it was an Ibanez Blazer and was ok. Then I chased THE sound in my head for 20 plus years with Modulus, Jazz, Rays you name it, all great but not the sound. Eventually persuaded to try the P again and yep, that was the sound I was chasing all along. Simple yes, but perfect. Oh, I also have about 12 of them too🤣 Edited July 14 by walshy 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MM Stingray 62 Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 I’ve played dozens and dozens of different p basses. When you get a good one you definitely know and you tend to keep hold of it. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bremen Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 I love the sound of the e and a string but the d and g always sound weak. Might have to try Sklaring the pickups. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baloney Balderdash Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 (edited) 37 minutes ago, bremen said: I love the sound of the e and a string but the d and g always sound weak. Might have to try Sklaring the pickups. Reverse orientation P pickups is definitely the way to go. The traditional orientation of a P pickup actually emphasizes the tonal difference between the lower thicker strings and the thinner higher strings, whereas in reverse orientation this difference is somewhat cancelled out and you get a much more balanced and even tone across the strings/fretboard. But yes, I do love the sound of P pickups too. It's just that Leo got the orientation wrong. Just like he notoriously confused vibrato with tremolo. Edited July 14 by Baloney Balderdash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lozz196 Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 33 minutes ago, bremen said: I love the sound of the e and a string but the d and g always sound weak. Might have to try Sklaring the pickups. I’ve found that having either 45-100 or 50-105 strings somewhat balances this, but as above I think the reverse P is the way to go. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OliverBlackman Posted July 14 Share Posted July 14 It’d be interesting to find out what percentage of recordings have been made on a P bass. I guess artists, producers and bassists all recognise it as the ‘bass sound’ that’s been on millions of records since the fifties. Having said that I think it’s the ultimate gigging bass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joel406 Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 Even though I only play 5 string anymore, I have 3 Precisions. The other 4 are Jazz. Love em all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 On 13/07/2024 at 14:23, Reggaebass said: I don’t think I know anybody without one 🤔 I've never owned a P-Bass (or at least a bass that had the correct pick-up in the correct place and a shape at least roughly similar to the accepted design). In fact until a couple of years ago I don't think I'd even tried playing one as they never appealed to me enough to pick one off the wall in a music shop over almost any other bass there. 16 hours ago, JoeEvans said: To me the P bass is the original, basic, primal bass and every other bass is a kind of elaboration or variant of it. These are the four basses that I have used for most of my musical career from the first I bought in 1981 to the two that I currently use: As you can see nothing even vaguely P=bass like amongst them. The closest I have ever come to a P-Bass that I have owned is this: 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeEvans Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 Historically though, the P bass was first released in 1951. In 1960 the jazz bass came along, a P bass with a second pickup, a slimmer neck and a tweaked body shape. Everything since has the DNA of those ancestors, and the P bass is the ancestor of them all - the Adam of the bass family. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 5 minutes ago, JoeEvans said: the P bass is the ancestor of them all - the Adam of the bass family If you are going to look at like that then surely either the double bass or Paul Tutmarc's electric bass are the originals? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bremen Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 I'm not having any of that Creationist nonsense. Which instrument was the ape? Going right back to the beginning though, I guess it all started with a one-celled Hammond organism (thank you, uncle Frank 🙏) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor J Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 The need to deify Precision basses is an odd thing indeed. An excellent but flawed original design, continually refined since. It's not the first bass, not the last bass, but a fine bass nonetheless. The fanboi stuff is a little sad, though, to be honest. I think the real strengths of the Precision are its limitations. The basic sound doesn't need adjusting to be usable and it takes a considerable amount of will and stupidity to make it unusable, so it tends to just work in all kinds of musical contexts, despite what the player and sound-person might do to jeopardise this. In this way, it avoids a lot of the pitfalls associated with more tonally flexible instruments, chiefly operator error. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reggaebass Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 3 minutes ago, Doctor J said: The fanboi stuff is a little sad, though, to be honest. What’s wrong with being a fan of a certain bass, just curious , I only play fender jazzes and precisions now after owning many other basses, they feel comfortable to me 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeEvans Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 1 hour ago, BigRedX said: If you are going to look at like that then surely either the double bass or Paul Tutmarc's electric bass are the originals? I think the P bass was the first production instrument that was recognisably a modern bass guitar in all respects - materials, scale length, body shape, pickup design, tuners, headstock, truss rod, controls, the lot. Every other bass since is a variation on that original design. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fretmeister Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 On 13/07/2024 at 14:23, Reggaebass said: I don’t think I know anybody without one 🤔 I've got some PJ. No just P though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor J Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 1 hour ago, Reggaebass said: What’s wrong with being a fan of a certain bass, just curious , I only play fender jazzes and precisions now after owning many other basses, they feel comfortable to me Nothing wrong with being a fan of a certain bass, surely we all are in one way or another? Fanboi, however, is a term which signifies a level beyond liking or being a mere fan of something, moreso obsessive to the point of excluding everything else. The Precision certainly seemed to attract them. Remember the "Leo got it right first time" cultists or the "P bass and flats" riposte for seemingly every question, particularly on TB, which seemed to spread earlier in the century? 🙂 We can open the band loyalty can if you really want, but best put on a thread of its own 😉 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeEvans Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 There is something very appealing about ducking out of the whole complicated problem of the perfect bass sound, with all the countless options available, and just playing one bass with one sound. The P is maybe the go-to bass for that approach. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 15 hours ago, OliverBlackman said: It’d be interesting to find out what percentage of recordings have been made on a P bass. I guess artists, producers and bassists all recognise it as the ‘bass sound’ that’s been on millions of records since the fifties. Having said that I think it’s the ultimate gigging bass. I don’t know the exact numbers but I think it is safe to say that from the mid 50s to the 80s it would be in the majority, meaning greater than 50%. One book I read suggested close to 80% in the 50s and 60s but I’m a bit skeptical as I’m sure the Jazz bass ate into that number and I know the EB-0 was used on some significant recordings. However as time moved on the number of recordings made with a precision is probably still significant but also the variety of basses recorded also increased so I don’t think we can assume it is still the dominant bass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 6 minutes ago, Moving Pictures said: I don’t know the exact numbers but I think it is safe to say that from the mid 50s to the 80s it would be in the majority, meaning greater than 50%. One book I read suggested close to 80% in the 50s and 60s but I’m a bit skeptical as I’m sure the Jazz bass ate into that number and I know the EB-0 was used on some significant recordings. However as time moved on the number of recordings made with a precision is probably still significant but also the variety of basses recorded also increased so I don’t think we can assume it is still the dominant bass. When I was getting into music in 70s it seemed as though the bass players in the bands I liked all played Rickenbacker, Gibsons, or something with a weird shape made by John Birch. Fender basses were never on my radar. In fact I never realised that there was supposed to be something extra special about them until I joined some bass players internet forums. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diskwave Posted July 15 Author Share Posted July 15 1 hour ago, JoeEvans said: There is something very appealing about ducking out of the whole complicated problem of the perfect bass sound, with all the countless options available, and just playing one bass with one sound. The P is maybe the go-to bass for that approach. Ive 'watched' hundreds of bands, big, large, local, amateurish, great, crap....etc over the decades and in my mind there are two basic generic bass tones. A generic lowish thud and the Jaco burp. Im not much of a Jaco technician and the P bass drone if you will suits literally everything I play...ha I can even manage Durans "Rio" without sounding too dull and boring, suffice to say not one single musician in 45 yrs has said... 'That Fender bass sounds awful mate, got one of those whizz banger models?, Thats what we need'...Not once. Anyway getting this thread back on track. Reading some of the above. Whether the "Iconic" P bass is any good or not Ive simply noticed not many are for sale...which must be telling us something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tauzero Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 4 hours ago, JoeEvans said: I think the P bass was the first production instrument that was recognisably a modern bass guitar in all respects - materials, scale length, body shape, pickup design, tuners, headstock, truss rod, controls, the lot. Every other bass since is a variation on that original design. So a bass using different materials, with a different body shape, headless, and different controls is what? A variation? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tauzero Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 13 minutes ago, diskwave said: Whether the "Iconic" P bass is any good or not Ive simply noticed not many are for sale...which must be telling us something. That fewer people are buying them in the first place, because there's so much better available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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