A personal insight on Fender popularity...

[JimmyM]

Yeah, it's a boat anchor. I just thought at the time it was a very cool looking bass. I ended up getting a Hagstrom Big Swede in the late 70's and used it for a couple of years as my main bass. Also very heavy.

Hagstrom was very underrated.

 

[Muddslide]

I got away from Fender back in the mid 70's and I went through a lot of other basses including some basses considered exotic and cutting edge for the time. All I can say is that I picked up a P-Bass again in 92 and realized what my sound had been missing in the over complicated tone chain I'd evolved over the years in search of the elusive perfect tone. Straight up simple Fender P and J basses work for me better than any other bass I've used and tried. They may not be your thing and they don't have to be.

Amen. My story is very similar. Started out on Fenders and Fender clones, quickly moved to a Gibby Ripper, and then over the years just kept going for more and more high-end or fancified stuff...5 6 and 8-stringers, active electronics, boutique pups, tons of effects and other gear.

Well, I still like to fiddle with effects, but I do it for fun really, just to make odd sci-fi soundscapes and noises.

For serious, real "playing" I've gotten back to the simple path. Seemed like the more expensive and high-end and active things got, the more doo-dads I would have to get to try to improve the tone with each upgrade.

Had an epiphany one day that "Man, I never sounded better than when I was just running my old P-bass into a good head and decent cab.

And that's wherre I am, and that's where I'll stay. Cost me a lot of $$$ just to come full circle and realize I was chasing some elusive sense of "perfection" or novelty when I had everything I needed at the outset.

 

[Dbassmon]

Simply put, to date, no one has come up with a better bass guitar design than Leo Fender. I realize this statements gets Sadowsky , Fodera (Emperor and NYC) and other owners all worked up. People insist these basses are way different than the Fender versions of the same design. I say they are not.

While incremental improvements have been made to manufacturing, variations on pickup windings, exotic wood and preamp circuits, this doesn't change the fact that these are still Jazz or P bass or combination designs. Those designs, along with the Stingray, belong to Leo Fender. These designs are 1,2 and 3 in the world of bass guitar. If Rodger Sadowsky does his thing to a Fender design, it's still a Fender Design. Vinny Fodera, still puts his pickups in the same place as Leo did 40 years earlier. They sound different, they are built much, much better, still Fender design. Many times the old Fender still sounds better. To this day, I have never heard a better sounding Fretless than Jaco's Bass of doom.

Point is that Fender came up with great designs, others have made tweaks to those designs but 99.9% came from Leo. They are popular because we have come associate these designs with the way the instrument should sound and play. Not to take anything away from Ric, Hoffner, Alembic and Gibson etc, but they account for a tiny percentage of what bassists have opted for for over a half a century.

Long story short, they sound good. People vote with their pocket book.

 

[gre107]

I've played/owned many many basses in my day and I always have a Jazz in my arsenal. They are just simply reliable overall. And I love the tones that I can get out of them.

Peace

 

[savit260]

My cousin Steve had a Les Paul Recording bass that he used with a V4B/810. He sold me his amp but I could never get him to part with the LPR. Just as well, though...it was HEAVY!!! But I really liked the small and medium scale basses at the time so I wanted it.

Jamie, the bass player for Bostons "Dirty Truckers" plays a L.P. Recording bass. Cool as all get out.

That said, I'm probably older than most here, yet younger than Brad and Jimmy.

Yup, back in the late 70's as a kid I'd ride my bicycle to the downtown area of the town I lived in that had a little music/applience/t.v. shop, and look at the Globals, and Kents, Kays maybe etc. and the like. Most every town had places like that. You could buy a washing machine, and a Les Paul copy, a radio, and saxophone reeds. Yup, I dreamed that someday I'd have a Global Les Paul of my very own. FACT.

Then there was the Sears, Wards, and Speigal catalogs all with a few pages of gear to lust after.

By the early 80's I was playing in bands, and to even SEE a Fender requierd a 45 minute drive into Boston to E.U. Whirlitzers. That's where my first decent bass , a used 78 Precision came from.

I'm sure it wasn't all that much different in the 50's or 60's. I'm sure those guys older than me lusted after the gear , as kids, in the Sears catalog, just like I did in the 70's.

The big name stuff was much harder to come by in those days.

 

[Brad Johnson]

Jamie, the bass player for Bostons "Dirty Truckers" plays a L.P. Recording bass. Cool as all get out.

That said, I'm probably older than most here, yet younger than Brad and Jimmy.

Yup, back in the late 70's as a kid I'd ride my bicycle to the downtown area of the town I lived in that had a little music/applience/t.v. shop, and look at the Globals, and Kents, Kays maybe etc. and the like. Most every town had places like that. You could buy a washing machine, and a Les Paul copy, a radio, and saxophone reeds. Yup, I dreamed that someday I'd have a Global Les Paul of my very own. FACT.

Then there was the Sears, Wards, and Speigal catalogs all with a few pages of gear to lust after.

By the early 80's I was playing in bands, and to even SEE a Fender requierd a 45 minute drive into Boston to E.U. Whirlitzers. That's where my first decent bass , a used 78 Precision came from.

I'm sure it wasn't all that much different in the 50's or 60's. I'm sure those guys older than me lusted after the gear , as kids, in the Sears catalog, just like I did in the 70's.

The big name stuff was much harder to come by in those days.

Exactly.

 

[BioDriver]

Here's what it boils down to: Whatever tone and playability works is what you need, be it Fender, Matt Pulcinella, Warwick, or Rogue. When I went out to buy my new bass, the Fender Jazz worked best for me, and I'd demoed and turned down a lot of basses, including Warwick, Tobias, and Music Man. Whatever works works.

 

[JFN]

If you think Fender hasn't really changed the basic design or whatever in the last 30 years, that's nothing. How long have been stuck that same "old boring" design for a grand piano. Talk about no evolution at all in what, hundreds of years. It's amazing anyone would want to play such a dinosour. And upright pianos just don't have the same mojo the good old grand. The reality is, the piano works well in so many vastly differrent styles of music created over a wide span of time (kind of like a certain electric bass I won't mention by name).

Whatabout guitars, drums, or wind instruments. Has there been any significant advancement there either. Is a Yamaha tenor sax that much different than a Selmer. Maybe to a good sax player, but I wouldn't know the differrence.

And most of the electronic keyboards today dedicate half their sound set to replicating acoustic instruments.

I've rambled enough for now...

 

[ForestThump]

Q: What are the two least expensive departments in a University.

A: Math - they just need paper, pencils, and a wastebasket. But Philosophy is cheaper because they don't need the wastebasket.

That's very good. They are the "classic" electric bass, the chevy of e-basses in a way. They can be taken apart with a screwdriver and tweaked any number of ways.
I've been playing a Fender bass (among other basses) for more than 25 years. Frankly, I have rather classical taste when it comes to bass shapes, sound and overall esthetic. I really do not like exotic wood fantasy creations but sometimes admire the craftsmanship involved.
To each, his or her own...

 

[flipper_gv]

I hated fenders until I bought one. Sums it up perfectly I think