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"Bells and whistles" vs. "one trick pony"

Gimme....

  • "Bells and whistles"

    Votes: 77 35.8%

  • "one trick pony"

    Votes: 138 64.2%
  • Total voters
    215
#21
One trick "P"ony? That's how I voted but not how I feel. My P's have several usefull tones, at least as many as any Sadowsky, Lakland, Roscoe, Nordstrand, Fbass, Elrick, Sukop etc. etc. I've owned.

Really all I need in any song is a thick, meaty tone, a more focused, Jazz type tone, or occasionally a decent solo tone (all of which a good P or J can get you). When I was buying bell's and whistle basses, I convinced myself I needed basses which could cop tones from Beatles to Cult to Sabbath to Collective Soul and so on and so on. I was convinced each song's bass tone had to sound like the original recording. More bridge PUP here, more treble there, more mid-range on that one. Then we did some live recordings, some songs sounded great, on some the bass was weak, or just a buzz. Or you couldn't even tell that this one had 1/16th more bridge PUP than that one, or that one slightly favored the neck PUP with just a little more low-mids. So unless you are recording in a studio, IMO, all you need are a couple of good tones that still fill out the bottom end.
 
#23
Simple. For years I played my main P with just a volume pot. My other most played bass is a PJ setup with volume, pickup blend, and tone pots.

I don't particularly have anything against instruments with complex electronics, I've just never gravitated towards them.
 
#26
I voted "bells and whistles". I found when I was playing originals I more or less stuck to a single tone. However, I'd normally have to tweak the settings on each bass slightly differently in order to get that tone. But since I usually play covers, especially now (haven't done originals in a while), I really like having the ability to tweak tone to fit the song right on the bass.

That being said, I still wouldn't say my Precision V is a one-trick pony. I can get a wider tonal variety out of it than I expected when I first bought it. But I do understand the OP's "labels". The controls on my Precision are a lot simpler than those on my FNA Jazzman.
 
#28
I used to do bells and whistles, but find I prefer one trick ponies these days. I never seemed to use on board EQ's after I set them anyway. I'm a set it and forget it guy I guess. I may feel differently in a month, but that's how I feel these days.
 
#29
msb said:
Why do people think Pbasses are one trick ponies ? You can get an incredible variety of sounds on one depending on the strings and the touch .
Click to expand...

Because the bass only has the one tone. Changing strings or playing technique does not change that. For each type of string and technique you get the choice of one tone.

I don't think that's an observation that needs to be challenged to defend the P bass, it's just what it is. A P bass does not offer pickup choices.
 
#34
I like a pretty straightforward, consistent sound on almost everything I do, from heavy rock to blues to folk to country to jazz to funk etc. But I like to be able to fine-tune that sound just where I want it. So I need some bells and whistles, but not too much. A J-bass with a series/parallel switch, and a fairly transparent amp with a usable eq will get me to one-trick-pony land.
 
#37
I would actually agree I get tons of different sound and tones from my one trick ponys, by how I set up or how aggressively I play or where I place my right hand. I've done everything from r&b, jazz, hip hop, hardcore, straight ahead blues, country, African music, Latin american music, even some baroque ansia classical sturdy all on the same bass.....I have a bells and whistle bass but I find some times too many options can be worse. The sound I like comes comes from me not my bass. Basses sound different of course but how you play has a lot to do with it.
 
#39
I once owned a BC Rich Eagle that had a 6-way tone switch, 3-way pickup switch, 2-way series/parallel switch for each pickup, phase reversal switch and a gain-only preamp switch.

Before I even touched a knob I had 144 possible combinations.

Way too much and many of the combinations sounded like ass anyway. By the time I was ready to sell it, I was using it like a P-bass...neck pickup in series, preamp off, tone switch in bypass position.
 

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