Blacktop Jazz Basses or other suggestions

[bnosam]

I have a chance to snag a Blacktop Jazz bass. I'm not a bassist in general, I'm an electric guitar player and have been playing for 9 years but I want to expand my range with music a bit and take up bass also.

I play a lot of pop punk music and rock or funk kind of music. Most importantly music wise the bands I like are: Blink 182, +44, The Ramones, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was looking into a standard precision bass but they lack the defined edge that I'd like for some styles. But a standard Jazz bass lacks the extremely deep low end of the P-bass. I have a chance to grab a Blacktop bass (MIM) for $350 Canadian here in good condition. I was wondering if this would be versatile enough to give me good low end for music I like but good enough for a bit of more trebly.


Or any other suggestions for this kind of style would be appreciated.

Thank you

 

[bnosam]

Bump

 

[bpclay1]

I hear people like them a lot. I also hear it's pretty much the same as a jazz bass... I heard " most aggressive passive bass" I'd like to disagree and point you in another direction if most aggressive passive bass is what you're looking for...

 

[Old Blastard]

Never played one but a friend of mine loves his. He plays similar music and said he can dial in some growl with the rear pickup while getting more oomph with the front. He said it's less jazzy sounding and more like a p/j

 

[bnosam]

My main use I guess for this would be similar for a P-bass but I'd like to be able to get a bit of growl out of it. I've read somewhere online that the blacktops "have no life" and don't do either styles well at all. But I don't know how much of that is just purists not liking the fact they deviated from a standard design or not
I just want something that is pretty close to a P-Bass 90% of the time but has a bit of aggression if I need it for funk or anything like that. I hope you understand what I mean!

 

[fendermademygibson]

I have both precision and jazz. You can get a wide range of tones out of both. I run clean straight to the amp and pretty much let the bass do the work in terms of tone. I don't know how close it gets to a "true p-bass" tone wise but it works for me.

For the price I don't think you can go wrong.

 

[bpclay1]

You might be better off with a p/j configuration... I think the blacktop neck pickup is closer to the neck, and therefore completely changes the sound you get. That would mean you can't really get that exact p bass sound...

 

[jallenbass]

Here's what it sounds like. In the ballpark of a jazz but with more girth to my ears.

 

[bnosam]

Accidently deleted my post lol.

Maybe the kind of tone I'm more or less trying to get exactly would help (I know nothing about basses at all unfortunately, just guitars):



More or less like that except maybe a little thicker. Can a blacktop get me close-ish to something like that? I would get the Bass in the video but I wanted something a slight bit thicker sounding, plus the signatures are expensive compared to regular models.

The used bass market here for P/J basses is pretty rough, did a search online couldn't find anything. Hell, I can barely find anyone selling a P-bass.