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Fender '70s Precision Bass

#241
mikericky said:
Hey Pinz - nice bass's, nice to see another in NZ with such good taste ;) bought mine into the country and wondered who bought the ones that were already here, I figured we could do with more of these in NZ, I haven't noticed any sharp edges on the fret board and have to say this would be the fastest/nicest neck to play of all my bass's, I have an 01 MIM P and that is close (still sweet as to play) but not as smooth as the MIJ 70's, the biggest difference between my MIJ and MIM after the neck would be the sound, the 70's has sweet sounding pickups and no doubt they are in the MIM 70's as well. My MIJ 70's would be my lightest bass which is a bonus.

Those Fender nickels do sound good, haven't changed mine yet, what strings are proving popular on these anyone ?

Pics of mine - before I removed the protective plastic from the pic guard, yes it looks much better now I have done that but I haven't taken decent pics since then, right now I have no changes planned for this bass as it is just so good as they made it.

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Hi mikericky,and cheers :) Still using my MIJ P every gig,and just love that neck,so thin and smooth to play.Done lots of gigs so now have an opinion I feel.
I am one to muck with things,and tbh after playing 2 Fender Jazz basses for a long,long time and even though the P sounds like most decent P Basses do I still cant quite get used to the tone.
I fitted GHS Flats,that didnt do it,swapped out the pups for SD quarter pounders,that didnt work for me,fitted D'Addario XL Chrome Flats (love these strings ! Yes a win) and put the original pups back in and fitted a D tuner.
I love playing it to bits more than any of the other basses I own,because of the neck.
And also there is nothing I can fault in this instrument (after I had the fret ends dressed) a top bang for buck P !
At the end of the day I guess I'm just used to a "sound" I've had for a decade with a Jazz in my hands and stupidly expect the P will replace it .Its also quite a bit lighter than my both my Jazz's,another bonus.
I wont go back to the Jazz yet,but the next drastic measure if I cant get comfortable with my sound will be to put the P neck on my MIA Jazz and see what happens.
 
#242
pinz said:
Hi mikericky,and cheers :) Still using my MIJ P every gig,and just love that neck,so thin and smooth to play.
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I love playing it to bits more than any of the other basses I own,because of the neck.
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I wont go back to the Jazz yet,but the next drastic measure if I cant get comfortable with my sound will be to put the P neck on my MIA Jazz and see what happens.
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+1
I've said it before here and in some other threads, the neck on my '70s p is the best one I've ever played for the shape and size of my hands. And I love the glassy smooth high-gloss finish. I know some find it sticky, but it works for me.
Rock on!
 
#243
pinz said:
Hi mikericky,and cheers :) Still using my MIJ P every gig,and just love that neck,so thin and smooth to play.Done lots of gigs so now have an opinion I feel.
I am one to muck with things,and tbh after playing 2 Fender Jazz basses for a long,long time and even though the P sounds like most decent P Basses do I still cant quite get used to the tone.
I fitted GHS Flats,that didnt do it,swapped out the pups for SD quarter pounders,that didnt work for me,fitted D'Addario XL Chrome Flats (love these strings ! Yes a win) and put the original pups back in and fitted a D tuner.
I love playing it to bits more than any of the other basses I own,because of the neck.
And also there is nothing I can fault in this instrument (after I had the fret ends dressed) a top bang for buck P !
At the end of the day I guess I'm just used to a "sound" I've had for a decade with a Jazz in my hands and stupidly expect the P will replace it .Its also quite a bit lighter than my both my Jazz's,another bonus.
I wont go back to the Jazz yet,but the next drastic measure if I cant get comfortable with my sound will be to put the P neck on my MIA Jazz and see what happens.
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Hi Pinz, That's Interesting that you have been through a couple 'other' pickups and back to stock yet still unsure your completely sure of the sound.

I read in another thread someone asked Fender about these pickups and the reply was quite clear - they are not 62 re issue vintage pickups but they are made to be the same, that suggests to me that they must be very close to the 62 vintage P pickups so without having a set to try out its hard to say if that would make a difference to you, maybe marginal ?

Right now my 70's classic is the best bass I own and instead of changing things on it I have been experimenting with my MIM 01 P which also has an amazingly nice neck, first I put chromes on it and love the result, left the stock MIM pickups in while getting used to the new sound of the flats and then changed them out for Fender original 57 AVRI pickups, from what I have read here most prefer the 62's but I had listened to some sound clips and preferred the 57's, installed on the MIM P these pickups really sing, sound better than the sound clips, even sound across all strings even with the raised 'A' pole piece and I think they have the killer sound, not yet tried them in a band mix and not yet ready to put a set into the 70's P but I do like the sound, edgy - crisp and grindy, they sing to me with less micro-phonics than the stock MIM 01 P pickups and reasonably hot, think they measure 10.7k ohms. Haven't a/b ed then yet to the 70' classic and really to do that would need the same strings on both bass's.

So at the moment my 70's classic is still running the stock Fender nickel rounds and stock pickups but I am liking the Fender 57 AVRI pickups with chomes in my 01 MIM and playing that the most. SO many variables .. interested to know what you do in the end with yours, being an ex Jazz bass player/fan myself I am interested to know if the P sound can really grab you away from the Jazz bass's :bassist: cheers for your comments - your really doing stuff with yours ;)
 
#244
Hey nice to hear your MIM P is doing it for you. :bassist:

The neck on the 70's P always keeps me going back to that one Bass out of the 8 I own,regardless of sound.

My lastest foray with this Bass has been to refit the Chrome Rounds,now it sounds pretty well how it did when I bought it,and once again I think I'm happy with it. ;)

The moral of my story if it aint broke dont fix it and as a mechanic by trade I should know better. :eyebrow:
 
#245
pinz said:
Hey nice to hear your MIM P is doing it for you. :bassist:

The neck on the 70's P always keeps me going back to that one Bass out of the 8 I own,regardless of sound.

My lastest foray with this Bass has been to refit the Chrome Rounds,now it sounds pretty well how it did when I bought it,and once again I think I'm happy with it. ;)

The moral of my story if it aint broke dont fix it and as a mechanic by trade I should know better. :eyebrow:
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Chrome rounds ? do you mean Nickel plated rounds, my 70's was shipped with Fender NPS rounds - these are Nickel plated steel, I have just fitted a set of D'Addario half rounds ENR71's to my 70's P and I'm really liking these over the stock strings, they give a bit more depth to the low E and lows in general and take just a little of the brightness off the top while keeping a nice growly sound when digging in a bit, just right for me at the moment but as usual strings are a very subjective thing, interesting that they are not flats as such but rounds that have been ground down to a flat finish, this will be kinder on those thin frets on these 70's classic P's.

+1 to the comments in general about the neck on these bass's - best thing I did was buy one, really hard to stop playing once started :bassist:
 
#246
Oh I forgot to mention I put the chrome rounds on as soon as I got it,they came free with the bass.
Still happy,but just ended up buying another bass (Warwick pro series star bass)and it's going to be hard to drag myself away from it and back to the P for a little while. ;)
 
#247
Greetings all.
I bought this mij custom 70s from sam ash over labor day, new, sealed carton, free shipping, case included, for $680. At that time they also had one white mij. I'm still thinking of going back for it. My pics are phone pics, sorry for the lack of focus.
Thanks to Jedi_bass and TMart99 for the idea and inspiration to black it out. I've never attempted anything like this before. The parts from guitarpartsresource arrived in two days and were exact fits, except for the fender pickguard which had one misplaced hole. Rather then drill the bass, I removed the thumb rest and filled the holes with black pickguard screws.
I haven't owned a fender bass since the 70's, when i owned several. Those were the cbs days and i felt those basses were heavy, clunky and difficult to play. Mine were sold or lost in the haze of those years. In those days, fender purists dissed the quality of the then new cbs era basses.
This new mij pbass looks awesome. It has the pbass feel and 'the sound'. I put labella 760fs's on it. Jason at bass strings online treated me well. I ordered two more sets to try on my musicman sterlings.
Oh, btw, when i was shopping i called fender support, and i had a good experience with them. The fellow i spoke with explained origination codes and confirmed fender moved production of the custom 70's basses to mexico, but they did a run of both finishes in japan in march/april of 2012. This probly contributed to the confusion as to origin of these basses.
 

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#248
I just got one of these on the weekend. Of all the basses I've owned, it's my favourite. It's the best looking, the closest to the sound I have in my head, and the neck is sweet to play.
 
#250
mikericky said:
Those Fender nickels do sound good, haven't changed mine yet, what strings are proving popular on these anyone ?
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I left the stock rounds on for a few months as they sounded great, if a little twangy. Recently changed them to LaBella 760FS flats (+1 to sensei_steve). Perfect! Through my Kustom rig it sounds very, um, '70s, that is to say, awesome.

And as another poster said, flats will be easy on those thin frets. D'Addario XL Chromes are nice too, I have those on my 1998 MIM.

I have to admit that the '50s MIM is giving the '70s MIJ a run for the money, but all in all this is still my very favorite bass. Great neck and killer tone, plus easy on the eyes. IMHO of course.

SL
 

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#251
So this thread has been dead for a while - how are people enjoying their basses?

I've been using a Fender Duck Dunn Signature as my main bass lately, but did use the '70s for a rehearsal - finally pulled a decent soundclip too:



Still want to get witch-hat knobs so that I can see where the controls are set - the Alembic pickups offer a LOT of tonal options - almost too many if you don't know what you are doing. Got a really tubby sound but I kind of like it! It's just the P-pickup, hard to believe it's still strung with rounds...

Here's a crappy still from some video I shot at the same rehearsal:

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#253
I love mine as well. I play it every week at my church gig (well some part of it, the neck is one the body of my 09 Highway One, and vice versa). I switch between the two as i have a whim for it and so I'm either playing the neck or the body and pickups every week.

I did add a tort pg and a gotoh 201B. the gotoh bridge is a lot softer under my hand when i palm mute and i really like it.
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#257
hieronymous said:
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Only had it back a couple of days, hoping to try it out with a band in the next couple of weeks. It sounded great through my Cafe Walter headphone preamp though!

Oh, and mine came to 8.6 lbs.
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question: so I am still confused if it is MIM or MIJ or CIJ? I bought an Olympic white body off ebay and it would be nice to know. It was also very light: 4lbs 12oz, and it will be lighter once I rout the cavity for the preamp and battery ;)
 

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