• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Fender converts

Quadruple Jay

Quadruple Jay

Nov 28, 2005
939
12
Syracuse, NY
#1
So, for the longest time I was really anti-Fender (or Fender style) basses and even went as far as to avoid them in stores and look weirdly upon people who play them. I guess it was something about the cliche-ness or the classic look that for some reason didn't sit well with me and made me not want to buy one. I played a few here and there at jams when they were sitting around, but I never really put much thought into ever seriously checking one out.

So fastforward to a few months ago and I'm searching around for a new bass to become my "main-gigging-bass" because my old franken-ESP just wasn't cutting it anymore. I must have gone into 30 differnet guitar stores in the past 6 months just shopping around to see what my poor college student budget could get me. For a while I had my eyes set on a Warwick Corvette or $$, a few Yamahas, etc etc. Everything I looked at was really going to set me back financially, but I wanted something quality to fit into a moderately busy gig schedule, and that would last me for years and years to come.

So finally one day I'm perusing Talkbass for the first time in a few months, and I come across some "show your bass" posts and I'm looking around and stuff... and... well... I realized that I was madly in love with Fender basses and living in a complete world of denial.

So after trying out a bunch, I recently purchased this bad boy:

DSCN3836.gif


DSCN3838.gif


Fender Jazz MIM FSR

And it is my baby. Got it for about $480, a quarter of what I would have paid for the $$. And now I'm admitting to the public that I am a lover of Fender. I plan on putting an Audere and some Nordstrands in this bad boy, picking up an SX Jazz fretless this fall, and getting a Fender P-bass sometime next year.

So, tell us your stories of conversion, and whether or not you were living in the same world of denial I was!
 
#2
I played a Rickenbacker exclusively for 15 years or so. Everybody had a Fender. I didn't want a Fender. Why would I want to play the same thing that everyone else plays??


Last summer I played at a biker party, and I really didn't want to bring my beloved Ric to an out door gig with dust blowing and bikes racing and bikers drinking, so I bought a used beat to crap Fender Hoppus sig P-bass off E-bay for cheap. I figured one pickup, one knob, it should be pretty indestructible and destruction was a real possibility. I did a setup on it (Lots easier than the Ric) got it tweaked just so, and would you believe that I've gigged with the Ric one time in the last 8 months or better in favor of this crap ass Fender??

Who'd a thunk it?
 
#5
I was originally very discouraged with Fender. My first bass was supposed to be a Fender knockoff (my gramps still swears up and down it's a real Fender for some reason) and it sucked horribly. Next came a bass with jazz pups (a Johnson...) which also bit the big one which turned me off to Fender Jazzes (keep in mind I was just a kid at this point, no clue what I was talking about) and after that came my Ibanez SR506 which I fell in love with and (for some ridiculous reason) swore by soapbars and soapbars alone. I was also big into unconventional body styles so naturally avoided Fender basses like the plague. If they'd have had the Iceman bass back when I was in middle school I totally would have one of those right now instead of the SR. Then I spent some time drooling over Warwicks, and I think that still applies, but the first time I really sat down with a Fender and got to know it was in I think my junior year of high school. I was in GC with my guitard at the time and he has a thing about pup covers, thinks they're the coolest thing since sliced milk (:ninja:), and the only bass on the wall that had one was the Marcus Miller IV, so he said to me, "You should totally play on that one!"

So I got it down and was immediately turned on by the altered pickguard and the beautiful clear gloss finish as well as the weight. I love heavy basses, and as far as basses go this was one of the heaviest I'd ever picked up. So I got to playing on it and though I found the pup cover to be very awkward, I LOVED the tone and everything but my plucking hand was the most comfortable it's ever been. I've never looked at Fenders the same way since, and a while later I got this sucker:

IMG00146.jpg


Ironically enough I found out the reason that old Fender knockoff my gramps gave me sucked so bad was because in the mid 70's he had completely redone the wiring and not only goofed it up pretty bad but put in a telecaster pup by mistake. I have since fixed it up and it's a great bass now:

IMG00153.jpg
 
#7
I really understand the motivation to not "go with the flow" and play what everyone else plays. I also love a lot of Gibson basses and other brands too.

But, when it comes down to it, the Fender P and J basses are the industry standards for a reason.

What's odd to me is that I don't care for Stratocaster guitars, but I find the P-bass to be gorgeous. Although my dislike of the Strat is due to sound as well as aesthetics.

It's great that there's such variety in the bass world. Lots of great luthiers who really understand the instrument, and lots of mass-production makers with tons of options available.

But when I really think about it, so many of my favorite players, and so many of the timeless players who really helped define electric bass in the early days, need only a trusty Precision or Jazz.

I've been down the road of getting fancier and fancier. I never have owned a real boutique instrument, but I've had an array of basses, including fretless, 5-string, 6-string, 8-string, etc. Nowadays, for me, simpler is better. I want to dial in my sound and get busy. In fact, my biggest GAS fit right now is for a '51 Fender P-bass reissue. Slab body, one single coil pup, one volume, one tone. Plenty for me.
 
#11
Muddslide said:
What's odd to me is that I don't care for Stratocaster guitars, but I find the P-bass to be gorgeous. Although my dislike of the Strat is due to sound as well as aesthetics.
Click to expand...

That's not very odd... The Precision bass shape is derived from the Telecaster... And the Jazz bass shape was derived from the Jazzmaster... I don't think the Stratocaster has ever had a bass counterpart...
 
#13
lunarpollen said:
That's not very odd... The Precision bass shape is derived from the Telecaster... And the Jazz bass shape was derived from the Jazzmaster... I don't think the Stratocaster has ever had a bass counterpart...
Click to expand...
I can't find a picture at the moment, but I saw a strat bass once, had the three single coil pups and everything. Couldn't tell you if it was actually a Fender or not, but I think whoever showed it to me thought it was.
 
#16
I've been playing bass for 33 years and have only owned one Fender bass in that time. That was back in 1992, I bought a Fender JP-90. It was a Jazz/Precision hybrid that was made in 1990 from Mexico and assembled in Corona, CA. I maybe mistaken, but anyway I've owned Rickenbacker, Steinberger, 79' Music Man Sabre, Ibanez active & passive 4 and 5 er's, Carvin LB75AP, Lakland and have never been interested in buying or owning a Fender that whole time. The bass I'm presently playing is the Carvin and it took me 4 months to be able to get a good sound through my amp, way too long. So I've decided to go passive for awhile, seek that awesome tone and with the new upgrades that Fender has made to the MIA Precision and Jazz lines, this week I went ahead and bought a MIA Olympic White 5'er w/Rosewood FB.
I'm hoping that this is a new partnership with the iconic bass maker that will last for many years to come.:)
 
#17
My first bass (back in Nixon's first term) was a late 60's P bass. I liked it, but then I finished college, got married, built a house, had kids, yada yada and sold it.

When I was ready to play again in the mid 90's I decided I wanted something different. I never hated Fenders - but I thought they were overpriced for the build quality and features. I owned a couple of Ibanez's, then stumbled upon a sweetheart deal on a pristine pre-EB Stingray. I loved that Stingray (and still do), but as my ear got more discriminating I came to the conclusion that the two main sounds I wanted to get were P bass through Bassman (for my blues band) and P bass through SVT (for my classic rock band). I kept messing with that Stingray and various amps to get close to the sounds I wanted, but my anti-Fender attitude was slipping away.

I decided the only way I was going to get a "good" P bass was to sift through lots of used vintage ones until I found one that combined good playability with reasonably good value. After all, the consensus on TB was that the new Fenders were junk - and who was I to contradict the TB consensus?

Then this past February I played a 2008 American Standard Precision. That was it - the build quality, neck profile, neck finish, everything was so, so, ...perfect. And it sounded like the P bass sound I was trying to get - DUH! I couldn't order one fast enough.

I still play a few of the newer classic rock tunes in our setlist on the Stingray, but the P bass gets the majority of my gig time. And the other musicians in my blues band REALLY love the way it sounds!

I'm now an extremely happy Fender re-convert.
 
#18
I started playing around 1980 and the Fenders made in the late 70's had quality control issues: some really good and others were bad. Saying that, I started playing on my schools Fender P-Bass. It was a terrible bass. I really had a bad taste for Fenders. The first bass that I owned was a Daion Savage. Very nice. Then a Steiny XP-2, Guild 302, Ovation Magnum, Aria SB's and many others. I wrote off Fenders because of so many other good basses that were available. About 5 years ago I really started getting into the Fender thing. I built a Warmoth J that I love and have a Warmoth P in process. But my next bass will be a real Fender J.
 
#19
Well, the only Fender I've played is the church's youth group's bass. I took it home and tried to set it up for them. It's a MiM P-bass, and it just seemed really cheap. The bridge seemed like it was going to break it's so thin, the bridge height screws were jammed in place and started bending my wrenches, a large part of the G string was a row of dead spots, the neck was bowed, the action really high and the strings still buzzed. This was a brand new bass. I hear lots of hype, and I hear lots of good studio tones, but IME...I'm happy with the bass I own.

Sorry, not trying to rain on the parade. I've seen plenty of beautiful pictures here, and Fender did popularize the electric bass, so I'm glad of that.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back