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I think it was their way of getting the players to give their best and see how they perform under pressure. It was strange but in a way it was a great way to stack yourself up to the competition, hearing the way the other players sat in the mix playing the same material was actually very helpful and what led me to P basses.
Flats & Foam & playing near the neck being a major component of her sound.
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Before you go spending new pickups, new amps, and heading down the rabbit hole that is stacking all kinds of tone shaping devices in front of your amp - I think it's worth trying to work with what you have.
Lot's of advice about favoring one pickup. YES. I personally don't favor the bridge pickup, but do what ever works for you. I have really been digging the neck only lately. Neck only really cuts thru (IMO). One of my go to settings for when I want to punch is turning the bridge and tone down about 1/4 turn.
I'm going to also recommend trying a set of flats. I know some folks may think that's crazy (flat for for a P bass) - but flats will focus your sound. Rounds can sometimes have so much more harmonic content that it's like too much information. All that extra content is fighting with other things in the mix and also fighting with itself - especially on a jazz bass that is more wide and not as focused to begin with like a P. Flats can help slot your sound right into the money spot.
Also, flats (IMO) hold together better when you attack them hard. Like if you dig in on rounds, you loose a lot of the fundamentals and hear all this other harmonic content - but the meat goes away. When you did in on flats, that fundamental stays, and you get just enough other content to sound like you're digging in. If you back off, you get get just the fundamentals and can thump away.
I'd just like to point out that Jaco and John Paul Jones are known for playing pretty much playing the exact same bass and the exact same amp. Those guys could not be in more different tonal universes. A lot can happen by favoring one pickup, and also by where you place your plucking hand, and how hard you attack your string. Jaco favors the bridge pickup, plays over the bridge pickup, and attacks things pretty hard. You often see JPJ cool as a cucumber with a light touch playing way up by the neck.
+1
Flats can be great on two pickup basses.
Chromes
Fender 9050
EB Slinky Flats (cobalts)
You and Flea agree. Also like Rob Trujillo you must wear shorts for maximum effect.
Those are my all time favorite sleeper pickups. No idea why they are so flaming hot compared to US 62ri pickups, but I dig them a lot.
Just buy a Sadowsky outboard preamp. Problem solved, you can thank me later
Gonna drop a big bomb here. Any producer should be able to fit any bass, with some exceptions, into almost any mix. You have a studio with a million dollars worth of sound gear and it matters what bass you use?? I find that hard to believe. It's almost like the bass is a sort of template that they can deal with and get on to the 'real' instruments. To use an example with some of our darlings, Geddy, Squire, Entwistle, McCartney etc. seemed to use a variety of basses and there was no hissy fits from producers
There’s probably nothing wrong with your Jazz. It’s just a Jazz. And so it sounds like a Jazz.
It’ll never be a Precision, but that is why you own both, right? So that you have both sounds?
If you want it to have a fuller sound, turn both pickups and the tone up full. Strike an open A. While it rings, roll the bridge pickup off until you hear it open up. You’ll see what I mean when you do it.
Then roll off your tone a little to taste.
Now your Jazz will sound like a balanced, unscooped Jazz.
Your amp settings can then be tweaked a little from where you have them set for your Precision, but they probably won’t really be that far off.
It won’t sound like a Precision, but I bet ya that it’ll sound good.
Give it a try. It won’t cost you anything. You might like it.
Precisely my point... the difference between sitting in the mix or being buried in the mix is EQ, not so much the bass.
Stars have a lot of clout. But if you're an up & comer paying by the hour to do your latest release, you often have to go with the engineer's or producer's suggestions to get the project out the door on budget.
I'm going to experiment around with this when I get home this evening. Thanks for the tip!
^ This should always be the starting point! And it's surprising how often it can also be the end point.
These are very good tips. Another way to approach a two-pickup bass: turn the volume on your dominant pickup down to 8 or 9, then blend in the secondary pickup to taste. That bit of series resistance between the pickups will improve blending capabilities; when both volume pots are wide open, one gets fewer shades of blending, because the wide open one quickly overpowers the one you're turning down.
Cool tip. I'm gonna play around with that some.
Also,,, not to go down a rabbit hole,,, but a comment about amplification, cab choice, etc... When I first got my jazz, I was playing through a rig that was not the best. It was a fine rig, worthy of any gig... not advocating buying "boutique" gear as a fix here. But the cabs were dark sounding, really rolled off at like 4k so no top end, and kind of had some really pronounced low mid frequencies. It was a fine rig, but kind of made everything sound the same. (this is the "transparent" thing folks talk about). At that time, I really couldn't hear a difference when blending pickups.
Later, when I switched to a more transparent, open sounding rig, with more top end, and more even across all frequencies, then all the sudden my ears opened up and I could really hear the smallest changes when blending pickups... A bit of an "ah ha" moment.
If your cabs, or eq, or too much tone shaping are choking off your sound, it can all sound the same and rolling a pickup back a little to cut through for a certain song or other subtle changes can kind of go out the window. There are some cabs, or amps, or PA house systems and room that are not great and just kind of make everything sound like -whatever- no matter what.
Listen to your jazz on it's own (maybe with good headphones) and blend the pickups and listen to the tonal changes. The more your train your ear to hear that stuff, the more you are able to use it when it comes to showtime.
Great tips guys! I'll definitely start with the tone knob tips and adding some mids. I do usually use the s-1 switch to get rid of the scoop a bit. And when I'm mixing my own recordings there's no problem getting this bass to sit in the mix. It usually drowns live (using a Markbass combo), whereas other basses don't.
If these tips don't work I'll have a look at different pickups/wiring... or I might just have to look into the Fender Elite P, since it's supposed be a 'best of both worlds' type of solution.
If these tips don't work I'll have a look at different pickups/wiring... or I might just have to look into the Fender Elite P, since it's supposed be a 'best of both worlds' type of solution.
