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How do you perceive a Jazz/Precision/Tbird/Ray sound?

kln_bc

kln_bc

Aug 24, 2011
207
493
Canada
#1
Most of us have probably tried these big 4 basses....Jazz, Precision, Thunderbird, and Stingray. I know they vary depending on specs, the brand, the room, the time of day, the color of the walls, whatever...I'm not looking for people to tell me what to expect from them or anything. I have my experiences with them that have colored my perceptions of them; I just want to start a discussion of what your perception of them is. How do you see/hear them?

Me, in my relatively limited experience, I find the Jazz bass to be both very clear (sometimes too much), and very heavy in the bass; it's very versatile and my favorite. Then the Tbird, which I find has a little less top end, more mids, and more low-end of you want it (again, sometimes too much). The Pbass I find very mid forward and is kind of falling out of favor with me at the moment...kind of feels like it has the whole "jack of all trades, master of none" thing going on. The Stingray, I find very boomy....if I could dial that out it would be great, but I never could.

I'm sure these statements are not applicable to every instrument out there; that's just been my experience with them. What's yours?
 
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#2
How I think about it and hear it:
-Low E is the hardest note to get clear and perfect, so I myself would sacrifice, if necessary, some other properties in return for clearer first few notes on the E string.
-A single coil at the neck (Ric) to me gives the clearest and most beautiful lows.
-As the pickup is moved toward the bridge, it passes through a spectrum of gradually increasing "attitude": Ric neck pickup... single coil P bass... J neck pickup... and right about there, a little EQing starts to become necessary if you want to hear 40Hz clearly (which is usually not actually necessary, they say, but that's another subject, and most amps' bass control "knees" are set higher than that). The location of the J neck pickup is probably as far back as a pickup can be and still have a chance to be my favorite.
-...then around the location of the P pickup... then the Ric bridge pickup and half of the Stingray pickup, is the location where the "attitude" of which I spoke becomes "bombast", which can be heard flamboyantly maximized on the Blues Brothers soundtrack (also BTO when he was using the Ric model with only the bridge pickup). Nothing wrong with that. Synergistic with the fridge!
-From there, as the bridge is approached ...J 60's spacing bridge pickup ...other half of Stingray pickup, "bombast" gets pinched into "nasality" (not saying anything is wrong with that either). The good news is that with EQing, compression, etc (I'm not an expert), some of the greatest "hard rock" (please excuse the old-fashioned verbiage) tone with great articulation can be had here, and the lows can be clear too (pull up as desired with EQ), tighter and clearer than a P bass. This location is potentially my alternate, 2nd favorite, maybe. J 70's spacing bridge pickup might be the last to make this category, effected as I said, for solo pickups.
There it is, for what it's worth.
 
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#10
dustinymichaels said:
I don't know how many people realize how clean the Stingray records so that you can shape it with pedals and eq at the board, etc...
Click to expand...
Yes, I bought a Ray4 for a rough joint we play at. I must have gotten a good one. Run EB slinky’s, play between the pickup and neck, I don’t touch my more expensive basses any longer. Play it at almost every gig.
 
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#15
kln_bc said:
Most of us have probably tried these big 4 basses....Jazz, Precision, Thunderbird, and Stingray. I know they vary depending on specs, the brand, the room, the time of day, the color of the walls, whatever...I'm not looking for people to tell me what to expect from them or anything. I have my experiences with them that have colored my perceptions of them; I just want to start a discussion of what your perception of them is. How do you see/hear them?

Me, in my relatively limited experience, I find the Jazz bass to be both very clear (sometimes too much), and very heavy in the bass; it's very versatile and my favorite. Then the Tbird, which I find has a little less top end, more mids, and more low-end of you want it (again, sometimes too much). The Pbass I find very mid forward and is kind of falling out of favor with me at the moment...kind of feels like it has the whole "jack of all trades, master of none" thing going on. The Stingray, I find very boomy....if I could dial that out it would be great, but I never could.

I'm sure these statements are not applicable to every instrument out there; that's just been my experience with them. What's yours?
Click to expand...
P bass I typically describe as round

Jazz bass varies depending on the player and tone. If your talking a Jaco solo’d bridge pickup sound I would say throaty but if you’re talking Marcus miller I’d say modern and scooped

stringray I’d describe as more hollow. Nice lows and sparkling highs but it’s less about midrange.

My go to bass for several years now is my dingwall ng2 equipped with two reverse p pickups in the middle and bridge positions. I always describe it as the child of a p bass and a stingray. It can do more traditional p bass sounds if you solo the front pickup but with both pickups in series, which I really consider the “dingwall sound” it has the deep lows and sparkling highs of a stingray but with the roundness of P bass.
 
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#16
LetItGrowTone said:
How I think about it and hear it:
-Low E is the hardest note to get clear and perfect, so I myself would sacrifice, if necessary, some other properties in return for clearer first few notes on the E string.
-A single coil at the neck (Ric) to me gives the clearest and most beautiful lows.
-As the pickup is moved toward the bridge, it passes through a spectrum of gradually increasing "attitude": Ric neck pickup... single coil P bass... J neck pickup... and right about there, a little EQing starts to become necessary if you want to hear 40Hz clearly (which is usually not actually necessary, they say, but that's another subject, and most amps' bass control "knees" are set higher than that). The location of the J neck pickup is probably as far back as a pickup can be and still have a chance to be my favorite.
-...then around the location of the P pickup... then the Ric bridge pickup and half of the Stingray pickup, is the location where the "attitude" of which I spoke becomes "bombast", which can be heard flamboyantly maximized on the Blues Brothers soundtrack (also BTO when he was using the Ric model with only the bridge pickup). Nothing wrong with that. Synergistic with the fridge!
-From there, as the bridge is approached ...J 60's spacing bridge pickup ...other half of Stingray pickup, "bombast" gets pinched into "nasality" (not saying anything is wrong with that either). The good news is that with EQing, compression, etc (I'm not an expert), some of the greatest "hard rock" (please excuse the old-fashioned verbiage) tone with great articulation can be had here, and the lows can be clear too (pull up as desired with EQ), tighter and clearer than a P bass. This location is potentially my alternate, 2nd favorite, maybe. J 70's spacing bridge pickup might be the last to make this category, effected as I said, for solo pickups.
There it is, for what it's worth.
Click to expand...

You speak a couple of times about adding eq to "pull up" the low end as the pickup approaches the bridge. This is a good idea, with one rather big flaw. You can (with suitable knowledge of the Physics involved) run simulations of what is going on, and get curves of the low frequency response resulting from different pickup locations - one of the cool things here is that magnetic pickups are flat at low frequencies; the only factor that determines the same of that curve at low frequencies is the pickup location.

OK, so we have a frequency response curve, we apply the inverse, and...problem solved. Not quite (here's the flaw). there isn't one curve, there's 4. Or 5, or 6 - every string has its own curve. The filter that's formed with a pickup location is a wavelength filter, and the strings have different wavelengths for the same frequency - the curves are not the same for each string. The place where the response of a bass with a pickup close to the bridge is most obviously lacking is on the low frets of the low strings, so...the compromise on something like a Stingray is to compensate well on the E (and maybe A) strings. The D is a compromise, and the G string is a worse compromise. Why do people complain about a "thin" sounding G string on a 'Ray? In part because G strings are single wound (more high end to dazzle you), but also because the EQ applied to make the lower strings sound big is not the EQ needed to make the G string sound big. This compromise gets worse as the pickup gets closer to the bridge. Why isn't a "Ray made with a pickup closer to the bridge and more EQ? Because the compromise would be worse - the G string would sound even thinner.
 
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#18
Precision Bass - Strong, punchy tone with an emphasis on the mids. Incredibly versatile and sits well in almost any mix. Not a one trick pony like so many bassists say. You can get an excellent all around tone with rounds or flats.

Jazz Bass - A jack of all trades. OK at some tones, but a master of none. The neck pickup alone isn’t as strong as a Precision Bass. The bridge pickup alone is way too nasally! Both pickups together also sound too thin. A Rickenbacker 4003 does everything a Jazz Bass tries to do, but better! However, Jazz Basses do make excellent piccolo basses!

Thunderbird - Dark, rich tone with an emphasis on lows and low mids. Not much highs and limited high mids. The first few frets are quite a reach for some bassists, so tones can be elusive for them. Nikki Sixx comes to mind when I think of a Thunderbird.

Stingray - Incredibly versatile thanks to it’s active electronics. Excellent slap bass tone, but also sounds really smooth with flats. Bernard Edwards and John Deacon come to mind when I think of a Stingray tone.
 
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#19
A jazz-style bass with both pickups full-on is what my brain perceives to be a standard, ideal bass tone. I tend to interpret all other pickup configurations primarily based upon how they differ from that sound. For example, the Stingray and p-bass are somewhat parallel in that they each sound like a fatter and more mid-present version of a solo'd jazz bridge or neck pickup, respectively, but they also both tend to sound "incomplete" when I play them due to the lack of the other pickup.
 
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#20
MCS4 said:
A jazz-style bass with both pickups full-on is what my brain perceives to be a standard, ideal bass tone. I tend to interpret all other pickup configurations primarily based upon how they differ from that sound. For example, the Stingray and p-bass are somewhat parallel in that they each sound like a fatter and more mid-present version of a solo'd jazz bridge or neck pickup, respectively, but they also both tend to sound "incomplete" when I play them due to the lack of the other pickup.
Click to expand...

The P and SR temple priests are now gathering outside with pitchforks and torches. I do agree with you
 
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