• 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.

I'm so fickle...

InThePocket123

InThePocket123

Feb 2, 2012
13
17
New Hampshire
#1
I remember not long after I started playing, I had an opportunity to try a p-bass for the first time. At the time, I hated it! I mean, I really could NOT understand how anyone could like that sound. It was mid heavy and brash. I remember being enamored with a really scooped, modern sound back then.

Years pass, countless basses come and go...guess what my go to bass is now? The one that broke me of the years and years of gas? ...a precision. They sit so well with a band. And the sound that I once hated, I find that I now crave. How fickle is that? Or maybe my ears and tastes have changed.

Anyone ever experience something like this?
 
#2
Experience being fickle? Sure. That is part of why I have almost thirty basses. The bass that is perfect for me for a few months will one day suddenly be a dog.
When that happens, I move on to the next. I'm finally at the point that I have enough basses with enough different geometries that I always have a "go to" bass. (It just changes from time to time.) Missing from my arsenal is a good, narrow-spaced, 35" fiver though.
 
#3
InThePocket123 said:
I remember not long after I started playing, I had an opportunity to try a p-bass for the first time. At the time, I hated it! I mean, I really could NOT understand how anyone could like that sound. It was mid heavy and brash. I remember being enamored with a really scooped, modern sound back then.

Years pass, countless basses come and go...guess what my go to bass is now? The one that broke me of the years and years of gas? ...a precision. They sit so well with a band. And the sound that I once hated, I find that I now crave. How fickle is that? Or maybe my ears and tastes have changed.

Anyone ever experience something like this?
Click to expand...
I went through the same situation. Couldn't stand it and now can't let it go. I found a used P bass and it has become my main axe for almost all the gigs I played since I got it last year. Such is life...
 
#4
When I Got into bass playing after playing guitar I loved the sound of a jazz bass hated with a passion the P bass sound. So for a few years it was the Jazz.
I kept thinking the bottom was lacking with the Jazz thou. Where was that
Thick, fat bass sound I knew on all those old records?

So one day I looked up the recordings I loved what bass and who played it? Found out it was the P bass 90% of the time. I have been a P bass man since.

I will say the Jazz is more musical sounding than the P bass and I hate the sound of a P bass solo. But in a band nothing is as fat as the old P bass..nothing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mexicant
#5
InThePocket123 said:
I remember not long after I started playing, I had an opportunity to try a p-bass for the first time. At the time, I hated it! I mean, I really could NOT understand how anyone could like that sound. It was mid heavy and brash. I remember being enamored with a really scooped, modern sound back then.

Years pass, countless basses come and go...guess what my go to bass is now? The one that broke me of the years and years of gas? ...a precision. They sit so well with a band. And the sound that I once hated, I find that I now crave. How fickle is that? Or maybe my ears and tastes have changed.

Anyone ever experience something like this?
Click to expand...
Same thing happened with me (I went with the jazz bass) and I know the feeling. Now I look back and think of all the years I spent refusing to look outside of Warwick, at least I am home now :) I still would like a jazz clone (sadowsky&Lull) but I'm good with what I have.
 
#6
I have some bass diversity in my lineup with An American Jazz, an American Standard Jaguar, a vintage Tele bass, an American Deluxe Dimension V HH and an EBMM Stingray.

But the basses that speak to me always seem to be Precisions. And right this moment I, as I write this I came to a startling realization. My latest acquisitions mean that I now own five Precisions. I can try other things, but in the end I reach for a P-bass again and again.
 
#9
InThePocket123 said:
I remember not long after I started playing, I had an opportunity to try a p-bass for the first time. At the time, I hated it! I mean, I really could NOT understand how anyone could like that sound. It was mid heavy and brash. I remember being enamored with a really scooped, modern sound back then.

Years pass, countless basses come and go...guess what my go to bass is now? The one that broke me of the years and years of gas? ...a precision. They sit so well with a band. And the sound that I once hated, I find that I now crave. How fickle is that? Or maybe my ears and tastes have changed.

Anyone ever experience something like this?
Click to expand...

Simple. Your ears are better educated now.
 
#10
When I was 16, I started playing bass. I knew from the start, Fender's just weren't for me. I didn't like the tones I was finding, regardless of model P or J. There was a Samick Artist Series 5'er that I loved the tone of though, which ironically, was a P/J combo. I tried out quite a few 4's before I bought my first instrument, and I loved everything about that Samick. I played that bass for years, with others coming and going. Eventually, it, like the rest of my instruments and gear was sold for one reason or another. I've always tried out random Fender P's and J's. Was never able to get into them, and I couldn't understand why anyone else could. In my mind, there were much better instruments out there, especially if you're shopping around in its respective price class. Fender Precision or Jazz Standard for around $700? That one was easy...grab a Spector! Eventually, I grew to be a well known Fender cynic and basher. I'd play on a Fender Strat all day long, no questions asked...but their basses? NEVER!

Years went by, and I found myself needing a bass that would meld well in an 80's/90's cover band a buddy of mine was putting together. I wound up with a Squire Jazz Standard because as much as I didn't care for the tone of it, it had the tone I NEEDED. Eventually, the band disintegrated before we even got a practice in, and into the closet that Squire went.

On one not too particular day, I pulled that Jazz out. I looked at it, and realising it needed a bit of tweaking here and there after plugging it in and playing it for a few minutes, I did the work, and plugged it back in. I played it for a few hours. No real reason why. I just...played. Something connected with me there.

I eventually installed some Duncan QP's, and I liked them. Eventually, I decided to put the original pickups back in though. Right now, I'm debating on weather or not to try a set of Nordstrand's, but I'll probably just leave it be. After I get my Ibanez, I'm going after an American Standard Jazz V and swap out the B for a high C. I may possibly a MIM Deluxe Active Jazz, again, favouring that high C.
 
#11
Same story here. Got rid of my first (70's?) Precision--much to the dismay of my jazz band director--to get a Cort Model X. I was so cool. Even had my senior pictures taken with it.
Decades later, I'm back to the P basses. My only hang up, after years of Ibanez basses, is that my left hand likes the size of the Jazz neck. I scored a RW P with a J neck in a trade, and just this morning finished putting a fretless J neck on my Ben Lindsey P.
It's good to find your home.
 
#14
I'm not fickle, just easy to please. I still like the Ripper, and now I like the SX P-bass. Even came to like the fretless Wishbass, once I fixed it up with a humbucker and flats and learned how to EQ it to get the tone I'm looking for from a fretless.

If I could keep only one, though, it just might be the P-bass.

Otto
 
Last edited:

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back