Funny thing is, 10-12 years ago, you couldn't give away P-basses. Talkbass was all jazz, all the time, with the P crowd being treated like lepers. Okay, not lepers, but... like a drunk uncle at Thanksgiving that you keep having to tell to go outside if he's gonna smoke. The pendulum swings, I guess.
Yeah, on some guitar forums over the past few years I kept seeing people say things like
"Well, Fender Jaguars and Jazzmasters are the hip thing now. All those sexy offset waists. All the indie bands rock em."
Then more recently it was
"Well, I guess the Fender Telecaster is the "cool" guitar again for hipster college bands. Can't swing a cat without hitting some hipster rocking a Tele."
I don't agree. I can see Jags and Jazzes kind of coming more in and out of "style" (for lack of a better term.) Fine instruments, but they've never been as popular as Strats and Teles of course.
But the Telecaster? For indie bands cruising for hipster cred? Pfft. The Telecaster was THE Industry Standard electric guitar for almost 10 years and since its inception it has been one of the Top Three Solidbody Electrics of All Time (along with the Strat and Les Paul, natch.)
It's pretty much the same with the P-bass. Especially the '57 and beyond P bass. Along with the Fender Jazz that came along a few years later, they are just Industry Standards of solidbody electric bass guitars. Doesn't make them "The Best" bass instruments in the universe necessarily, but their staying power, ubiquity and overall popularity over the past 5-6 decades speaks to something far deeper than hipsterism or trendiness.
These days with tone shaping being so available, I can make anything sound pretty close to however I want by twiddling a few knobs.
Thank you. I've been preaching this for years. Nothing gets my goat to come out more than people talking about a bass that is a "one trick pony." I hear that so frequently with regards to the P bass in particular, it seems.
Man, if there is ANY solidbody electric bass you can only get one sound out of, you really need to learn how to fiddle with vol/tone knobs, EQ and amp settings. But MORE importantly--
you need to work on your technique and varying your technique. There are fifty ways to make ANY electric bass achieve different sounds and tones...mostly it comes from the player and the player's fingers, but there are so many ways to get alternate sounds out of any electric instrument.
I'll say it again: there is no such thing as a "one trick pony" bass; only one trick pony players.
I'm not saying that you can make a passive four string fretted P bass sound like a fretless 6 string with active electronics.
I'm saying that the idea there are electric basses capable of producing only one sound is one of the biggest crocks of nonsense and BS floating around the entire Internet.
Ive always felt the same way about flats. Theres some conspiracy by an underground organization spearheaded by string manufacturers to try and brainwash the public into buying the Dull sounding product that doesnt sell well.
Ha! I like flats a great deal in many situations but I don't use them anymore. I almost always use SS roundwounds. The reason is I can approximate the sound of flats on roundwounds pretty well, but I can't make flats get me the roundwound sound nearly as well. It's pretty easy to ease back a bit with your right hand fingers (or pick) and kind of "kill" the vibrating string with your fretting hand so it sounds less bright and aggressive and get that wonderful thump you get from flats.
