Leo Fender did it best....

[Thumb n Fingers]

I totally agree with all this. I love Fender designs and style. The headstock gets me every single time. It's like if I ever lay eyes on a Fender headstock, it immediately inspires me to play.

My only gripe with them, and this very well may be the only one, is the bottom cut away. I wish it was recessed more and cut out to make it easier to get as high as possible way up the neck. Not a deal breaker, but it would be nice. And the stock bridges (the older style simple ones) have never been my favorite. I own 4 different Squier/Fender basses and I have changed the bridge out on all of them. Not that those older bridges don’t work, because they do. I just hate the way they look. But that’s all aesthetic.

Completely agree. Love the headstocks, love the straight lines of the strings thru the bridge to the tuning pegs. Would also like an ergonomically friendlier lower cutaway. Also not a fan of the stock bridges, although I haven't changed any of mine out.

Funny you mention that, as I'm starting to draft a couple of body designs to build and they will probably be largely Precision and Jazz modified clones with a few modifications... the lower cutaway and bridge being absolute must changes.

 

[SteveCS]

While we are tossing opinions out there.... I can't stand the pick guards. Just a cosmetic to cover up poor routing and it can hide good wood. Truss rod adjustments screw still being located under the pick guard on some models, ***. 3 bolt necks with a tilt screw, I'm not buying that either. I'm not saying they're junk, I'm just saying. Modern G&L's are my first choice for a bass that Leo had anything to do with.

Having owned a '70's jazz for a while I have to agree on the routing and microtilt. There's no way that bass could have gone without the pickguard.

 

[Rip Van Dan]

A couple of notes...
1) The Stratocaster shape was derived from the original Precision body. The original P-basses had the double horn body but in a "slab" body shape - no arm or belly contouring. As a kid, I remember being somewhat bothered by the strat's blobby, asymmetrical shape. To my eye, symmetrical guitars like the SG and ES-335 look much better, but a stratocaster is much more comfortable to actually hold and play.

2) The "Fender" headstock shape was actually copied from another guitar, machinist Paul Bigsby made a "one off" solid body electric for country guitarist Merle Travis.

View attachment 2759392

Yup, it's similar but not quite the same. I'm guessing a big reason the Fender headstocks were designed to their shape was because you could get two of them out of a single rectangle of wood. When you cut one headstock out in one direction, it left the second one already done in the opposite direction with little if any touch up.

 

[Engle]

I like Precisions and Jazz basses, but keep in mind many of the primary design considerations were to make them easy to manufacture on an assembly line.

 

[40Hz]

Welcome to TB. Here a week and already starting a "Fender vs The Rest" battle, huh? Nope, that's never been done here before......

Yep.

Makes me wish once again we had a more intuitive search feature than the one we have here.

 

[FugaziBomb]

The P Bass was intended to be a Bass Strat, so to speak, but still doesn't look as graceful as the Jazz bass body, that design is more appealing to me visually.

P bass actually came out 3 years before the Stratocaster. I have read that the P bass is the origin of the upper horn that would later be incorporated into most Fender designs. They originally tried something similar to an oversized Tele, but it had too much neck dive, so they extended the strap button for better balance. After that, they designed the Strat to match

 

[Love_Bass]

Nah..

 

[el_Bajo_Verde]

I've always felt that the headstocks are waaaaay too big. And they tend to have noisy electronics.

But I do like the simplicity of the P and J

 

[gregmon79]

Completely agree. Love the headstocks, love the straight lines of the strings thru the bridge to the tuning pegs. Would also like an ergonomically friendlier lower cutaway. Also not a fan of the stock bridges, although I haven't changed any of mine out.

Funny you mention that, as I'm starting to draft a couple of body designs to build and they will probably be largely Precision and Jazz modified clones with a few modifications... the lower cutaway and bridge being absolute must changes.

Oh, and the one other thing I'd probably change is the headstock. I'd either tilt it just a tad so no string tree is needed or add the extra string tree or retainer to the A strings tuner.

 

[kkaarrll]

the jazz is perfection in looks and feel to me at least

 

[Yango]

In my humble opinion I feel that the jazz and precision body shapes that Leo Fender whittled and honed him self, are by far the most sexy and perfect shapes for the bass guitar - the Strat too body
He just hit it out of the park with those perfect curves and perfect length horns and double cut away, and headstock shape, pick guard shapes accenting the body....NAILED IT!!

And with all the different brands and models made since then, everything has fallen short (ok "fallen short" might be too harsh)....some to the point that they just give up on there own design and get in line and directly copy Leo like all the other's.

The only other body style on that pedestal is the Les Paul....respect due there too.

Just had to blurt my appreciation umungst peers.
My wife and kids don't give two sh!ts one way or the other ;-)

And if you disagree, who/what is your favorite body shape?

You sir, are absolutely correct.

Leo did it first. Leo did it best. Case closed.

 

[Deleted member 165050]

Paul Tutmarc did it first, but Leo will forever be thought of as the creator of the bass guitar...

 

[silvertone]

I don't have any actual data to offer - but I think it's pretty common knowledge that the stripped down design aesthetics that Leo brought to the game have kept Fender instruments from suffering from the level of head stock damage suffered by Gibson guitars and basses. The head stock angle of Gibson Les Pauls, SG's, Firebirds, Explorers, Flying Vs and more have contributed to a lot of incidents and it seems this happens way less often with Fenders.

 

[ctmullins]

Disagree. Fenders bore me. I much prefer Gibson, Rickenbacker, and Alembic Balance K.

 

[Mark76]

Oh, and the one other thing I'd probably change is the headstock. I'd either tilt it just a tad so no string tree is needed or add the extra string tree or retainer to the A strings tuner.

Like this? (No string tree, so I assume the head is tilted in some way

 

[Clef_de_fa]

Nah, not for me

 

[Gaolee]

I like a Precision well enough, but give me a Thunderbird for a lot of reasons. I like the way it looks, the ergonomics, and the way it sounds. But since we are talking about looks in this thread, we can stay on the looks. They have a dynamic quality to their looks that makes Fender and Fender-clone bass guitars look static. The neck design means the back of the bass can be smoother. There are a number of things Gibson could have done to improve the design over the years, but that's true of just about everything made by anybody. Gibson did do a few things to improve them. Recent Thunderbirds don't seem to have the same fragility as the first ones. They could do more, but I still like them and would rather play a Thunderbird than a bass with a rib sticking upper horn.

 

[TyBo]

In my humble opinion I feel that the jazz and precision body shapes that Leo Fender whittled and honed him self, are by far the most sexy and perfect shapes for the bass guitar - the Strat too body
He just hit it out of the park with those perfect curves and perfect length horns and double cut away, and headstock shape, pick guard shapes accenting the body....NAILED IT!!

And with all the different brands and models made since then, everything has fallen short (ok "fallen short" might be too harsh)....some to the point that they just give up on there own design and get in line and directly copy Leo like all the other's.

The only other body style on that pedestal is the Les Paul....respect due there too.

Just had to blurt my appreciation umungst peers.
My wife and kids don't give two sh!ts one way or the other ;-)

And if you disagree, who/what is your favorite body shape?

Yes. Yes he did.

 

[Chrisk-K]

Mr Fender nailed everything except the "take off the neck to adjust the truss rod" blunder. No matter how one views it, it was a terrible design. The worse thing is that Fender still markets it as a vintage thing.

 

[Son of Wobble]

He sure did. Shame his Missus found out about us.