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NBD: Retired my Jazz. Going all Precision now

#44
If you have the luxury other basses you can play for two months, what has worked for me is a tip I received from a luthier to loosen the truss rod, remove the strings, and hang the bass for a month or so to let the neck "settle out" and 'cure' itself of extreme forward bow. Then, gradually tighten the truss rod with increasingly tighter string tension over the course of a week. Too many truss rod turns too fast could cause cracking.
 
#48
Adjusting the truss rod to get a lower action is not correct, you adjust the truss rod to adjust the neck relief then you adjust the bridge saddles to raise or lower the action. You want an almost straight neck but with a bit of relief.

If your tech said that he setup your bass per Fender specs then it means that the neck relief is ok, not need to keep adjusting the truss rod, now is time to adjust the bridge saddles and then is when you can find that what you need is to dress the frets.
 
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#49
Ive been playing a P exclusively the past year after, I had picked up one of the Am. Special Nitro Satin Honey Bursts, great P basses.
HOWEVER....I also just got an 86 MIJ Fender Jazz, it's nearly in new condition, plays and sounds great at home, depending on how it performs tonight...it may be my new #1:)
 
#51
I just went all pbass myself. I have one with rosewood board that wears TI Flats. Just picked up another yesterday with maple board that wears rounds.
Covers everything I need .
I found my preference for 5 string 34 scale pbass outside of the Fender / Squier brands.
 
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#54
Matt Dean said:
I've gone all P all the time too... my last jazz bass was a nordy, so it was no slouch. But, the P just sounds better in the mix to my ears.
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pedroims said:
I love how my classic P sounds at church, I found that the only time I pick my jazz is when I need the B string, I am seriously thinking to get a P5 :)
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Every few months, I switch between favoring my Nordy VP5 and my VJ5 (active P/J). The VJ5 is more versatile, but the VP5 feels and sounds so FAT!
 
#58
brendanbassix said:
I have no idea why people say that :confused: A good P bass played with good technique and a good groove sounds great on its own and that is a very nice P bass
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I was a Jazz player for like 12 years before I switched to P's. I was a one bass kinda guy, and I wanted something I thought was the most versatile at the time I picked out my Jazz. I bought a P one day years later "because everyone has to have one" and I liked how it fit in our band mixes so much I converted over. I tend to favor straight up Ps with different pickups for different purposes. E.g. MFD for brighter modern stuff, or EMG Geezer for vintage tone. However I have a PJ for quasi-jazz sounds or growly tones.

The problem some people have with Ps is that they don't have as much bite as they might like for modern music, or it doesn't have as much versatility having the single pickup. However, you can fix both of those problems easily enough by getting a PJ. With a PJ you keep that solid, wide P-bass tone but can augment it to be scooped or brighter as needed by blending in the J. Others like myself also get by owning multiple Ps with different pickups. As I noted, I use one P with a split-MFD, and another with a EMG Geezer for brighter and warmer sounds respectively. Both pickups produce that P meat, but kinda change the EQ of the high-end and upper-mids.

The one thing I like about Ps is how they can slot right into the mix when you're playing thicker music, like wall-of-sound stuff. They don't sound as great as a Jazz bass if you're in a 3-piece band or playing alone or way out front, but once you add more guitarists, really overdriven/distorted guitars or other instruments it gets harder to hear something like a Jazz bass in the mix. Of course you can EQ it just like any other bass with your amp, or with a preamp if you have an active Jazz, but it takes a bit of work. With a P you don't have this happen to the same extent. You can often hear a P sitting in a wall of sound without much mixing work (and I don't mean to imply there is no work, it's just less in my experience).

P-basses sound to me exactly like an amplified version of the tone your bass strings make acoustically. Put your ear up to your bass and listen while playing unplugged, then plug in and play again and you'll see what I mean. Pickups closer to the neck or bridge tend change the EQ of that sound, either boosting the fundamental or high-end depending. P's are right in the center somewhere, and in combination with the other design elements of a P pickup like the wider, flatter coil, the wire thickness, etc. they tend to produce a thick, wide sound that gives you a boost in the mid-range right around where we are used to human voices sitting in the frequency spectrum. I think that's why we can hear it so well.

Of course, YMMV. Everybody doesn't have to have the same preferences and everyone doesn't play the same styles of music. I could see that a P isn't always the right tool for the job, but in my experience it often was the least complex way to get the job done.
 
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