new Fender P or skyline Glaub

I've had both. I have and prefer the Lakland Skyline Glaub, mostly because of the feel of the neck.

 

Both are great basses. The Glaub probably has a slight more vintage feel and sound to it but the 08 Fenders are great too.

 

I agree and IMHO this is what you should base your decision on. They both are P basses and sound similar but the neck of the feel is very different on each.

 

While they are both P basses, they are different in a lot of ways.

In feel, the Glaub would be be closer compared to say a 62RI Precison as opposed to a modern Precision. The Glaub is based on a 64 Precision.

The pickup in the glaub is better compared to the 62RI pickup as opposed to the modern wound series. Lakland is using new pickups lately, and you can hear them on their site. They were using Fralins for a long time.

From a build standpoint, both are built very well. You really would do fine with either one. However I'd have to give an edge to Lakland strictly from the standpoint of attention to detail, in all aspects of production. A good setup on a good Fender will still be a seriously good bass. I tried out several new Precisions a few weeks ago. They were all very nice basses. So much so that I've thought of trading my current jazzes for a new P.

If your current bass is not giving the vintge low end your looking for, I'd suggest a vintage style pickup. IMO, current Fender Precision pickups are more, top end biased. Which vintage pickup to choose is hard to say, but my P bass pickup search keeps coming back to Seymour Duncan. I'm looking for a pickup for my fretless P currently. The SPB1 is what I'm leaning towards. The Fralins pickups sound very good as well.

 

I've owned both and the Glaub didn't stay very long. I wasn't the first owner on it, but it had some serious finish issues where the finish was starting to bubble around the bridge. The neck was pretty alright though I preferred the neck of my main Precision more (82 57RI)

The Fralins sounded very warm and kind of gritty. They're good if you like that kind of thing, but they sounded the same as every other Fralin equipped bass I've owned.

 

i have had both and i own a glaub right now,i haven't used the new lakland pickups but ive heard them, and they sound great.
heres soundclips
fralins
http://www.lakland.com/ac_glaub.htm
lakland
http://www.lakland.com/ac_dunn.htm

 

My first Lakland bass was a Glaub. Then I became Lakland's proud distributor in my small country.

 

Check out the Glaub with the DarkStar pickup.

 

Yeah, but that doesn't sound like a P at all. Not better or worse but a whole different animal IMHO.

 

The Fender P won my personal contest. Both sounded fine, but the Fender neck quality was far superior (shocking) on the two models I was trying. The Glaub frets were the sharpest I've ever felt, bar none.

Yes, I'm aware that this is fret sprout time, but even the store employees commented on these frets. I have to believe this was a fluke-of-sorts.