I had an MFS SB-2 for a whiel. It was a wonderful bass, and one of the few that I regret selling. Mine had the dual volume, dual tone mod, and you could coax all kinds of things out of it. Transparent green with a unique pearloid guard, maple neck. It was beautiful.
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Only a P-bass?
- Thread starter Dr. Cheese
- Start date
Saw him three different times during the Steely Dan '09 tour. Every time he had a sunburst P-bass. Not a Smith to be seen...
Besides my first bass a cheap dean that cost 100$ 7 years ago and is thrashed to unplayablity, i only have a 57 american vintage P , its all i need. I am trying to learn freewill by rush all the way through , this is proving challenging.
I get what you are saying, and it's catchy and makes the Pbass choir stand up and shout Amen! I'm in that choir on a part-time basis, so I think that's totally cool. Honestly I do.
But as an example, these are also the kinds of phrases that perpetuate the myth for the inexperienced that a P bass "just always works." There are times when a P bass simply does not fit the song or musical genre no matter how hard a player may try. Sure, some P bass-only fanatics might like it simply because it feeds their craving for that sound, but that doesn't mean it's a good musical choice for most folks who could give a rip what the bass sounds like. Most folks just want the entire song to sound and feel "right", as nebulous as that might be. That might mean putting the P bass down and playing something else, even if it's outside the personal preferences of the bass player. This is just one of the things that separates professionals and semi-professionals from novice players. There's more to being a well-rounded bassist than skillful playing IMHO.
Not disagreeing with you either. There is a reason why I own other basses. However for most gigs my go-to bass is a P-bass. Other non-P's I play are a 70s Jazz Classic with a BAII Bridge (not a fan of the bridge but the bass sounds killer) strung with TI flats and an Ibanez Musician and Roadstar II. I get a pretty versatile range of sounds out of them.
Are we talking about a BASS or about the techniques and the different strings used to create different sounds with it? 'Cause I'm not to into changing strings in the middle of a set.
I understand your love for the P. I love my P. It does the classic P sound so well. But, it only does the P sound. My Jazz, on the other hand, does close to the P sound, close to a Ray sound, the Jazz sound... Get my drift? The Jazz is far more versatile.
I wonder what acoustic bassists think about the argument over the versatility of P-basses? I think a P-bass can be used anywhere. Obviously, it won't produce the tone most associated with some genres, but it can be used anywhere.
interesting... with all this talk about P vs J vs other configurations... I always thought the color of the bass made the biggest difference 
. At least that was what I was told back in the late 80's when I played in an Alt Metal band with a bright pink barrington P/J 
. People could never get over the color, never mind that is sounded fantastic. People thought I would not be able to play because of the color.
As far as P's vs others, I just found my way back to the P bass after a 20 year absence from it. If I had to, I could go down to just a P bass (I just hope I never have to).
If you play with you right fingers (or a pick) at different places, you will get different tones. When people say you only get one tone, I do not understand that...
. At least that was what I was told back in the late 80's when I played in an Alt Metal band with a bright pink barrington P/J . People could never get over the color, never mind that is sounded fantastic. People thought I would not be able to play because of the color. As far as P's vs others, I just found my way back to the P bass after a 20 year absence from it. If I had to, I could go down to just a P bass (I just hope I never have to).
If you play with you right fingers (or a pick) at different places, you will get different tones. When people say you only get one tone, I do not understand that...
You can say that about any bass really.
You could give me any bass in any setting playing any style, and I am going to sound pretty much like me. I am far more limited by by own talent and abilities than I am the tonal flexibility of the instrument. To me, basses are a lot more the same than they are different.
In fact, I would suggest that the look of the bass is more important to a particular style than the tone. You could use a 5A quilt top neckthrough to record a punk record and 99 percent of the people would never notice, but show up on the live stage playing it at a punk show, and you'd stick out like sore thumb.
The tonal versatility should really come from the player. If you rely on the instrument for tonal versatility, you are giving away an awful lot of your power to that instrument.
Think about it. Are you really not more important than the bass concerning the tone?
In the real world, some pros have ONE bass and make it sound good in more styles than we have fingers. That bass could be a P or a J or something different. It is a sad fact, but true. Tone does not come from your instrument. A specific instrument merely makes some tones easier to get than others. But it should all be there in the vast majority of well setup basses. If it isn't, it's the player, not the bass.
John
No offense, but anyone who thinks a P-bass is a one-trick pony is a one-trick player.
I won't change strings in the middle of a set. Now, an easy option would be to switch between two P-basses, one with flats and one with rounds... but I'm probably not doing that either. I can get a wide range of sounds from a single P-bass through technique alone: e.g. how I attack the strings, where I attack the strings. The same bass through the same rig can sound aggressive when played hard down near the bridge, and mellow when lightly stroked up where the neck meets the body (or even over the fingerboard when playing down low). Naturally, there are many flavors in between.
On top of that: we all know the stereotypical slap tone is on a J, but I much prefer it on a P. Not last and not least, playing P-bass with a pick sounds awesome.
I will concede that not every bandleader/producer will accept a P-bass, and that it's hard to squeeze harmonics and burp out of a vanilla P (meaning not a PJ) if you're doing the Jaco thing. But I play a wide range of music with a few different local bands and use a single pickup P-bass for all of it: fingerstyle, pickstyle, and slapstyle.
Agreed, add in the adjustability of the tone and volume controls, and you can get a lot of sounds.
Agrred again, the punch of a slapped P is incredible.
Of course, it is possible, Billy Sheehan uses a P pickup in the standard position for all his highs and harmonics etc.
More myth and propoganda. I've never seen anyone make a P bass sound like a jazz, or an MTD, or a Rick, or a Stingray, or anything else. No one argues that a player's skill and hands aren't important to getting a great tone, or that technique changes can't have dramatic effects on the sound coming out of an instrument. But this myth that "tone is all in the hands" is another pet peeve of mine when it's offered as THE solution for making an instrument work when it's clearly the instrument that doesn't fit. Put a P bass in Marcus Miller's hands, and it'll sound like Marcus Miller...ON A P BASS! I'm sure it would sound great and totally kill, but it would also be totally different, and have a different vibe, and some folks wouldn't like it at all. That's the nature of changing instruments and gear. It's part of the decision process.
If someone wants to play a P bass on every single song or recording they do because they love it, that is totally cool. It really is. But really, I don't understand the need to make arguments like this one.
Actually *I* don't understand the need for everything on TB to become an argument at all. We don't have to change each other, fer gossakes.
IMO, there is something almost organic about playing a single pickup bass, especially if that bass is passive. The fact that such basses do not have the easy tonal versatility of two pickup basses really forces that player to work on digging nuances out the instrument like someone playing an acoustic instrument. I played a Rickenbacker 4000 for seven years, and to this day, I think I got a better sound out of that bass than any other I have ever played because I really studied it and learned how to get tones out of it.
Big +1 here. Some of my favorite instruments have been single pup variants. A Lakland Duck Dunn, Stingray5, a Gary Willis GB1 just to name a few. They are very focused and let you really worry more about your hand since you don't have knobs to fiddle with.
So do I. I just think a single pickup bass gives me a connection to the music that bass with more options doesn't offer.
My new P Bass is making me try out new right-hand placements and such, mostly because I'm still so enamoured with it that I want to know everything I can do with it.
I've actually made the same argument to folks who think that they can make their 35" scale, active humbucker equipped, 4-band EQ having, SS roundwound wearing, coffee table wood bass sound like a P-bass with flats. I love modern basses and I love old school P-basses, and I think that either one is a poor substitute for the other. There is something completely satisfying about bringing a P-bass to a gig and not fiddling with anything all night. There is just an honesty (for lack of a better word) in the tone of a good P-bass. It can be very liberating to just play without worrying about batteries, how the EQ is set, etc. They can teach you how to get different tones without having to fiddle with loads of different tone knobs, just using your hands.
But, it is not the "perfect" bass for all songs/styles/genres. It wasn't even "perfect" for all styles in the 50s, or Leo never would have been driven to design the Jazz Bass. They are just tools in a toolbox IMO. For some jobs, the P-bass is the perfect tool. But, just as you wouldn't use a hammer when a screwdriver is needed, the P-bass isn't the right tool for every job.
I will issue a caveat to my own statement though....if you can only have one tool in the toolbox, the P-bass is a pretty good one to have.
