P Bass..... it just works!

[bass71]

....yep ...

 

[roller]

It sure does...

Tasty line!

 

[EatS1stBassist]

My daughter asked me to do a bass line for her new original that she is recording for a school project. It's a very jazzy feel of a song so i thought I'd try it with my fretless jazz bass. Did one take with both pickups on full, then did a take with just the bridge pickup to try for that buurpy mwah tone. With both of these takes i tried quite a bit of eq-ing after the fact but they both disappeared in the mix with only an acoustic guitar and vocal track to compete with.

I grabbed my Pbass with flats and did a take with a pick and it is definitely the best of the three takes. Even sounds more like an upright tone on the walking line than the fretless.

Ok, I'm just a novice when it comes to recording and i love the sound of my fretless in the lounge room, but i was still surprised how much better the P sounded on the recording.

Once was and probably still is the most recorded bass in History!! To recording engineers it’s one of the most desirable of all.

 

[BassGH]

P basses (and many of their split coil cousins) just work for damn near anything. If you must have one bass sound to do everything, a p would have to be it.

 

[Kenova]

When I started playing bass I was anti-fender, active humbucker pickup, roundwound, bright, clanky, only fingers bass user... now I’m playing P bass and Thunderbird, both with flats and mostly pick, so... yeah...

 

[punchdrunk]

Stark simplicity for the win.

 

[scuzzy]

P bass? Never heard of it....

 

[dbsfgyd1]

My daughter asked me to do a bass line for her new original that she is recording for a school project. It's a very jazzy feel of a song so i thought I'd try it with my fretless jazz bass. Did one take with both pickups on full, then did a take with just the bridge pickup to try for that buurpy mwah tone. With both of these takes i tried quite a bit of eq-ing after the fact but they both disappeared in the mix with only an acoustic guitar and vocal track to compete with.

I grabbed my Pbass with flats and did a take with a pick and it is definitely the best of the three takes. Even sounds more like an upright tone on the walking line than the fretless.

Ok, I'm just a novice when it comes to recording and i love the sound of my fretless in the lounge room, but i was still surprised how much better the P sounded on the recording.

If I have a choice of one bass to take to the studio, and I have more than 450 songs in the can across many genre’s, more than likely it will be my P-Bass.

No knock on other basses , and there are a boatload of better built basses with better engineering out there, not to mention, made with far better components, but when you hit that playback button in the studio, for me, nothing hits the target better and more often than that difinitive sounding Fender P-Bass.

I guess that means I must either be really old, or deaf...lol. Oh, and sorry, no flats on my basses...ever!

 

[dbsfgyd1]

I studied recording in college. My school had a 24-track studio that operated 24 hours a day, run by the students. Once our instructors knew they could trust the newer pupils to NOT stick the U87 inside a kick drum, we could sign up for an 8-hour shift. It was a glorious time!

Anyhoo, when I was there, I received LOTS of seat time... and hand down, the best sounding (and easiest) electric bass I ever recorded was a stock 70s Fender P, run into a direct box.

Boom.

Done.

It just worked.

Amen bro. Been doing that for almost 45 years of session work.

 

[Herrick]

???? No one has yet made a 6 string P?

I've never seen a 6-string P made by any companies but there's a guy on this forum that made his own. I don't remember his name. I haven't seen him posting here in a while.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

P bass? Never heard of it....

Best post of the day!

 

[dbsfgyd1]

Except when you need a six string bass.

Then that begs the question. Is a 6 string actually a bass, or a really deep classical guitar? lol!

Seriously, I absolutely love a master 6 string player, those guys are unbelievable. Increadibly creative, and the artistry just blows me away what you can get out of them. I wish they were on the market 50 years ago when I was getting started as a pro, but there was zero music written for them back then, and would have sounded out of place.

 

[juancaminos]

Damn I'm gonna have to get a P-Bass, I guess. Then maybe I can get a band going!

 

[Lowbrow]

Not saying anything against other basses, only that the P will give you everything you need to work with and very little you’ll need to fight with.

 

[dennis james]

Yep. My main basses are Ps and my only electric guitar is a telecaster. I’m clearly not into knob-twiddling

simplicity is a beautiful thing. same holds true for amps.

 

[rodv66]

Sold my p bass and got a jazz, very happy with the switch.

 

[somebrains]

PSA, do NOT try this with an active pickup.

 

[Bassist Jay]

I’ve been playing bass since the mid 80’s. During that time I have never owned a P bass until last year. I had a custom shop K B Guitars P bass built for me and have really fallen in love with them. So much so that #2 is in production right now and #3 will be starting production soon.

 

[BAG]

It may be interesting and worthwhile to note that the soloed neck pickup of my American Original '60s Jazz Bass is equal to the middiest and crispiest of the P basses with the tone full on...

A lot of people neglect favouring the neck pickup on a Jazz bass whether live or in a recording situation

Funny you mention that as I was playing yesterday afternoon with the neck pickup only on the fretless Jazz. I think i might have to do another take to see how it sounds.

I just assumed I would not like P basses with their thicker necks

I dislike the fat neck of a P....... which is why my P has a Jazz sized neck.

Fender managed to put the right pickup in the right place. I'd assume there was a lot of experimenting from Fender and feed back from the musicians that used to hang out at the factory. My guess is that they knew what they were doing because bass gear at the time couldn't handle anything bigger or lower. The P bass focusses on the low mids which is where the producers, artists and players preferred the bass lines to be. Once the P bass was in the studio, and sounding that good, something better had to come along to take over. Nothing did.

It is interesting that in the late 50's and 60's bass players tended to play more of the midrange notes, possibly because nearly all radios and home stereos couldn't reproduce the lower notes.
The fact that even now so many people still prefer the P, despite the abundance of other options, says that they really got something right.

 

[somebrains]

Have you guys played a large cross sectiontube bass combos and correct cabs from the 50's-70's?
Not SVTs, Marshall Majors, or Hiwatt mega heads but your average Dean + Jerry sweater vest bass amp?

Guitar amps from the era also don't have the chudding lows a modern amp is capable of producing.