P Bass Upsides?

[georgedubyah]

What's the deal with P basses in particular making it into every corner of music while being so clearly limited? I understand the need for a thumpy, vintage tone sometimes, but a PJ will do it just as well while allowing for far more sounds outside of that niche in my opinion. Especially just going through a DI, which I tend to do in the vast majority of cases (I feel much more aware of my playing and volume when I get out what I put in), the pickup in post '57 P basses, especially by itself, feels restrictive, insensitive, and generally counterintuitive.

To be clear, my issue is not with the pickup on its own, as touched on before. In fact, reverse P pickups, especially when used in PJ configurations, are among my favorite pickups I've used. The problem lies in the standard P pickup and the fact that, on a normal P bass, that's all you get. The bass side being closer to the neck means a thumpy, muddy, tone- and the opposite for the treble side, having plenty of snap thanks to being closer to the bridge. Sounds great until you realize that that's ALL IT DOES.

Getting snap out of the bottom end is near impossible, even with the tone cranked, and the high end is crispy and bright all of the time (though somehow is not sensitive at all to light touch or strumming). It seems as if the whole point of the split-coil is to force extremes out of the bass all of the time, which may not be noticeable through preamps and pedals and such but is glaringly obvious through DI. And to seal it all off, you've got to play a log of a neck with strangely wide string spacing, making it even harder to be articulate than it already was.

Again, a reverse P sounds great. A reverse P sounds balanced. A PJ sounds balanced, reversed or not. I am sincerely wondering, why would you choose to spend considerable money on such a flawed and limited bass when reverse P and PJ basses are available for the same price with far more room for tone adaptation and the ability to produce the vintage sound that so many people say they look for in a P bass? I will gladly give the P a second chance if you can explain to me any actual benefit to owning one, and of course I'll be sure to look for what you bring up when I give it that chance, but I just really can't see the point.

 

[brianrost]

 

[DJ Bebop]

I like a P bass, two is better. One with rounds, for this grandpa it would be Rotosound RL66s. One with flats, it could be the La Bella 1954s 50-110 which I am using now, TIs or anything in between. The next flat gauge I am looking at are the Sean Hurley favorites La Bella 750FL 43-104.

Surprisingly there are a lot of folks that use a P bass. From Heavy Metal to Jazz Fusion and all points in between.

 

[Bikeguy57]

A bass player who doesn't understand what a Precision bass is all about? Maybe switch to the kazoo?

 

[brianrost]

I play an upright about 99% of the time these days. They have no knobs at all. They've been that way for about 600 years.......

600 years ago, they had to use coal-fired amplifiers.

 

[cdef]

If the P seems limited by 21th-century standards, in the long run it has only meant lots of room for personal technique to develop. We are in its debt.

 

[GretschWretch]

I'll skip the downstream part (recording, direct boxes, FOH, etc.) and say this:

PBasses can seem to have a singular tone profile, but this can vary greatly depending WHERE you're picking the strings: Start picking steady eighth notes on any of the four (or five) strings right at the end of the fingerboard, and slowly slide down the strings all the way to right next to the bridge saddles, steadily picking those eighth notes till you get there. It goes from very thick bass to twangy like a Tele all the way at the end, and there's a range of tones all the way down: Pick one you like. You have tremendous tone control constantly without touching a single knob.

All basses are subject to the physics involved, but you often hear this easier on a single pickup instrument, a varying blend of two pickups tends to mask it somewhat.

I have noticed this as well, and on basses besides Ps. The tonal variations one get from doing this on a vintage Gretsch 6072 are amazing.

 

[BassicJazzy]

600 years ago, they had to use coal-fired amplifiers.

Egyptian pharaohs figure out how to use hydraulics. Of course, the aliens who visited our planet long ago left really good equipment, but nobody could ever find the input plug on Stonehenge?

 

[Lo-E]

Egyptian pharaohs figure out how to use hydraulics. Of course, the aliens who visited our planet long ago left really good equipment, but nobody could ever find the input plug on Stonehenge?

Now, THAT’S a fridge!

 

[retslock]

For the longest time I persuaded myself that Precisions were “meh”, at best. I figured there were literally dozens of other models that could do the same job as a P Bass while also providing many other useable tones. I stuck with this outlook for decades.

And then, about eight years ago and for reasons I can’t quite remember, I tried a Precision and instantly saw the light. The sound fit the music I was playing perfectly. It not only cut through the mix nicely, I was easily able to adjust the tone to accommodate the varied acoustics found in the venues we play.

I like the Precision sound so much that I built one for myself. I used a special order set of Seymour Duncan pickups that put out a tremendous amount of “thump”… the type that hits you in the chest with every note. I could not be happier. It is, for me, the perfect bass.

I did the same - built two that suit me perfectly. They're now my favourite basses and get all the gig time. I also found that the pickup location is the most important factor in that sound. My two have different pickups but both have out that fat punchy sound that suits the music I play.

 

[georgedubyah]

I'll skip the downstream part (recording, direct boxes, FOH, etc.) and say this:

PBasses can seem to have a singular tone profile, but this can vary greatly depending WHERE you're picking the strings: Start picking steady eighth notes on any of the four (or five) strings right at the end of the fingerboard, and slowly slide down the strings all the way to right next to the bridge saddles, steadily picking those eighth notes till you get there. It goes from very thick bass to twangy like a Tele all the way at the end, and there's a range of tones all the way down: Pick one you like. You have tremendous tone control constantly without touching a single knob.

All basses are subject to the physics involved, but you often hear this easier on a single pickup instrument, a varying blend of two pickups tends to mask it somewhat.

Never thought of this approach, for whatever reason i just went to playing right over the pickup. I'll give it a shot for sure. Thanks!

 

[georgedubyah]

Violins are great but they only have the ONE SOUND! Bleh

Same for saxophones. They sound good, but they always SOUND LIKE SAXOPHONES!! Who wants that crap all the time???

Seriously, it took me a long time to appreciate the way P pickups are split. They help highlight the contrast between the lower and higher strings. That’s character. If you prefer something bland, don’t buy a P bass.

Fair enough, but I feel that's not super relevant to the point I was making- yes, saxophones always sound like saxophones. Basses always sound like basses. If it doesn't sound like a bass, it's probably not. My issue is having such limited options for tone, but I've heard people in this thread saying that playing position changes a lot, which makes sense. That's a benefit despite the drawbacks, which was more what I was looking for. If you like the sound, great. I just wanted to know why.

 

[georgedubyah]

Is it possible that you haven't played that note because you don't have it on your 20 fret instrument?

I've done jazz fusion and such where I need a 24th fret and easy reach, especially for covers of people like Victor Wooten, and I like to have something like that available, so I get you here

 

[georgedubyah]

well OP, not sure what your intent was (serious or not), but you sure figured out how to bring out all of the "P's are the bestest basses ever" folks here on TB.

and for the record, I never had a producer or engineer ever say squat about the bass (all J's) I brought to a session ... ever. This idea that it's all about a P bass in a session is seriously silly stuff.

oh well, play what you like, like what you play and all that ... but it's kind of amazing to me that there is such hyperbole over the supposed perfection P basses.

Fair enough. I kind of aimed to do that, as I seriously wanted to know what it's about, but it's good to know that it doesn't really matter to producers or sound engineers in most cases. Thanks!

 

[georgedubyah]

My #1 bass and my backup bass are boutique 6 strings with dual pickups.
When I bought a P bass, it was exactly because of all the restrictions it imposes on me.
When playing my 6 string in the "cash-register" area of the fretboard, I usually have at least two, often three possibilities to play a note and I can decide between playing it on a short, fat string or on a longer and skinnier one.
The P bass has one pickup with one sound. The fretboard ends early, only 20 frets to play on. Only four strings.
Note choice severely diminished, I mostly get a single position to play a certain note, and suddenly the focus shifts on how to play that note. I can't favor one of the pickups and I can't influence the tone by choosing where on the neck to play, so it's right hand position and technique only.

You can view this from two points.
1. This is restricting. I don't have a choice anywhere. It's limited in every single way and I hate it.
2. This is liberating. The wealth of choices is taken from me and I can use the freed up mind capacity to focus on how I play each note.

I get you here, but I'd more like to have other ways to affect my tone if I'm doing more than playing on my own, and attack seems to go only so far with the P.

 

[georgedubyah]

Just to chime in here, I must confess to generally having been quite anti-P-bass for most of the last 25 years of playing, BUT!

..recently I have completely come around.

My friend has a cheap but very playable shell pink parts-caster P bass which he bought used and put an Aero pickup in and a hipshot bridge. I played it at his place by chance, and it is honestly one of the loveliest basses to play I have ever experienced.

Since then I have been playing all my P-J and J basses on the neck pickup and loving them all. I finally 'got' it after being a bridge pickup player for years.

If you set your expectations to only want one thing, there is a subtlety and timbre to them that is simply amazing. It's like eating a plain chocolate bar with nothing fancy added - one flavour, and a lovely one if you care what chocolate tastes like - but you probably wouldn't want that to be the only thing you have.

Yeah, they can sound great for certain things, but I feel the same- having a bass that doesn't do anything else just doesn't make much sense to me.

 

[georgedubyah]

One of my P, no muddy no boomy, just crispy grind !
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another P , warmth round clean P vibe without laid back tone.
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another P also, woody P vibe , muddy ??? Hmmm.......
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here is the Charvel PJ stock Dimarzio DP126 with reverse P pickup . I sold all my Jazz bass once i mod this Charvel PJ fully passive. No regret !
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I'd love to know how you're getting that sound in #1 - obviously the pick helps, but is that just DI (and is it a pre '57 p, as those have far more punch and growl to them in my opinion)?

#2 also sounds great, but seems pretty self-explanatory... but #3, and I kid you not, seemed to be all I could get out of the last P I played, even with the tone cranked.

I like what's going on in #4, but like I said, I'd take a reverse P or PJ most days anyhow- but #1 has something I didn't really expect, and I'd really like to hear what got you there.

 

[georgedubyah]

Most of your favorite songs were probably recorded with a P bass, that should tell you something. It just sounds good in a mix and hits a sweet spot of what people (perhaps unconsciously) want to hear from a bass

I get that it sounds good in a mix, but I could tell you what basses were played on the vast majority of my favorite songs and the P only really shows up doing the wooly type of thing I've come to expect from it (Ain't no mountain high enough)- though others here have demonstrated other tones, and I'm dying to find out where they came from.

 

[logdrum]

A good player can make a cheap soundgeear with some entry level sopabar work. It does not have to be a traditional P. I can use a J or P bass any hour of any day, , The strings used are going to affect some techniques some but I can always make it work.

In the same token, an active 6 string with 4 band EQ and Quadcoil pickup maybe even a piezo bridge is not going to faze me at least one bit. I can make it thump like a P.

TB'er just like to complicate things, but I get it, this is entertainment. It is a gear discussion site, and everyone is right. Also a sounding board for people's thoughts and a place to be when you are not practicing, playing or gigging.

 

[georgedubyah]

Sometimes a format or form factor just wins; whether or not is the technically superior choice for all use cases.

If you don't like p basses there isn't any law that you have to use them. Plus, you can put a split single in a soapbar housing in the same position on any shaped bass body you like (around the position of the 19th and 20th frets, if measuring backwards from the bridge).

Ooh! good to know about the housing trick, fantastic idea

 

[georgedubyah]

I get that a pbass is not for everyone but it sounds like you need to work on how to get different tones from an instrument.

And for the neck, that's a matter of preference. A tiny jazz bass neck is not for me hence I don't play one.

I would like to know how you would get more out of a p bass- even really pushing through the strings on something like "Dam that River"- where, admittedly, it did have more intensity, that balance problem still got me. Maybe I do need to work on that, and if you could give me any advisory there that would be amazing.