So what is it about the Fender P...

[joebar]

I dunno-
they just work
part of being a serious musician is having confidence in a given instrument-
no bass makes you more confident than a P
they sound great when the tone is rolled off; they sound great with flats or rounds; they sound great with fingers or pick. some guys get unbelievably gorgeous tones out of them
they are simple with very little to go wrong.
they deliver a sound that will work with anything.
not too many basses can say that.

 

[Iridescentone]

I just wonder what it is about a Precision bass that has so many folks wondering why so many players play them.

 

[Runlikegregg]

I think it has to do with the mids that come through on a P.
It's a very ballsy sound.
I always felt like my Ric had a very scooped sound, that the mids weren't as present.
I think SirMjac28 is sort of right in that you just need to work your mix until you like it, but if you didn't record the frequencies you're looking for then you may never quite get it.

 

[kerryg]

IMO the "perfect" sound of a P has less to do with the science behind the sonics than with a simple reality: Fender has always had a great marketing division and many players bought them. In fact they became synonymous with "electric bass" in the minds of many producers (if you look at the parts from a bass book from that period you'll often see "Fender Bass" written at the top of the page instead of say "Electric Bass" - I used to laugh at this). Folks might be startled if they found out how many of their most familiar songs were recorded on a P *because so many players bought them*. This bass got used on so many of our favourite recordings from the 60s, 70s and 80s that it simply became an iconic bass "sound" we associate with popular music, with other basses sometimes sounding kind of "I-can't-put-my-finger-on-it-but-it's-not-quite-right" and increasingly elaborate rationalizations beginning to develop to justify why. Engineers and producers grew accustomed to EQ'ing both the bass and the other instruments around it, and started insisting session players own one, and the circle continued.

Don't get me wrong - it's an excellent tone. But there are many excellent sounds - the boutique slap on "Car Wash" or the picked Ric on "Roundabout" are killer tones - and I reckon this is a big part of this one being very deep in our memory as "that bass sound".

 

[DwaynieAD]

I had to get myself another p bass because every time I listen to a recording and i'm digging the bass tone i look up the player and he uses a P. so i said to myself that's what I like. why do I like it? who knows, I just do.

 

[kerryg]

Exactly. It doesn't matter if so many folks used the PBass because it sounded awesome for pop - or if the PBass sounds awesome for pop because so many people used it. In 2014 it now adds up to the same thing.

 

[Happynoj]

part of being a serious musician is having confidence in a given instrument-
no bass makes me more confident than a P

Fixed.

 

[MovingPitchers]

The debate between the P and the J will be forever. Other models are great, with preamps and active pickups and such, but the grassroots of bass comes down to the precision bass and the jazz bass.

I love it. As long as we have a healthy objective debate on this thread, I think everyone will learn a thing or two.

 

[kerryg]

Absolutely. I have an ultimate boutique axe (MTD 635), two old fenders and a Kala Ubass. My career has involved playing myriad musical styles and there are styles where a Pbass would have been not just inappropriate but outright incongruous (note that some of those bassists like Chuck Rainey haven't played a P as their main axe for years), and some where the same would have been true of the MTD. It's "horses for courses" and getting hung up about it is like being an artist that will only paint in a couple of colors for their entire career.

 

[Happynoj]

I love it. As long as we have a healthy objective debate on this thread, I think everyone will learn a thing or two.

How can you have an objective debate when it essentially comes down to personal preference?

 

[kerryg]

How can you have an objective debate when it essentially comes down to personal preference?

Well, if you're a hobbyist or only play in bands you have creative input in, then that translates as "one's own" personal preference. When you work for producers or freelance in a ton of projects, a prudent pro takes the personal preferences of "the person who signs the check" into account too. I have literally been told "don't bring one of those fancy active basses" to a few sessions, and also on others been given sheet music that would have been impossible to execute on a P. So there's a big consideration right there.

 

[Steve Dallman]

I too love the way the P sits in the mix. I struggled with a Ripper in the loud, hard rock band I played in during the mid-late 70's. My Jazz punched through the din of the band, while the Ripper, which had more highs and lows, just got lost.

I found a 64 P for $200 and that's all she wrote.

In the studio, engineers and producers are so familiar with a P that they know just what to do with it.

When I had to refret my 64 P as the Rotosounds I used ate through the frets, I found a 68 Tele bass to use until I finished the P. Strangely, with Rotosounds, the Tele sounded a lot like the P and was almost indistinguishable.

 

[kerryg]

In kd lang's band I was specifically asked not to bring a modern bass. In Fito Garcia's Bass Ensemble it was all about the boutique 6'ers and a Pbass would have been incongruous and would neither have been able to physically execute the parts in the range they were written in, nor would have sounded particularly great when considered in the context of the low-frequency-heavy mix.

So now I own both

 

[Happynoj]

In kd lang's band I was specifically asked not to bring a modern bass.

A part of me wonders how much of that is down to the sound, and how much is down to looks. If you turned up with a tricked out Fender P bass with Nordstrand PJ pickups and a U-Retro, would they ask you to use a different bass because it wasn't passive? What if you turned up with a passive Fodera with a single split-P pickup, that nailed the sound, but looked wrong?

The same applies to the studio. People say that producers 'know how to mix a P-bass'. If they are worth their wage, they should be able to make anything work. If there wasn't a window between the control room and the live room so they couldn't see you, I wonder whether they would care so much about what you were playing the line on, as long as it sounded right? Obviously if you were playing a Motown session through Mark King's rig, you might struggle to get it to sound right, but you could probably make most things work. I am confident that if I turned up to a session with one of my ash-bodied Warwicks but the producer didn't see it, then if I told him it was a passive Fender jazz he would believe me.

 

[topcat2069]

If any sound guy or engineer doesn't know how to make a Ric "sit in the mix" they don't know what they are doing? and was every recording not done with a P crap? that cliche is so over used if any instrument in your band is not "sitting in the mix" and you don't know how to adjust things as a group then end it right there

As a recording engineer, I've found that not everybody is Chris Squire or John Entwhistle (or bands YES or The WHO) and most Bass players [that I've worked with] have a "real neat" tone that they love to use when they play in their bedroom but don't really have a clue how to dial in a part that is well thought out, well composed or has a tone that will work with a band live or in the studio. The difference between a "player" and a "musician"
It has more to do with the player (musician) than the gear.

Though, I have to admit, as a Player & Producer I've run into a few (maybe more than a few) engineers that either "don't have a clue, they just own the studio" or are plain lazy....

The OPs question was about technical issues with P Basses and not how to get his Bass to "sit in the mix" (whatever that means....I'll build the mix around the Bass if it's pretty Godzilla!)

 

[kerryg]

Oh, absolutely, the visuals played a part. Music in North America is considered pretty much the "poor relation" wing of the entertainment business after all - but I'd argue that the tricked out P is less of an original P after modification anyway, or more properly that many modern basses are precisely that: Ps, PJs and Js with perceived "problems" fixed, like more hi-fi pickups, bridges designed to increase sustain, preamps to buffer signals to prevent cable os and add EQ...

Actually, funny story, but that guy who insisted I bring a Pbass actually clearly hated the tone after a track or two; I wound up plugging in my FBass when he wasn't looking and he flipped over the tone - we finished the album on that bass

(I still chuckle about that years later - he didn't know I used the FBass until later)

 

[kevteop]

If any sound guy or engineer doesn't know how to make a Ric "sit in the mix" they don't know what they are doing? and was every recording not done with a P crap? that cliche is so over used if any instrument in your band is not "sitting in the mix" and you don't know how to adjust things as a group then end it right there

I too love the way the P sits in the mix. ... In the studio, engineers and producers are so familiar with a P that they know just what to do with it.

If I ended up working with a guy who only knew how to make a mix work if the bass was tracked on a Precision, that would indicate to me that I was working with the wrong engineer.

Actually quite recently I took two basses to a studio session - a Jazz and a Thumb. I tracked everything with the Jazz and all was fine and dandy until the producer spotted the Thumb sitting in the corner, asked if it was mine, and then asked me to track everything again with the Thumb. He ended up using the Thumb on 3 out of 5 tunes, and IMO he made the right call on all of them.

 

[Boot Soul]

All good replies here. But Fender already answered this question very eloquently in this ad from 1972. I like the ad so much that I have a framed 8 x 11 copy of it hanging in my practice space. And I own three P Basses.

Not overbearing or extremely "bassey" but a true bass sound that is rich in tonality and defines each bass tone.

 

[topcat2069]

When I was touring with Bobby Bare in the late '70s -early '80s I played a '76 String Ray... Bobby hated the tone as I ran both the treble and bass controls full on... until I switched to flat wound strings, no more boing and when I stopped my notes on the back beat it added to the snare lol !

 

[SirMjac28]

As a recording engineer, I've found that not everybody is Chris Squire or John Entwhistle and most Bass players [that I've worked with] have a "real neat" tone that they love to use when they play in their bedroom but don't really have a clue how to dial in a part that is well thought out, well composed or has a tone that will work with a band live or in the studio.
It has more to do with the player than the gear.

Though, I have to admit, as a Player & Producer I've run into a few (maybe more than a few) engineers that either "don't have a clue, they just have the gear" or are plain lazy....

The OPs question was about technical issues with P Basses and not how to get his Bass to "sit in the mix" (whatever that means....I'll build the mix around the Bass if it's pretty Godzilla!)

Very well said I just didn't want the OP listening to people who say get a different bass because his Ric is not "sitting in the mix" and I'm sure as a recording professional before you went to that extreme you would suggest maybe a different playing style? and with all of the technology digital and analog available to today's engineers I agree with you that it comes down to laziness. I just get so tired of people talking about "sitting in the mix" if one bass sounds the best on recordings please lets identify it so we can all sound awesome.