So what is it about the Fender P...

[friendlybass]

The P bass was the first, and I think what we all like about it is while there are certainly ways to change the design those p basses were the start of it all. The OP's rick is another very signature sound and it not sitting in the mix is not the reason to buy a bass. The engineer can eq it, you can tweak the sound but a Rickenbacker isn't exactly a low quality instrument and it's still around cause it can sure "sit in a mix."

That being said, because they're different tonally one can easily justify to girlfriend, fiancée, wife, or general overseer of the finances if you have one (I do...). And if you are gonna spend the money on an American standard I would highly suggest trying to get your hand on a G and L LB-100. This was Leo Fenders reinvention of the P bass and I've been borrowing a pastors to use at church (I bought the rig, he supplies the bass) and it sounds better than any P bass I've played made in the last 50 years.

 

[bass71]

I agree with the idea that Fender marketing plays a big part in all this.

I love P basses for the way they feel and the way they record......but Carole Kay didnt and look what she achieved. I also love the recorded Jammerson tone but did he sound like that live?...I doubt it somehow.

How many P's do you see being used in orchestras, big bands, gospel bands etc etc. Everytime I look for any of this stuff the guy is playing either a five or six string boutique instrument or a five string Jazz bass derivative.

I still think a P with rounds gives the best slap tone there is, ie rich and sonorous and dont get me wrong I will never stop playing my P's but are they really as versatile as we all like to think they are?

 

[Ψ-LOG]

What exactly is it about a P that makes it stand out in the mix?

That would be the sound guy. And if you want to stand out in the mix, I suggest you grab a Jazz Bass as that is much more aimed towards that, I think the P bass is more of a guitar low end generator.

 

[kurosawa]

Leo had marketing savvy, that's for sure, and it's documented that's what the J was all about, but the P's not about that at all.

What it was, in creating the P, Leo went nuts trying out everything that held any promise at all, because he thought with his hands. He thought this way obsessively for years, and he wasn't done until he figured out the split pickup in 1957.

So when you play a P, you're holding the best playing and most musical sounding survivor of thousands of ideas Leo actually built with his own hands and tried and discarded.

Like the tenor saxophone, it is a distinct, instantly recognizable instrumental voice with visceral connection to human emotion. Think about that for a moment. What if each maker of the tenor saxophone felt obliged to screw with the basic design to make it their own without regard to its essential voice?

Leo was also a manufacturer. He wanted a design robust enough to be replicable on an assembly line within assembly-line tolerances using materials that could be reliably sourced at reasonable cost while fully preserving the voicing of his invention. He succeeded to the extent that I daresay Jamerson could grab pretty much any P-clone made today and play it without degradation of his personal sound.

Versatility? Let's not forget Leo invented an all-new instrumental voice whose very existence shaped a multitude of styles. Now, I'll be first to admit the J has it all over the P for slap, but in 28 years of playing every conceivable style in Air Force ensembles, far less than 1% of the literature called for slap.

The P is a VOICE. The way to connect with listeners is through VOICE. Now it may well be that Levi Stubbs or Marvin Gaye wouldn't have been able to scat or rap. And?

 

[Ψ-LOG]

Well... just because someone invented the car that doesn't mean no one else would have.
Let's please not glorify Leo Fender here. He didn't invent string instruments after all...

 

[Klonk]

Like I said [I'll] more likely than not use radical low end EQ on the instruments that are conflicting with the Bass sound, I've been know to high pass the piano at 250+hz. But hey .... that's just me...

Very true, both in studio and live settings.

 

[AngryPig1]

Woah! thats a lot of posts since yesterday.... To clarify some points, I recorded myself in my rather meagre home studio and then had it partially mixed and mastered by someone else. The style of music requires a fairly subby sound which I personally dont think the Ric delivers too well having much more of a clanky grindy tone it gets a tad hollow for my liking down below the G#. Now im not going to deny that my recording skills probably lack some finesse BUT rather than spend ours processing the sound to try and make it what I want I was always taught to START with the best possible, and closest sound to what you want the finish product to have and then do the LEAST amount of signal processing.

Now i went over to gearslutz.com, asked some friends who are engineers, asked on here and trawled the music shops asking about pre-amps and DIs and any other small expensive looking boxes and the general consensus was, 'why dont you just use a P?' So i wanted to find out what it was that could make a P sit in the mix so well and whether it was all clever marketing and people being used to it, or whether the split pickup and its placement was responsible and TBH it looks like a near 50/50 split on this thread. Which while very interesting has not brought me any closer

For some examples of the tracks pre-mastering have a listen at www.soundlcoud.com/pikduo Tether is an example of huge amounts of signal processing done to create a fairly subby sound but I feel it is at a loss to the higher register as a high E and F played at the end of some phrases is almost lost due to the processnig I used to create the sub sound. Aubergine Veins does not have nearly as much processing on it and sounds quite clanky.

PS the Ric is great for my other bands and I do in general love the tone and playability, Im just finding it lacking for this studio based project

 

[topcat2069]

I had a Ricky too... single pickup !!
I took it to a Gig (Country Western right at the time Trad was being edged out by Outlaw) played about 5 songs the first set with it and switched back to the P Bass..... it was just to thin and boingy for the music.

The Bass sound you got sounds good to me ... but I don't know what you had in mind ...only what you got.

Did you try just the neck pickup? that will give the sub-iness sound from the Bass.........

Also does your Bass have a stereo out ? if so take both outs and process the two tracks differently, the neck pickup all subby and the like and the bridge pickup with heavy compression so as not to lose the pitch recognition of the higher phrases, balance them together, EQ and Ta Da !!!


just sayin'


BTW "I was always taught to START with the best possible, and closest sound to what you want the finish product to have and then do the LEAST amount of signal processing." That's a great philosophy if you HAVE EVERYTHING TO WORK WITH .......That's an "Old School way of doing things, back before multitrack recorders, the ability for complex mixes and the ability to use the [new] signal processing capabilities afforded by DAWs and digital outboard gear.... and, IMHO, the reason that the P bass was the classic choice for recording back then..... in the USA. When the English Invasion hit, I believe, there weren't a bunch of Fenders overseas yet so a lot of that music was recorded with European made instruments.

 

[theevilplankton]

In a similar situation to many others here.

I too always resisted the P bass - thought it was to much of same old for me. I did own a couple, but always went back to a Ric, almost forcing myself to grapple with it, as I believed it to be 'my' sound.

However, over the last year, I became really disillusioned with my tone - to the point when gigging, it was getting a bit grating! It was time to move on.

To cut to the chase, I bought a P bass....and then another. That's what's here now - a 2010 (bought used), and a 2014 (bought new) with the CS pups....my dream shade, Oly White/Maple. Been gigging the 2014.

I'd forgotten how a bass should sound in the mix. I now have bass in my tone within the band!

Looking forward to doing some recording in the new year - first time without a Ric. Did an EP last year with a 4003, and was very unhappy with the results, even compared to previous experiences - it started there, now I'm in the P-camp.

.....and they're effortless to play!

 

[kerryg]

...dont get me wrong I will never stop playing my P's but are they really as versatile as we all like to think they are?

The SM57 is a great mic and every engineer should own one and preferably a few. It's unbelievably rugged, and it's so well-designed that it's widely agreed there's few sources it can't be used on in a pinch.

Is it a brilliant choice on everything? Heck no; there's almost always a better choice on each source. But the fact that it can be and has been successfully used on so many sources is impressive.

Is that "versatile"? Darned straight. But I think "I should only own SM57s" (or "only own Pbasses") would be a silly lesson to take away from that.

Just my take. I'm not aiming to change anyone's religion.