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The basic flaw in the p-bass

#749
When I want a p-bass tone this is my goto instrument.

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#751
petrus61 said:
Is there anything that isn't fact in the video regarding the comparison, opinions aside?
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well, rics don't use lacquer for one.
for two, you can refret them just fine, just like any other bound neck.
and for three, adjusting the neck on one is as simple as any bass.
it's obvious that he's prejudiced against them.

plus, you can actually replace the truss rods in a ric pretty easily, whereas it's major surgery in most any other brand.
 
#752
Regardless of personal opinion on the P bass, Entwistle's premise is faulty. When you turn up the tone, to 10on a P bass, the bass doesn't drop off. He was daisy-chaining amps off their second input, and was using P basses at a time when bass amps were guitar amps with a different tonestack and a slightly bigger transformer. Whatever caused a loss of bass for Entwistle is debatable, but it wasn't the tone control of his Fender.
 
#753
johnk_10 said:
well, rics don't use lacquer for one.
for two, you can refret them just fine, just like any other bound neck.
and for three, adjusting the neck on one is as simple as any bass.
it's obvious that he's prejudiced against them.

plus, you can actually replace the truss rods in a ric pretty easily, whereas it's major surgery in most any other brand.
Click to expand...

I didn't really pick up that he was prejudiced against them. Seemed as if he was demonstrating the merits of one over the other. I know that Ric's made prior to 1984 are recommended to be mechanically adjusted using the method he described, which to me is a design flaw. Not sure about the current ones. I agree with him 100% about the contours and I would consider the fact that they hurt to lay my forearm on or wear too close a "personal" flaw, but maybe I'm doing it wrong. The extent of my Ric experience lasted about 9 months using an older, black checker bound one and fixing my brother in laws newer model (the plastic cover over the rear pickup kept collapsing over the strings). I like the way they sound, but that's about it. I couldn't get comfortable with them, so they were flawed from my own personal perspective. Doesn't make them technically flawed I suppose, just different. So on those points, I have to agree with him regarding the necks on the pre '84's and the contours. I personally have no prejudice toward any instrument, but thought this video would be an interesting way to illustrate the difference between a flaw and an opinion, but according to you he has no idea what he's talking about, so I missed the mark. We can all find flaws in every bass if we look hard enough.

Edit:I was under the impression he was stating facts (about the binding edges not being capable of restoration back to their original form after a re-fret, I think he was trying to make a point more about the extent of the fret wear within a certain time frame and the results, etc.) If he was indeed embellishing and/or lying, shame on me.
 
#754
kohntarkosz said:
Regardless of personal opinion on the P bass, Entwistle's premise is faulty. When you turn up the tone, to 10on a P bass, the bass doesn't drop off. He was daisy-chaining amps off their second input, and was using P basses at a time when bass amps were guitar amps with a different tonestack and a slightly bigger transformer. Whatever caused a loss of bass for Entwistle is debatable, but it wasn't the tone control of his Fender.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Maybe it just seemed that way in retrospect to him after he started dabbling in T-Birds.
 
#755
davey is a cool guy but everyone on TB seems to hate him for some reason. Maybe because he says it how it is and certain people get upset.

You have to understand he exaggerates for the sake of a joke.

I'm not sure if he says so in the comparison video but he had one himself at some stage and it performed terribly for him. Once is usually enough to make up someones mind about a certain product. Don't try and say you would not all do the same.
 
#757
I'm a big fan of the Precision. I do feel that a P bass with the tone knob on 10 does have too much high end (with roundwounds, that is). The solution is you just turn down the tone knob until you've removed enough of the high end. That's not a design flaw. Putting roundwounds on a precision, setting the tone knob to 10, and then complaining that the tone is too bright is just being ignorant.
 
#760
I'll be purchasing a P in a few months and the idea of straight-to-jack pickup wiring sounds intriguing (I have never tried it before), and let the amp do the tone shaping. Don't need a lot of variety from song to song anyway.


Instead of a tone pot, I could install an additional volume pot...that way, I'd have twice the volume control.
 

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