What makes a Precision so good?

[SanDiegoHarry]

If you don't own a P Bass your not a real Bass Player..

What you *meant* to say was, "if you don't own a P-bass with flats played through a non-class D amp and *never* slapped, you're not a real bass player"

 

[Buffalo ill]

Just curious, how many of you P bass diehards have played a G&L L-1000 (wunkay)? What were your thoughts?

 

[Iridescentone]

A P bass is the only bass that is guaranteed not to make you look like a pretentious wanker, even if you're pretentiously wanking away on it.

 

[tim68]

I used to see all the P bass ranting on here, and thought it was nuts. Not that I didn't like Precision basses, but I thought that there were plenty of other basses that were above and beyond...

Now, I get it.
My bass arsenal is two Fender MIM Precisions.
That's it. Everything else is gone.
Beauty in simplicity.

 

[Bunk McNulty]

yep-
respect you don't have to earn makes it a lot easier.

Sure does!

 

[Canadian APII]

I don't think so-
if they weren't good, many people wouldn't use them.

a good P bass (mine has TI flats) should be in every bassists arsenal IMO.

I just bought a G&L L2500 and it has about 30 combinations and guess what? front PU/series/passive and I could die happy (very close P bass tone).

I tried every bass over 30 years and I just wasn't happy until I lastly tried a fender P-I should have tried it sooner- I wasted a lot of time.

I respect your opinion. We are all different and I never bought into the Fender thing. In my mind the finish deteriorates too rapidly. The traditional bent bridge dampens the tone. The pickup is week and coincidentally gets lost with the kick drum. The neck is often misaligned and there are SOP's from the factory for shimming the neck. That is a well known design flaw that Leo identified early on but never fixed. That itself is a deal breaker for me. Three years ago I picked up a very abused P body. I stripped it of its Fenderplast and painted it black poly. I have a mid eighties Double Eagle neck hand fitted to the body, wood on wood. The pickups are Quarter Pounders and the bridge is a Babicz. I used CTS pots and an Orange drop. It took a lot of work to squeeze the best tone out of it. Still it gets lost in the mix. That's why I prefer Matsumoku built SB's. Out of the box you get the tone you expect with no mods needed. But that is just my opinion.

 

[FrenchBassQC]

Because it's easier to say than TRBX305 bass and also because of all of the above.

 

[Ghastly]

The feel and the tone of the instrument...

 

[jallenbass]

What you *meant* to say was, "if you don't own a P-bass with flats played through a non-class D amp and *never* slapped, you're not a real bass player"

You forgot tort.

 

[beholder011]

I remember reading somewhere this story: in the sixties a bassist went to a studio to record a blues album. When he took his J-bass out of the suitcase, producer's dissatisfaction was obvious. He asked: is something wrong? Producer (old dude) replied: what's with the second pickup?

 

[JesseVMT]

I remember reading somewhere this story: in the sixties a bassist went to a studio to record a blues album. When he took his J-bass out of the suitcase, producer's dissatisfaction was obvious. He asked: is something wrong? Producer (old dude) replied: what's with the second pickup?

 

[SanDiegoHarry]

You forgot tort.

I always liked the bronze thing myself...

 

[joebar]

We are all different and I never bought into the Fender thing.

neither did I-

when I was growing up, my dad had a mediocre fender acoustic guitar (still has it) I never thought it was much good. I assumed all fenders were like that. I realized that acoustic guitars were never really fender's forte-electric guitars/basses were.
that's why it took me so long to actually try one; own one and love one. having said that, I am not a fanboi.
I had a beauty USA jazz too but I sold it because it wasn't my cup-o-tea.

 

[Binary1]

The only thing that makes the P Bass so great was James Jamerson, if it wasn't for him we would all be playing Jazz Basses and the title of this post would be What makes a Jazz so good..

Not sure if serious...

 

[Kukulkan61]

Not sure if serious...

Just being sarcastic

 

[bass71]

Re the above CC vid.

And she went on to write an article slamming the P bass and never went back to it.

 

[David Jayne]

I've owned a wide variety of interesting, high end and boutique basses.
Thing about P is, it gets out of your way. That's what it does. If you understand it, it sounds great immediately and gets to work, freeing its user to concentrate on music. There's a lot of value in that.

 

[Minirehak 212]

Here's my P bass

I think the tone is okay. I've played a lot of P basses but I never clicked with them. I like my double P mockingbird but if I had to pick I'd choose humbuckers or jazz over P

 

[Norwegian Bass]

It's the tone.

 

[mongo2]

Just curious, how many of you P bass diehards have played a G&L L-1000 (wunkay)? What were your thoughts?

I had a couple of early 1Ks, an ash with rosewood and mahogany with ebony. I felt they were a better iteration of the P type and the OMG tone is great. I've since switched to shortscales and I would be getting the Fallout shortscale version but I prefer the offset body of the Mustang for playing while seated. Besides my Mustang PJ LE does a great P tone that I'm very happy with.

However I am thinking of DIYing an offset body shortscale with an MFD and OMG.