Why did the J never dethrone the P?

[KJMO]

Count me in as a "question assumes too much" person. The P isn't on the throne, it's just one valid choice.

 

[Gianni "Orlandez" Orlati]

It wasn't meant to. "Dethrone the P" implies a fixed market. The whole point of the J was to grow the market, not cannibalize P sales.

In effect it’s true …

 

[MegaSwing]

It never mattered to me. However, I like the symmetrical bottom of the Precision. Leans better. I have two of each. In general I use them interchangeably. For how I play, they end up sounding about the same. And in my mind, that’s good.

 

[Johnny StingRay]

Haven’t really been bored enough to think of a question like this……but since someone else has……..I don’t know why and does it really matter in the great scheme of the universe?
Crap, now I am going to go down the rabbit hole to investigate this……..thank you!

 

[butterfingers1]

Chacun à son goût ?

But I never heard that, so maybe it is old french ?

In Québec this is a daily expression, but apparently we speak a medieval French here, having been cut off a few centuries.

 

[Pilgrim]

It wasn't meant to. "Dethrone the P" implies a fixed market. The whole point of the J was to grow the market, not cannibalize P sales.

This is the right answer. Leo wanted more products, and the J is distinctively different from the P. Think about it: by adding the J they doubled the size of their bass product line!

There's also the fact that decades of experience tells us that the P is very, very good at doing what it does. It turns out that the J also is very, very good...but it is slightly different. Many fortunes have been made by being "slightly different."

 

[Rib 13]

Each player has their own Throne and preferences to what sits upon it.....a single pickup P will never sit on my throne.......You do you

 

[Cave Puppy]

Why did the Gibson SG bass never dethrone the Gibson Thunderbird bass?

 

[Cave Puppy]

Two studio greats - Joe Osborn: Jazz Bass. Carol Kaye: Precision bass. Both played on HUNDREDS (if not thousands) of hits.

 

[Amano]

Everytime holding my P basses it's the sound. Right there.

a Jazz is nice live, for the two songs it adds.

 

[Greg Jones]

Too many knobs.

3 vs 2? LOL. I find that funny, but I also agree.

 

[DaveDeVille]

'Why did the Jazz Bass never de-throne the Precision Bass ?'

• 
  
  
  • A faster, smaller and thinner neck that is most likely more comfortable for more people;
  • Two pickups for a wider range of tones, including a neck pickup that most of us couldn’t distinguish from a P’s when soloed in a blind test; and
  • Offset body that is more comfortable to play while sitting down.

That's why.

For a lot of guys, one pickup, two knobs, a beefier feeling axe and neck, and a useable tone that was almost impossible to screw up fit the bill, in spades.

Change that up with a broomstick neck and two pickups and constantly fiddling with two volumes to get 'that tone' . . . is just bothersome.
See above. And yet for other guys, that variation IS the key to more useful tones than a Precision.

It's why they make both.

nailed it ...

 

[Lesfunk]

My favorite players played jazz basses. Jaco, Marcus, Larry Graham
Rocco played a P .
Jamerson played a P.
Louis Johnson played a stingray .
John deacon and Pino played both (but sounded best on a stingray)
Bob Daisley played a P but with a pick.
I’ve always sounded like shite when I play a P so that’s it for me.

 

[Mosfed]

Who says it didn’t?

 

[Tim Skaggs]

If number of each sold is how we measure “de-throneing”, the P had a nine year head start on the J. That nine-year period also would have been a very unique period for bass, kind of the birth & development period of the instrument. The Jazz came along after the electric bass was an established instrument. It’s hard to compare the two in the early days. If you look at a different time period that excludes the birth & development period (example; 1970 to 1990) maybe the Jazz did de-throne the P in sales figures. It’s a strange question to contemplate.

 

[Greg Jones]

Because the goal was NEVER to 'dethrone' ... as was previously stated/mentioned/addressed/asserted/whatev.

I can only speak to MY experience. I played/gigged a Jazz for decades. It was my 'home'. I played lots of other basses but never a P ... until that day I bought my first P ... then some time after that I put flats on said P ... then ... mind blown. Thing is, this beautiful, common, highly recorded, popular sound is narrow/limited .. a bonefide 'one trick pony' ... or perhaps better to say ... limited to certain tricks pony. The Jazz bass expanded upon this palette ... I do slap my P with flats ... is it my favorite slap sound? Hell no, but it's cool. I would much rather slap my other P with rounds, but again I would rather slap my Jazz with rounds. We are artists. Our instruments represent colors ... the P is a limited spectrum of BEAUTIFUL color. The Jazz is a somewhat less limited yet greatly different spectrum of BEAUTIFUL color. Depending on your situation, you likely need both to cover the maximum amount of 'color'. Just my humble opinion expressed in my humble fashion. Cheers.

 

[FenderBassist]

There's too many great basses out there to assume that one is above the rest.

Find what "speaks" to you and run with it.

That's what I did. For the kinds of music I do, a P bass works great and I love it. For other kinds of music, I can see there being better choices as demonstrated by the thousands of bands you can watch (locally or on video streaming sites).

 

[skortch]

I'm still waiting for oranges to dethrone apples. Any day now...

 

[butterfingers1]

I’m going to have to get a jazz bass one of these days and figure all this out.

 

[Swamp_Ronin]

If you poll Talkbass users, you'll get a very vocal "P is the king" group. But there is also a very vocal "Flats" group, and we know (one of the string makers on here has confirmed this) that flats sales are a small percentage of the market. Any hints you get from here about P vs J sales are probably also biased by the fact that we're not a representative slice of the market.

The more time I spend on here, the less I think TB accurately reflects anything. No offense intended,to anyone, I promise!