New block marker P Bass

[Pilgrim]

The Roscoe Beck four and five strings were a pretty significant departure from their normal fare.

Probably, but I can't tell a MIM from a MIA from a Marcus Miller from a Roscoe Beck from a Road-Worn from a (fill in the blank with any of the models that have no mroe difference between them than the type of knobs or blocks).  To me they're all just P or J, and since my MIM J plays nicely and sounds great, I assume that anything more expensive in the Fender line is just window dressing.

It makes my head hurt when I see threads on TB arguing about the merits of a MIA vs. a whozeefutzee model.  Just buy one of the damn things and play it.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

They were very good, if the one I played was representative. And they didn't sell. Neither has anything else that departed too much. That's understandable. It's hard to get dealers to order them.

I begged any dealer I could to order the five string because every one I tried when I was just killing time and didn't have any money on me would ALWAYS be sold before I could come back to buy it. I actually tried five or six of the five strings in stores. IRRC, two were their blue shade, two were gold, one was sunburst (which looked awful on that bass BTW), and one was red.

The best one was a candy apply red beauty at the Musician's Friend store that was later converted to the Guitar Center where I worked when GC bought out MF. Digging through the warehouse inventory of converted MF merchandise was literally a treasure search. I got my Eden VT300 NEW for $700 and other loads of very hard-to-find gear for peanuts because as part of the inventory assimilation GC de-valued all the leftover MF gear to get it out of their inventory tracking system. The only 'one that got away' while I worked at GC was a walnut 4 string Ken Smith bass that sold new with case for $400; the store manager wouldn't let me buy it. Most people forget that MF got big on offering high quality MI products to people outside large cities because since GC has owned them for the past 11-12 years, it's just a steady stream of the same cheap crap everyone else carries.

OTOH that doesn't justify endless variations of the same instruments.

...if they sell, it's hard to argue against it, and by most indicators, they DO sell. I like the idea of being able to buy variations of instruments across different eras, even when those differences are sometimes subtle at best.

Maybe it's because I remember a time when the only choice you had was one US-made model in either rosewood or maple, and if you wanted one in stock, it was sunburst. And yet people bought them and the company thrived.

I think that because their consistency and QC is much tighter, they can confidently produce so many variations. I remember the 70's and 80's where with almost ANY instrument manufacturer the odds were almost 50/50 on finding a dog versus a quality instrument.

[hieronymous]

Finally got one! The white one. One of my local music stores was having their annual sale - their price was already lower than any online price, then I got an extra $100 off of that!

My first decent bass was a Fender Japan P-Bass, I had almost forgotten the details - it was black with tortoiseshell pickguard, rosewood fingerboard. It wasn't the bottom of the line, it was somewhere in the middle - my parents bought it for me in a music store in the Ginza while I was living in Japan in high school. I eventually had another P-bass pickup put in at the bridge, the switched the neck out for a fretless Jazz neck, ended up selling the P neck connected to the Jazz body to one of the teachers at my school. This is almost 25 years ago! I turned 41 the other day so I decided to go for it - been looking for a P for a while. I went to buy it once before and decided not to - this time I didn't give in to the urge to be responsible! 

[exiledarchangel]

They were very good, if the one I played was representative. And they didn't sell. Neither has anything else that departed too much. That's understandable. It's hard to get dealers to order them.

OTOH that doesn't justify endless variations of the same instruments. Maybe it's because I remember a time when the only choice you had was one US-made model in either rosewood or maple, and if you wanted one in stock, it was sunburst. And yet people bought them and the company thrived.

Can't blame Fender for doing that, after all it seems that (fender) people want just that, a P or J with color variations (and yes, fretboard material is considered by most just a color variation). Almost noone would buy a modern 6 string with active electronics and some fungy wood from fender. Heck, if I own fender I'd offer them in even more color variations. Even pinkburst with fur lining and topless women fret markers!

[nofi]

that dead horse fender has been beating is really starting to stink. but the fender and gibson body shapes are so ingrained in us even a slight departure often appears odd. those coffee table basses all tend to look the same as well, imo. if a builder wants to be as original as possible the resulting product is often hard to look at. a shame, really.

[godofthunder]

 I played one of these the other day, MIJ goodness, really a beautiful bass! Light and resonant, I want one in white bad! One of the best Ps I have ever played.

[Denis]

That's a nice look.  Great colors, nice selection of features.

That is pretty. I do like the "Precision Bass" logo all spelled out on a curve too.

[Denis]

I turned 41 the other day...

Happy belated Birthday!

[hieronymous]

Happy belated Birthday!

Thanks Denis!

That is pretty. I do like the "Precision Bass" logo all spelled out on a curve too.

The look of the logo and name on the headstock were definitely pluses for me. The color of the neck is paler than on my '96 Bass VI, but then again the Bass VI is 15 years old - not sure if there's a connection. Gonna try and take pictures of the two together if it stops raining...

[hieronymous]

All right, just took this puppy for a spin - played along with "Warp Riders" by The Sword (one of my favorite "new" bands) and "Softs" by the Soft Machine through my Cafe Walter headphone amp that I bought from the Dude once upon a time. The pickups definitely get that P-Bass bark! Very aggressive, especially with a pick. Neck is definitely P-Bass width at the nut too - next I'm going to have to try playing along with the Soft Machine album with my Bass VI, as that's what Roy Babbington is playing on that album. Looking forward to playing the P through my rig (Glockenklang Soul Head & Epiphani 2X10 cab) and through my Alembic F-2B...

[Highlander]

Nice birthday treat... hope you had a great day...

[hieronymous]

I dug up an old picture from 2004 of the block marker P-Bass that Fender Japan produced. I was severely tempted - enough to take surreptitious photos! - but didn't end up going for it. Part of my motivation to pick up the new one I'm sure. This was about $700 at the exchange rate of the time. Now it's closer to $950!

[hieronymous]

Thought about starting a new thread but figured I'd just keep this one going (Fender complaints and all!) - took my '70s Classic P into the rehearsal studio:



The studio is in Canyon, a tiny town nestled on the other side of Oakland hills. It's in the middle of nowhere, maybe 2 or 3 neighbors who don't mind music or aren't around. The Northern California Alembic Gatherings were held here so I know the guy who the place belongs to (a drummer) and the guitar player - we've been meaning to jam for a while, it finally happened the other night. For some reason I decided to only take the new P-Bass and my Bass VI reissue - normally I would take an instrument I'm more familiar/comfortable with like my Hobbit or Stanley. But this forced me to get to know the newest addition to my stable.

The pickups are really hot! It definitely sounds like a P-Bass. Most of the time I played with my fingers, but on one or two tunes I used a pick. Definitely more middy with the pick - I felt like I didn't get the depth I can get on other basses, but that's going to require further research to confirm. They recorded the session with the bass going direct, but I haven't got a copy. Fortunately, I took my Tascam recorder - I was trying to record just the bass direct but didn't change the input settings so I got a mic recording of the room. Unfortunately I didn't adjust the levels properly so I got a lot of clipping, but I learned how to fix that. I'll put something up with fingers later.

[hieronymous]

Made a - I have to admit it's not a great recording - like I think I mentioned before I intended to record just the direct out of my bass, but forgot that I needed to change the input source on the Tascam. So I recorded off the mics, which unfortunately were pointed backwards, but the music was loud so I think it came out ok. At some point I hope to get the multitrack recording the engineer pulled.

Wondering how much of the bark (especially when played with a pick) comes from the maple neck and/or alder body? I'm already fantasizing about mods, like Alembic Activators or Dimarzio Model One in the neck position... With stereo output of course!

[hieronymous]

So I found a set of Alembic Activator pickups, but they were P-J. I've never actually owned a bass with that pickup combo, so I decided to go for it. As much as I love the growl of the P pickup by itself, I also like the depth and roundness of two pickups run together. I took the bass to SF Guitarworks in San Francisco, just got it back yesterday:



I've only tried it out through my Cafe Walter headphone amp - I was freaking out at first, I thought there was something wrong with the controls - couldn't get zero volume! Couldn't figure out which was volume and which was blend. Finally realized - this is an older set when they still did volume/volume/filter. Whew! Sounds great now that I know what I'm doing. I'll try to do some recording at some point.

When I took it in for the work, the guy at the shop pointed out that there is something unusual about the string spacing:



The nut width on these is comparable to a "regular" P-Bass (i.e., wider than a Jazz), but the strings are way in from the edges of the neck. I visually compared it with other P-Basses and Jazz Basses, everything I looked at (on the Sweetwater website) looked more like I expect, with the strings closer to the edge of the neck. I like mine though - it's almost like a P neck with Jazz string spacing or something!