The Last Bass Outpost

Hello all,

I've noticed a few discussions about JPJ's tone online, and analysis of his tone doesn't really ever get beyond his use of rounds and flats on various cuts. The general consensus is that he used a Jazz bass in the early-to-mid era, then swapped that out for the Becvar and Alembic basses we see from 1977 onwards. He also used a fretless CBS-era Precision bass, a stripped finish Tele bass and some sort of electric upright bass live, and that is that!

However I've listened to the intro to Dazed and Confused a lot over the years, and I cannot hear a Jazz bass in that tone at all. To my ears it sounds like an EB0/EB1/EB2 with flatwounds, played with a pick and hitting an oldschool studio compressor quite hard. The notes are pillowy, but the attach is percussive with a bit of a 'click' present.

My fan theory is that Jimmy Page picked up his more experimental studio chops in the latter days of the Yardbirds, and when he knew he had to record tracks quickly and economically for LZ1 he remembered how easily the Rivoli went onto tape on the Yardies tunes. That sort of bass wouldn't really fug up the middle frequencies like a Fender bass would, so he could separate the instruments out quite easily and quickly creating a (relatively) clear, expansive mix on a tight budget and time constraint.

JPJ is pictured holding an EB1 on the rotating disk thingy for LZ III but it doesn't mean he played it on that, or any, album.

Greg Lake played a Rickenbacker for a very brief period, in or around 1974. I've only seen a couple of pics of it ever:



It seems modded out the gate, with a Jazz bass pickup cover over the bridge, revised control layout and custom pickguard. It looks like a mono 4001, which I think is unusual because it has binding and triangular inlays. Any thoughts?

I saw, and stole, an image recently on an ELP fan page on Facebook. Apparently this pickguard was discovered on a shelf, somewhere in ELP's offices. It looks like Danny O'Brien's work for Tony Zemaitis, and is clearly configured for a Rick neck pickup and a Jazz pickup in the bridge, albeit with the pickup much closer to the bridge than the stock Rick position.

I like the Tarkus inlay!



It looks like the pickguard never made it onto the bass, but it is a nice piece of work!

I prodded and tickled the search engine, and apparently there isn't such a thread... I'm leaving out the obvious choices to begin with.

Michael Gunther - Agitation Free



Douglas Hart - Jesus and Mary Chain



"Happy" Dieter - Tangerine Dream (but not as you know them)



David Steele - The Beat (I thought this track captures the rubbery tone of an EB-2 really well)

Given the size of the place it seems surprising that Edinburgh hasn't given the world more bands. The Rezillos anybody? Anyway, I discovered this band by chance; Writing On the Wall. A slightly cumbersome name, but a cool band. Definitely something of the Atomic Rooster about them.

When I was still on Talkbass, *sniff sniff*, I spoke to John Kallas a couple of times about the 1966 Slab Precisions. He was of the opinion that there was absolutely nothing special about them in terms of circuitry. This flies in the face of John Entwistle's claims, but makes a lot of sense. the Slab I've seen gut shots of has a black fiber bobbin and a grey fiber bobbin on the underside of each pickup half, so clearly they were thrown together from existing parts. I've seen the maple cap on the neck cited as a contributing factor as well, but again I find that hard to believe.

My personal stance is that the players, the strings and the amps changed just as the Slabs appeared. The two major players were Ace Kefford and John Entwistle, and both used Rotosound rounds and cranked the treble. Could they have simply done the exact same thing with stock Precisions with the body contours? I initially hypothesized that Fender, struck with the challenge of making a 'Telecaster bass', used 1 M pots off the Jazzmaster production line to get more top end out of the pickups, but apparently this isn't the case either. Rather, Kefford and Entwistle were making new sonic territory by gunning the treble on tube amps with limited headroom, and the Slabs just happened to be the bass driving this ensemble. Both players were given a wider degree of musical freedom in their respective bands as well. It all comes together nicely...

To bolster my theory, take The Who's gig from the Isle of Wight, 1970. I've seen this cited as an example of how a stock Precision just lacked the bite and grind inherent in the Slab circuitry. Yet, we know that John was running a simple bi-amp setup. I wager that they only mic'd up the 'bass' half of his rig. There are times when Roger Daltrey stands close to John's rig and you can hear the more typical Leeds tone bleeding into the vocal mics, which again backs up my argument. I would need to find an audience bootleg of that gig to reinforce my view, but I wager that any P bass with John's low action and zero relief setup would get the same tone through that rig. The idea of overwound pickups and 'inherent distortion' is a myth!

I don't see Fender winding hotter pickups for a small run of corner-cut designed basses for the limey market. It doesn't make sense to reward us with such a bespoke product if it involves holding up the production line.

All of this is just my opinion, and I would like to hear what everyone else makes of the Slabs.

I would be surprised if this hasn't been seen before, but this fella Heesey plays a bunch of tasty T-birds, and copies, through a SVT stack.

Part 1.



Part 2. (Non-reverse).