new Fender P fiver

[sirbassalot]

hey Fender finaly came out with a passive  P fiver.....

[Dave W]

I saw the announcement. Since it's passive, it may have more chance of success in Fender's core market -- if dealers will take a chance and actually put it in their stores. But in the long run I don't think it will have much of an impact.

[exiledarchangel]

5 strings on a P or J look soooo wrong!

[Dave W]

5 strings on a P or J look soooo wrong!

That's exactly the perception that Fender is up against.

Doesn't seem to hurt boutique makers like Sadowsky or Lull, but they aren't competing across the whole market like Fender, and their customers aren't diehard traditionalists or they would have bought Fender in the first place.

The other point to remember is that 5-string sales are nowhere near as big as you might think from reading online bass forums. According to John Hall at Rickenbacker last year at another forum, one of the music trades magazines published a list of top selling instruments and not one of the top 10 selling basses was a 5-string.

[sirbassalot]

5 strings on a P or J look soooo wrong!

you raise an intresting point.
on the other hand why not have it all a beloved Fender P sportin a low B.
kinda like having your wife & girlfriend in the same room. 

[Dave W]

...
kinda like having your wife & girlfriend in the same room. 

That all depends on what they're doing. 

[exiledarchangel]

That all depends on what they're doing. 

LOL!!!! You've read my mind!!! 

[rockinrayduke]

Oh boy, here we go again! 

[Chris P.]

Yeah, behave!

What's the point of a five string bass? I never understood it.

[sirbassalot]

you know what after ten years with five strings I came back to four bangers and got me a mint 1978 P
couldn't be happier.

[Chris P.]

I think you can do everuthing with a four string. I like to try out this fiver once, though.

[sirbassalot]

"I think you can do everything with a four string"

yeah I pretty much agree infact after ten or so years using fivers im going back to my two fender four bangers. I'm not selling my two fivers (one is fretless) but they're going in the closet for now. Four does get it done just fine.

[HornetAMX]

I'm looking forward to trying out the Precision 5 string.  I still love my 4 bangers but play a 5 in my band.  Any working cover band pretty much requires a 5 string in order to replicate many of the lines.  I used to make do with 4 strings but the 5 string bass makes it much easier.

[PhilT]

I bought a fiver after christmas, because a couple of covers we do should use one, and I wanted to see if I could cope with it. In fact I find it's really great for blues, having the option of going right down works really well.