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To Owners of Both J and P Basses


thegummy
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I've had a J bass before, a p bass and a PJ. I now have two P basses, a 4 string usually strung with flats and a 5'er with round wounds. The 5 string does have a cool tone control that can mimic a jazz type sound (does a mid scoop when fully CW, neutral at 12 o'clock and tapered to tone fully off like a regular tone from noon to fully CCW) so I'm halfway there if I need to do slap style stuff - which I don't - maybe some disco octaves if pushed but I don't subscribe to the Ike Turner "Hit it like you love it but it's done you wrong!" school of thought. :)

I keep thinking I should own a J bass as I do like the sound and it's a little different, maybe even a bit more exotic than the P. In saying that I bought some new rounds for my P4 yesterday gave everything a quick tweak, lowered the action a bit checked the intonation and gig'd it last night. Delightful results! Worked for every song from The Clash, some Irish Trad, bit of Ska. I do prefer the rounds with a bit of drive and for me the change of strings was enough to make the bass sound different and 'new'. To be fair it's the first time I've played this bass with rounds through a recently aquired amp too so that was exciting for me too. Yup geek alert!

I have two main 'gigs' and I use the 5er for one as it's a choir thing so the keys of songs are often always changed and my other pub gig I use the 4 as its a longer gig. My feeling is on the ballands being able to hit those really low ringing notes on the 5'er has a deeper impact than if it were a p or a j. Sometimes the weight of the note is more important especially if there is a key change somewhere - being able to go lower is classic ballad bass territory!

As some one else said - experiment with strings first as that could do wonders for the vibe your after and if that doesn't cut it get a decent Squire version of what you think you should be playing - if it works upgrade from there if you need to as either P or J or will do the job as either or has recorded 99.9% of the music we're playing or emulating.

Oh and the punters wont care either way. So long as they're dancing and having a good time then the bass you're playing is doing the job.

Edited by krispn
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I play the bass which gives me the sound I prefer. Currently I think that my Jazz sounds better than my Precision, so that's what I'm playing on all my gigs.

I was happy with the situation, but I recently did a gig with a drummer who is also a bass player and he said the J and P sounded more similar than different to him! That was a puzzle, because I don't hear them as sounding the same, at all. . . . and then someone recorded a couple of songs on a gig and the J and P do sound very similar to each other!

How do I manage to do that?

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[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1508586720' post='3393106']
I play the bass which gives me the sound I prefer. Currently I think that my Jazz sounds better than my Precision, so that's what I'm playing on all my gigs.

I was happy with the situation, but I recently did a gig with a drummer who is also a bass player and he said the J and P sounded more similar than different to him! That was a puzzle, because I don't hear them as sounding the same, at all. . . . and then someone recorded a couple of songs on a gig and the J and P do sound very similar to each other!

How do I manage to do that?
[/quote]

Magic fingers :lol: :lol: :lol:
Dave

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I've only ever owned one P-bass( in 20 years) and it suited rock/metal/indie/punk/blues and just seemed to fit in with any musical genre. A bit of an all rounder to be honest. I've owned six different jazz basses over the years and only in the past few years have come to appreciate how versatile a Jazz can be. The P-bass was gigged more than all the Jazz basses put together but these days a Jazz in my go-to bass. A usa standard jazz with rounds or my battered old MIM with flats cover any eventuality. For the most part I use the jazz basses for prog rock/prog metal these days.

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I use both a P & a J live.
Like both to play & the sound of each.
The only pain is the drop in volume when I plug in the J
(I use both pups on full as that's the sound I want, so it's not a surprise, but just pain to remember to notch the amp up & down a couple of times in the set)

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