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Jazz basses - they all sound the same

hooky_lowdown

By hooky_lowdown,
in General Discussion

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Skinnyman Grand Master

Skinnyman

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, super al said:

I played a jazz bass from 2003 until I bought a 5 string ibanez in January 2018!

It's a sunburst MIM and it's had a couple of modifications, I kind of stuck with it through loyalty and I like the look of jazzes but as soon as I played the Ibbie 5 string...BOOM! It was like I ditched the Mrs and ran off with Scarlett Johansson 😊

Obviously, I don’t know your missus but that does sound like a bit of a win.

I just hope Mrs Al gets on with the Jazz.

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drTStingray Mentor

drTStingray

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Ricky 4000 said:

They're no good for reggae (if you have normal fingers that is, which you obviously don't). 😃

I seem to recall Aston 'Family Man' Barrett of the Wailers played one - and to confound another internet theory - through an Acoustic 371 rig (yes - a solid state amp!!). 

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FinnDave Grand Master

FinnDave

Posted
Posted

First reasonably bass I had was a Framus Jazz Bass, so I keep going back to them. I've spent years on nothing but Precisions, tabled with Alembics and Ibanez six strings, and have bought and then sold several perfectly good Jazz Basses.

My current weapon of choice is a MiM Jazz Bass deluxe which is now fitted with an East pre-amp - good bass to play on long gigs and very easy to get the sound just right. I don't need an arsenal of different sounds, just want it to sound the way I like.

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ead Grand Master

ead

Posted
Posted

I speak as a  bass fan and currently own a few in various incarnations.  A passive ACG with overwound single coils (you would have to prise this one from my cold, dead hands), a passive Anaconda (technically humbuckers with switchable coils that can make it a J bass), and active ACG and a LAG collections (active EMG p/ups).  They do sound different in isolation probably due to the different p/up & electronics combinations, however in a band mix I suspect you'd be hard pushed to differntiate them.

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Cuzzie Veteran

Cuzzie

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, BrunoBass said:

I’ve played little else other than Jazz basses for years (currently three in the arsenal) but I’ve been playing my self built Precision constantly for the last couple of weeks and am feeling the urge to get a good used P now.

Don’t - it won’t be as good as your home cooking, aside from specialists basses I’d put my home mash ups (not self carved btw) against any mainstream ones out there as equal if it better 

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ezbass Grand Master

ezbass

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, Roger2611 said:

I respectfully disagree, Jazz basses sound crap when I play them because their sound just doesn't work for me on stage but seem to sound fine when you are in the audience, so, in theory, the further you get from a Jazz bass the better it sounds?

Ah, this accounts for when one gets asked by audience members, “Can you play far away?” 😂

11 hours ago, Frank Blank said:

Just gently reminding you of the raison d'être of most online forums, in fact one might argue, the whole Internet. Endless, endless debates between people who can’t make their minds up 😁

That and those deeply entrenched in their views who believe they are right and  by ‘shouting’ the same old lines, expecting others to eventually capitulate and agree with them.

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FinnDave Grand Master

FinnDave

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Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Bobthedog said:

What about fingers of fudge? Other than giving yourself a treat, do they sound the same? For that matter what about fishfingers?

They have to be worth trying out, in the interest of pushing the boundaries of bass playing knowledge.

Edited by FinnDave
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NancyJohnson Grand Master

NancyJohnson

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With all due respect to everyone who has posted (and no offense), the thing I have issue with is that just because someone owns a bass that looks like a Jazz Bass, this doesn't make it a Jazz Bass.  Same goes  Epiphone Thunderbirds, Rockingbetters etc. 

I've owned two Fender Jazz basses in my time (CIJ Geddy Lee and an Aerodyne), I've also played a few 60s and more copies than I can actually remember; none of them were exact replicas of each other, so where is the actual reference model?  It's like all these people saying that the new Epiphone Thunderbirds are the closest thing out there to a 60s Gibson Thunderbird.  Err, no.  They're just saying this stuff because a) someone else has said it, b) to justify their purchase, c) it makes them feel better about paying a twentieth of the price of an original model and because d) they've never played a 60s Thunderbird.

At the SE Bass Bash in 2018, Gary and I did a fairly extensive blind-test of about 20 basses and it was very clear the results just reinforced that nobody really had a clue which bass was being played - even their own - and that I still haven't been able to shake Carry On, Wayward Son from my head 18 months later.   Every bass pretty much just ponks if you just plug it into an amp and play it clean and every bass will come alive if you pass it through a usable pre-stage. 

After 40 years of playing, I'll let you into a secret. The real tone comes from your hands, technique, string choice, pickups and whatever you're plugging into.  Forget about 'tone' woods, fingerboard material, neck radius, how wide the neck is at whatever fret and so on.  It's a nonsense.  Just remember that your desired tone is not someone else's; find out how to achieve your tone and learn to replicate it on whatever bass you're playing.  If you can play, you'll make a bass sound decent to your ears, irrespective of what it is.

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CamdenRob Mentor

CamdenRob

Posted
Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, FinnDave said:

Nah, fingers all sound the same….

Ha... Ok ok fair enough...

I get that fingers make a massive difference between players, but I don’t get the argument that it somehow overrides the differences in tone you get from different gear.


The same player playing the same bass line - with the same fingers - on a P bass with the tone rolled off, and then again on a jazz bass with the bridge pickup soloed and the tone wide open, would sound different... similarly, the same player playing a Spector running through a full on darkglass distortion sounds different to The same player using a uke bass... same fingers... 😐

Edited by CamdenRob
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4000 Veteran

4000

Posted
Posted
31 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

With all due respect to everyone who has posted (and no offense), the thing I have issue with is that just because someone owns a bass that looks like a Jazz Bass, this doesn't make it a Jazz Bass.  Same goes  Epiphone Thunderbirds, Rockingbetters etc. 

I've owned two Fender Jazz basses in my time (CIJ Geddy Lee and an Aerodyne), I've also played a few 60s and more copies than I can actually remember; none of them were exact replicas of each other, so where is the actual reference model?  It's like all these people saying that the new Epiphone Thunderbirds are the closest thing out there to a 60s Gibson Thunderbird.  Err, no.  They're just saying this stuff because a) someone else has said it, b) to justify their purchase, c) it makes them feel better about paying a twentieth of the price of an original model and because d) they've never played a 60s Thunderbird.

At the SE Bass Bash in 2018, Gary and I did a fairly extensive blind-test of about 20 basses and it was very clear the results just reinforced that nobody really had a clue which bass was being played - even their own - and that I still haven't been able to shake Carry On, Wayward Son from my head 18 months later.   Every bass pretty much just ponks if you just plug it into an amp and play it clean and every bass will come alive if you pass it through a usable pre-stage. 

After 40 years of playing, I'll let you into a secret. The real tone comes from your hands, technique, string choice, pickups and whatever you're plugging into.  Forget about 'tone' woods, fingerboard material, neck radius, how wide the neck is at whatever fret and so on.  It's a nonsense.  Just remember that your desired tone is not someone else's; find out how to achieve your tone and learn to replicate it on whatever bass you're playing.  If you can play, you'll make a bass sound decent to your ears, irrespective of what it is.

But I have played 60s Thunderbirds and the the Epi Vintage Pro is the nearest thing out there. 😂Well, nearer than the Gibsons at any rate.😉

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Frank Blank Grand Master

Frank Blank

Posted
Posted

I’m with @NancyJohnson on this. One of my first posts when I’d only just joined BC was this one...

...and I still think the essence of what makes a bass is something oddly undefinable. I remember everyone coming out of that blind test at the SE Bass Bash in 2018, some looking quite bemused that they couldn’t tell basses apart. I have recently finally found a fretted bass that I really like, the ACG Harlot SC, I love the shape of the bass, I love the woods it’s built from but it just has this kind of aesthetic harmony to it that hits all my likes, unsurprisingly I think it sounds incredible too but could I have picked it out in that blind test? Bet I couldn’t...

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4000 Veteran

4000

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, Frank Blank said:

I’m with @NancyJohnson on this. One of my first posts when I’d only just joined BC was this one...

...and I still think the essence of what makes a bass is something oddly undefinable. I remember everyone coming out of that blind test at the SE Bass Bash in 2018, some looking quite bemused that they couldn’t tell basses apart. I have recently finally found a fretted bass that I really like, the ACG Harlot SC, I love the shape of the bass, I love the woods it’s built from but it just has this kind of aesthetic harmony to it that hits all my likes, unsurprisingly I think it sounds incredible too but could I have picked it out in that blind test? Bet I couldn’t...

But could you tell they sounded different? Some can, some can’t, IME. Some people simply have much better ears, but everyone hears things differently anyway.

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FinnDave Grand Master

FinnDave

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10 minutes ago, 4000 said:

But could you tell they sounded different? Some can, some can’t, IME. Some people simply have much better ears, but everyone hears things differently anyway.

More importantly (to me, anyway) is do they sound different when played in a band? Playing on your own at home it is easy to hear the subtle differences between basses, between strings, between picks and fingers - but when I listen to recordings of gigs I've played, I couldn't say without checking which bass I was playing, whether I was using round or flats, likewise pick or fingers. It all sounds much the same in the mix, especially when the final sound is out of your control because it all goes through the PA anyway.

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TheGreek Grand Master

TheGreek

Posted
Posted

Gentlemen....if you look at the bottom edge, just below the bridge, on your Jazz basses you will see numerous circular objects - from here on called "knobs" - various sizes and materials but they all serve the same function .

Well, if you rotate these "knobs" you'll generally find that they change the sound or "tone" of your instrument, thus refuting the claims of the OP that "they all sound the same". Your own Jazz bass can be made to sound "different".

If the assertion were true I would sound just like Jaco and would have no need to spend time and money in an effort to sound like Mr Pastorius (deceased). 

That being said, anybody interested in my Overwater Custom Jazz??

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