G'day guys, my name is Alec, I'm here from
Better Music's bass department, here to talk
to you guys about the precision bass and the
jazz bass from fender. These are the basses
that started it all off for the electric bass
player, and it's been a staple diet in bands
around the world from rock, blues, jazz, funk
whatever it's been, the jazz bass or the P
bass has been there, one of the two.
The electric bass as we know it today was
invented back in 1951 with Leo Fender at the
helm designing something that was small and
portable but it was able to play loud and
boomy on the gigs that these double basses
couldn't quite make it through. So the bass
that he first came out with was a tele style
bass in '51 and now in '57 he came out with
this stunning rendition of the P bass that
has survived to this day.
Small changes have been made to it, but the
majority of it has stayed the same throughout
that time.
The two basses we are going to be testing
out today are both Fender american standards,
in the Jazz bass and the P bass shape.
They both share notable characteristics but
are different in different ways as well. The
P bass that I have here is a 2014 P bass american
standard, comes with a satin finish neck,
custom shop pickups, high mass bridge, Fender
F lightweight tuning machine heads and comes
in either a rosewood or a maple fingerboard.
The finishes range from olympic whites and
sunbursts as well as pearl jade, blacks, whatever
you can think of really, blues and reds. So
what I would like to do is just show you a
few of the sounds that you can get from these
bad boys and see if it can make up the minds
of the people who are trying to guess whether
I should get a P bass or a Jazz bass. Personally,
I own both and use them for different settings
and different bands from whatever I come across.
The choice is yours. So P basses just like
this one here have been played around the
world by some of the most famous bass players
that have walked the earth, such as James
Jameson, Pino Palideno, Steve Harris, Sting,
countless others. What I want to do today
is just give you an idea of the sort of sounds
that you get from a bass like this. First
riff I'm going to play for you has got volume
and the tone pumped right up full to get a
nice boomy sort of sound out of it, but still
a bit of crunch to 
the notes.
The 
next sound we are going to have a look at
is rolling back the tone on the bass, so we
are getting a thumpier sort of sound and we
are going to go for a sort of sound that you
might hear from players like Donald Duck Dunn
or James Jameson, Motown soul sort of feel.
The final one that we are gonna have a look
at tonight is, we're gonna have a look at
the pick with the P bass. A lot of people
really love this sound, and I have been especially
asked to do this. I'm not much of a pick player
but I'm going to try and give you an idea
of what it's going to sound like. We've got
your tone sitting at about 6 on the bass and
the volume still up full. So let's see what
it sounds like.
Great, so now we've had a look at the P bass,
let's move onto the Jazz bass, or what Leo
Fender was thinking back in the '60s, his
deluxe model of the electric bass. Same with
what happened with the tele and the stratocaster,
instead of releasing as many guitars as he
could with different features, they started
to modify each instrument. The P bass got
modified and so did the Jazz bass through
the time 'til today. What we've got in this
american standard today is a satin finish
neck, rosewood fretboard, also comes in a
maple, alder body, two 60 custom shop pickups,
with a volume control for each one as well
as a master tone, as well as a high mass vintage
style bridge and the lightweight tuners, just
like what we saw on the Fender P bass.
So what we are gonna do is we're just gonna
have a quick sound with the tone and with
the volumes all the way up, compare the same
riff that we played on the P bass and see
if you can hear the difference in what this
bass can do compared to that.
So next off we're gonna roll off this neck
pickup a bit, focusing mainly on the back
pickup, on the bridge, so that we get that
tighter sort of sound, and then I'm going
to have just a bit more tone happening in
there, so probably sitting about, if we're
going from 1-10, you're probably sitting around
4 or something like that. So I'll give you
a demo of how that sounds, and you'll notice
it's a drastic difference in what the tone
was from before.
Another tone that you can really get from
this bass, and a lot of people love it is
the Jazz basses slap tone. So what I've got
going here, it's really up to the different
player, but I've got the bridge pickup running
a bit hotter, with the back one coming off
a bit and more tone bumped up to about 6 or
8 on the tone side of things. So I'll give
you a small demonstration of how the slap
tone goes on these basses.
One of the last tones I'd like to talk about,
everyone thinks of this as a jazz bass, so
we might as well do a bit of jazz on it, so
let's have a walk on it and see if that boomy
sort of sound you get from all your classic
double bass recordings can translate over
to the electric.
So as you can see, both of these basses. great
tones coming from them, the Jazz bass like
we've heard from many different people, Jaco
Pastorius, Geddy Lee, Marcus Miller, varying
styles of music, but it all cuts through with
a Jazz bass, same with your P bass. Personally
I think if I'm going for a certain tone a
bit of growl and punch that needs to come
through, I'm going to take my Jazz bass to
the gig. If it's my rock gigs, or my blues
gigs or whatever the instrumentation of the
group is as well, really has an effect on
what bass I'm going to bring. Same with the
P bass, using it for my latin gigs or if I
don't really want to take my double bass to
a gig I'll take the P bass, just so I get
a big thunderous sound that's always present
in the mix.
Thanks again for watching guys, my name's
Alec, I'm here in the bass section, if you've
got any questions at all, or you wanna come
in and have a play of any of these basses,
we'd love to see you. If you've got questions,
you can get onto us by giving us a call, through
the website or via email, If you've got any
questions, please let us know. Until Next
time we'll see you later.
