Fender Precision Bass
Encyclopedia
The Fender Precision Bass (often shortened to "P Bass") is an electric bass
.
Designed by Leo Fender
as a prototype in 1950 and brought to market in 1951, the Precision was the first electric bass to earn widespread attention and use. A revolutionary instrument for the time, the Precision Bass has made an immeasurable impact on the sound of popular music ever since. The body of the bass is very similar to the Fender Stratocaster
.
In its stock configuration, the Precision Bass is an alder
or ash
-bodied solid body
instrument equipped with a single split-coil humbucking pickup
and a one-piece maple neck with rosewood
or maple
fingerboard and 20 frets. To this day, the Precision Bass is among the best-selling electric basses of all time.
The Standard P-Bass is sanded, painted and assembled in Ensenada
, Baja California
, Mexico along with the other Standard Series guitars. As of December 5, 2008, the Standard P-Bass has been updated with CBS era-style decals, a 3-ply parchment pickguard and a tinted maple neck with rosewood or maple fingerboard. Other features include a split-coil hum-cancelling pickup and a return to the knurled chrome flat-top control knobs. Models produced before 2003 came for a period with aged white Stratocaster control knobs.
Since its introduction in 1992, the Standard Precision Bass used (like the rest of the Standard series instruments) a post-CBS era silver transitional decal. Fender changed the headstock decal to the bolder CBS-style in 2008.
The American Standard (featuring a high-mass vintage bridge and Hipshot lightweight staggered tuning machines), American Deluxe
(featuring a J
-style humbucking pickup
in the bridge position and an active 3-band EQ
with an 18V power supply), Highway One (featuring '70s styling, BadAss II
bridges with grooved saddles and a Greasebucket tone circuit since 2006) and American Vintage series models are manufactured in Corona
, California
.
American Deluxe "Ash Body" Precisions were offered from 1995 to 2006, and are currently vailable as of 2011; the 2004 color chart listed Aged Cherry Sunburst, Butterscotch Blonde and Tobacco Sunburst as available finishes during that period. As of March 23, 2010, all American Deluxe Precision Basses came with a N3 stacked-coil Jazz Bass pickup in the bridge position, a 21-fret tinted maple neck with compound rosewood or maple fingerboard with white or black pearloid dot markers, an active/passive toggle switch, a high-mass vintage bridge, Hipshot lightweight vintage tuners, a stealth retainer bar for the A string and a bold CBS-era headstock decal.
The Road Worn Series 50s P-Bass (introduced in 2009) features a distressed alder body with nitrocellulose lacquer finish, a 1-ply gold anodized pickguard, a synthetic bone nut, American Vintage hardware, a split-coil humbucking pickup and a 1-piece maple neck/fingerboard with 20 vintage frets.
Similar to The Beatles
and Yes
' effect on the popularity of the Rickenbacker
4001
, the early adoption of the electric bass was in part due to Bill Black
's ownership of the instrument. Black was beginning to use a Precision Bass during the filming of Jailhouse Rock
. Fender also delivered an early Precision to LA
session bassist and arranger Shifty Henry
.
The double bass
was considered difficult to play in tune, physically cumbersome and difficult to transport. It was becoming hard to hear in increasingly large bands or in bands that included amplified electric guitar
s. With electric pickups, a small body and fretted neck, the Precision Bass overcame these problems. The name "Precision" came from the use of frets (as opposed to the fretless fingerboard of the double bass
); players of the electric instruments could play in tune much more easily - they could play with "precision."
The electric bass produces a timbre that differs from that of the double bass: it is a more focused, harder-edged sound, with less percussive thump and a more clearly articulated fundamental tone. By bringing the sound of the bass up in a band, the bass became more dominant in its role and transformed the beat and rhythm of pop music. The electric bass allowed driving rhythms while still outlining harmonic structures and is essential to the evolution from jump blues
and swing
to rhythm and blues
and rock music
, and today is still used regularly in any genre requiring the use of a string bass instrument .
In 1957 the Precision Bass received a major restyling; the headstock and pickguard were redesigned to closely resemble Fender's recently introduced, ultra-modern Stratocaster guitar, with a rounder neck heel replacing the original square shape introduced in 1951. The redesigned P-Bass pickguard was made of a single layer of gold anodized aluminum with 10 screwholes (1957–59) and then changed in 1960 to a 13-screw celluloid "multilayer" with 3 or 4 layers of black, white, mint green, aged white pearloid and brown tortoise shell. The original single-coil pickup was replaced in 1957 with a new split-coil pickup with staggered polepieces, connected in a humbucking
mode; however, Fender never emphasized this, as the Seth Lover
patent on the humbucking pickup had not yet expired. Two years later (1959), a rosewood fingerboard glued on a maple neck featuring "clay"-style dot position markers replaced the 1-piece maple neck. The rosewood neck became a standard feature until 1966/67, when the CBS-owned Fender companies began to offer a separate laminated maple fingerboard capped on a maple neck. Rosewood fingerboards were made of a veneered round-laminated piece of wood; pearloid dot markers replaced the "clay"-style inlays introduced in 1959. Since 1969, the 1-piece maple neck option is a standard feature on many Fender basses, with the rosewood fretboard offered as the second neck wood option.
Meanwhile, the original Telecaster-derived design, with a few updates, was reintroduced in 1968 as the Telecaster Bass
. Within a few years, however, it had evolved into a distinctly different model from the contemporary Precision Bass, and continued to be manufactured alongside the P Bass until the early '80s.
Some Precision Basses made in the 1970s were also available with an unlined fretless rosewood, ebony or (usually) maple fingerboard, popularized by endorsees Sting and Tony Franklin
. Fender briefly offered a fretless P Bass in the mid-1990s as a part of the first-generation American Standard line, featuring a lined fretless rosewood fingerboard. The fretless American Standard P Bass left the Fender pricelist at the end of the 20th century. The American Series Precision Bass (introduced in 2000 and discontinued in 2008) sports the S-1 switching system since 2003, allowing the split-coil pickup to be wired from series to parallel, giving the bass a brighter, snappier tone similar to a Jazz Bass. This feature has been discontinued with the introduction of the second generation of American Standard Series instruments in 2008.
From 1980 to 1984, the Precision Bass has been redesigned with new pickups, an active onboard circuit and a high-mass brass bridge. The range included the Special (1980) featuring a split-coil pickup with white covers, gold hardware and a 2-band EQ with an active/passive toggle switch and the Elite (1983) with one (Elite I) or two (Elite II) special-design split-coil humbucking pickups, TBX tone circuit and a fine-tuner bridge made by Schaller
. Some models were available with a solid walnut body and a stained ebony fretboard. Japanese models appeared in late 1984, sporting the same specifications as their American counterparts, except for the addition of a downsized body shape and a modern C-shape maple neck with 22 medium-jumbo frets. The Elite Precision's Schaller
fine-tuner bridge has been later used on the Plus Series
models in the early 1990s.
Fender has also produced several 'Deluxe' or 'Special' models over the years which feature active electronics and/or a Jazz Bass pickup or humbucking soapbar at the bridge position in addition to the normal split-coil pickup. Both of these measures are designed to increase the tonal options available to a fairly simple bass. Some P-Basses with J-style bridge pickups usually feature the traditional Jazz Bass control layout of 2 volumes and master tone and a side-mount jack socket; others had the front pickup volume control moved a step forward, leaving much enough room for the top-mounted output jack. Other variants include dual stacked control knobs similar to that of an early 1960s Jazz Bass or a 3-way pickup selector switch (as used on the Tony Franklin Signature and Plus Series
P-Basses).
The 1990s saw the introduction of the Precision Plus
and Deluxe Plus basses in 1989 and 1991, featuring Lace Sensor
pickups, fine-tuner bridges, 22-fret necks and passive or active electronics on certain models. The Custom Shop
40th Anniversary model of 1991 was a luxurious version of the Precision Plus Deluxe bass with gold hardware, a quilted maple top and an ebony fretboard with side dot position markers.
Other variants (sometimes with 21 or 22 frets on the fingerboard) and special-edition Precision Bass guitars have been offered in recent years. Fender made an American Deluxe
5-string model with a split-coil neck pickup, a humbucking J-style bridge pickup and a 3-band active EQ between 2001 and 2007 and currently produces a passive American Standard with a high-mass vintage bridge and a gloss-coated maple neck with satin back and vintage tint as of 2008, tuned BEADG, along with a Squier
Standard version sporting two J-Bass
pickups with alnico
magnets. The company has also built a Korean-made Squier ProTone 5-string Precision with dual humbuckers and gold hardware in the mid-1990s and a short-scale passive 5-string tuned EADGC called the Bass V
during the CBS
period in the mid-1960s. The Bass V did not sell well, and after it was discontinued, Fender did not offer another 5-string bass guitar until the 1980s.
, Pino Palladino
, Steve Harris
, Tony Franklin
, Duff McKagan
, Matt Freeman
, Mike Dirnt
, Mark Hoppus
, Sting, Roger Waters
and Pete Wentz.
For a more complete listing of players, please see List of Precision Bass players.
Electric Bass
Electric bass can mean:*Electric upright bass, the electric version of a double bass*Electric bass guitar*Bass synthesizer*Big Mouth Billy Bass, a battery-powered singing fish...
.
Designed by Leo Fender
Leo Fender
Clarence Leonidas "Leo" Fender was an American inventor who founded Fender Electric Instrument Manufacturing Company, or "Fender" for short...
as a prototype in 1950 and brought to market in 1951, the Precision was the first electric bass to earn widespread attention and use. A revolutionary instrument for the time, the Precision Bass has made an immeasurable impact on the sound of popular music ever since. The body of the bass is very similar to the Fender Stratocaster
Fender Stratocaster
The Fender Stratocaster, often referred to as "Strat", is a model of electric guitar designed by Leo Fender, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares in 1954, and manufactured continuously by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation to the present. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top...
.
Background
Although the Precision was the first mass-produced and widely-used bass, it was not the first model of the instrument, as is sometimes believed. That distinction was claimed in the late 1930s by the Audiovox Manufacturing Company in Seattle, Washington.In its stock configuration, the Precision Bass is an alder
Alder
Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...
or ash
Ash tree
Fraxinus is a genus flowering plants in the olive and lilac family, Oleaceae. It contains 45-65 species of usually medium to large trees, mostly deciduous though a few subtropical species are evergreen. The tree's common English name, ash, goes back to the Old English æsc, while the generic name...
-bodied solid body
Solid body
A solid-body instrument is a string instrument such as a guitar, bass or violin built without its normal sound box and relying on an electric pickup system to directly receive the vibrations of the strings....
instrument equipped with a single split-coil humbucking pickup
Humbucker
A humbucker is a type of electric guitar pickup, first patented by Seth Lover and the Gibson company, that uses two coils, both generating string signal. Humbuckers have higher output than a single coil pickup since both coils are connected in series...
and a one-piece maple neck with rosewood
Rosewood
Rosewood refers to any of a number of richly hued timbers, often brownish with darker veining, but found in many different hues. All rosewoods are strong and heavy, taking an excellent polish, being suitable for guitars, marimbas, turnery , handles, furniture, luxury flooring, etc.In general,...
or maple
Maple
Acer is a genus of trees or shrubs commonly known as maple.Maples are variously classified in a family of their own, the Aceraceae, or together with the Hippocastanaceae included in the family Sapindaceae. Modern classifications, including the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group system, favour inclusion in...
fingerboard and 20 frets. To this day, the Precision Bass is among the best-selling electric basses of all time.
The Standard P-Bass is sanded, painted and assembled in Ensenada
Ensenada, Baja California
Ensenada is a coastal city in Mexico and the third-largest city in Baja California. It is located south of San Diego on the Baja California Peninsula. The city is locally referred to as La Cenicienta del Pacífico, or, The Cinderella of the Pacific...
, Baja California
Baja California
Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...
, Mexico along with the other Standard Series guitars. As of December 5, 2008, the Standard P-Bass has been updated with CBS era-style decals, a 3-ply parchment pickguard and a tinted maple neck with rosewood or maple fingerboard. Other features include a split-coil hum-cancelling pickup and a return to the knurled chrome flat-top control knobs. Models produced before 2003 came for a period with aged white Stratocaster control knobs.
Since its introduction in 1992, the Standard Precision Bass used (like the rest of the Standard series instruments) a post-CBS era silver transitional decal. Fender changed the headstock decal to the bolder CBS-style in 2008.
The American Standard (featuring a high-mass vintage bridge and Hipshot lightweight staggered tuning machines), American Deluxe
Fender American Deluxe Series
The Fender American Deluxe Series is a line of middle-range electric guitars and basses introduced by Fender in 1998 and upgraded in 2004 and again in 2010.The American Deluxe line replaced the Plus Series models of 1987....
(featuring a J
Fender Jazz Bass
The Jazz Bass was the second model of electric bass created by Leo Fender. The bass is distinct from the Precision Bass in that its tone is brighter and richer in the midrange and treble with less emphasis on the fundamental harmonic...
-style humbucking pickup
Humbucker
A humbucker is a type of electric guitar pickup, first patented by Seth Lover and the Gibson company, that uses two coils, both generating string signal. Humbuckers have higher output than a single coil pickup since both coils are connected in series...
in the bridge position and an active 3-band EQ
EQ
EQ may refer to:* Earthquake* Eça de Queiroz, a realistic and critical Portuguese writer* Embarq , a local exchange carrier in the United States* Emotional quotient, a psychological measure...
with an 18V power supply), Highway One (featuring '70s styling, BadAss II
Badass
Badass is a trade name of Leo Quan, a manufacturer of bridges for guitars and basses. Badass bridges feature individually adjustable saddles, which allows for "extremely accurate intonation adjustments."The Badass came on the market in the 1970s, and was made by entrepreneur and guitar...
bridges with grooved saddles and a Greasebucket tone circuit since 2006) and American Vintage series models are manufactured in Corona
Corona, California
Corona is a city in Riverside County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 152,374, up from 124,966 at the 2000 census...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
American Deluxe "Ash Body" Precisions were offered from 1995 to 2006, and are currently vailable as of 2011; the 2004 color chart listed Aged Cherry Sunburst, Butterscotch Blonde and Tobacco Sunburst as available finishes during that period. As of March 23, 2010, all American Deluxe Precision Basses came with a N3 stacked-coil Jazz Bass pickup in the bridge position, a 21-fret tinted maple neck with compound rosewood or maple fingerboard with white or black pearloid dot markers, an active/passive toggle switch, a high-mass vintage bridge, Hipshot lightweight vintage tuners, a stealth retainer bar for the A string and a bold CBS-era headstock decal.
The Road Worn Series 50s P-Bass (introduced in 2009) features a distressed alder body with nitrocellulose lacquer finish, a 1-ply gold anodized pickguard, a synthetic bone nut, American Vintage hardware, a split-coil humbucking pickup and a 1-piece maple neck/fingerboard with 20 vintage frets.
Similar to The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
and Yes
Yes (band)
Yes are an English rock band who achieved worldwide success with their progressive, art, and symphonic style of rock music. Regarded as one of the pioneers of the progressive genre, Yes are known for their lengthy songs, mystical lyrics, elaborate album art, and live stage sets...
' effect on the popularity of the Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker International Corporation, also known as Rickenbacker, is an electric and bass guitar manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California...
4001
Rickenbacker 4001
The Rickenbacker 4001 is a bass guitar that was manufactured by Rickenbacker as a "deluxe model" of the 4000 between 1961 and 1981 before being replaced by an updated version, the Rickenbacker 4003...
, the early adoption of the electric bass was in part due to Bill Black
Bill Black
William Patton "Bill" Black, Jr. was an American musician who is noted as one of the pioneers of rockabilly music. Black was the bassist in Elvis Presley's early trio and the leader of Bill Black's Combo....
's ownership of the instrument. Black was beginning to use a Precision Bass during the filming of Jailhouse Rock
Jailhouse Rock (1957 film)
Jailhouse Rock is an American musical film directed by Richard Thorpe for MGM. The film stars Elvis Presley in his third film and MGM debut, Judy Tyler, and Mickey Shaughnessy....
. Fender also delivered an early Precision to LA
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
session bassist and arranger Shifty Henry
Shifty Henry
John Willie "Shifty" Henry was an American musician, most noted as a double bass and bass guitar player, and blues songwriter. He also played flute, violin, viola, saxophone, and oboe and was in demand as a session musician and arranger in Los Angeles in the 1940s and 1950s...
.
The double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
was considered difficult to play in tune, physically cumbersome and difficult to transport. It was becoming hard to hear in increasingly large bands or in bands that included amplified electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
s. With electric pickups, a small body and fretted neck, the Precision Bass overcame these problems. The name "Precision" came from the use of frets (as opposed to the fretless fingerboard of the double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
); players of the electric instruments could play in tune much more easily - they could play with "precision."
The electric bass produces a timbre that differs from that of the double bass: it is a more focused, harder-edged sound, with less percussive thump and a more clearly articulated fundamental tone. By bringing the sound of the bass up in a band, the bass became more dominant in its role and transformed the beat and rhythm of pop music. The electric bass allowed driving rhythms while still outlining harmonic structures and is essential to the evolution from jump blues
Jump blues
Jump blues is an up-tempo blues usually played by small groups and featuring horns. It was very popular in the 1940s, and the movement was a precursor to the arrival of rhythm and blues and rock and roll...
and swing
Swing (genre)
Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States...
to rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
and rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, and today is still used regularly in any genre requiring the use of a string bass instrument .
Design updates
The original Precision Bass of 1951 was essentially a bass counterpart to the six-string Telecaster and shared several of its design features—the main difference being its then-radical double cutaway body. In 1953 the Precision Bass received contoured edges for comfort while otherwise retaining the existing Telecaster-like styling.In 1957 the Precision Bass received a major restyling; the headstock and pickguard were redesigned to closely resemble Fender's recently introduced, ultra-modern Stratocaster guitar, with a rounder neck heel replacing the original square shape introduced in 1951. The redesigned P-Bass pickguard was made of a single layer of gold anodized aluminum with 10 screwholes (1957–59) and then changed in 1960 to a 13-screw celluloid "multilayer" with 3 or 4 layers of black, white, mint green, aged white pearloid and brown tortoise shell. The original single-coil pickup was replaced in 1957 with a new split-coil pickup with staggered polepieces, connected in a humbucking
Humbucker
A humbucker is a type of electric guitar pickup, first patented by Seth Lover and the Gibson company, that uses two coils, both generating string signal. Humbuckers have higher output than a single coil pickup since both coils are connected in series...
mode; however, Fender never emphasized this, as the Seth Lover
Seth Lover
Seth Lover is most famous for inventing the humbucker or hum-cancelling electric stringed instrument pickup, most often used on the electric guitar....
patent on the humbucking pickup had not yet expired. Two years later (1959), a rosewood fingerboard glued on a maple neck featuring "clay"-style dot position markers replaced the 1-piece maple neck. The rosewood neck became a standard feature until 1966/67, when the CBS-owned Fender companies began to offer a separate laminated maple fingerboard capped on a maple neck. Rosewood fingerboards were made of a veneered round-laminated piece of wood; pearloid dot markers replaced the "clay"-style inlays introduced in 1959. Since 1969, the 1-piece maple neck option is a standard feature on many Fender basses, with the rosewood fretboard offered as the second neck wood option.
Meanwhile, the original Telecaster-derived design, with a few updates, was reintroduced in 1968 as the Telecaster Bass
Telecaster bass
-Early version :The Telecaster Bass was introduced in May 1968 being essentially a straight reissue of the original 1951 Precision Bass design , with a large pickguard, small Telecaster-shaped headstock, single pickup, and separate chrome control plate...
. Within a few years, however, it had evolved into a distinctly different model from the contemporary Precision Bass, and continued to be manufactured alongside the P Bass until the early '80s.
Some Precision Basses made in the 1970s were also available with an unlined fretless rosewood, ebony or (usually) maple fingerboard, popularized by endorsees Sting and Tony Franklin
Tony Franklin (musician)
Anthony James "Tony" Franklin is an English rock musician, best known for his work on the fretless bass guitar with Roy Harper, The Firm, Jimmy Page, John Sykes' Blue Murder, Whitesnake and briefly, with Quiet Riot.-Fretless bass:...
. Fender briefly offered a fretless P Bass in the mid-1990s as a part of the first-generation American Standard line, featuring a lined fretless rosewood fingerboard. The fretless American Standard P Bass left the Fender pricelist at the end of the 20th century. The American Series Precision Bass (introduced in 2000 and discontinued in 2008) sports the S-1 switching system since 2003, allowing the split-coil pickup to be wired from series to parallel, giving the bass a brighter, snappier tone similar to a Jazz Bass. This feature has been discontinued with the introduction of the second generation of American Standard Series instruments in 2008.
From 1980 to 1984, the Precision Bass has been redesigned with new pickups, an active onboard circuit and a high-mass brass bridge. The range included the Special (1980) featuring a split-coil pickup with white covers, gold hardware and a 2-band EQ with an active/passive toggle switch and the Elite (1983) with one (Elite I) or two (Elite II) special-design split-coil humbucking pickups, TBX tone circuit and a fine-tuner bridge made by Schaller
Schaller
-Surname:* Barry R. Schaller, American lawyer, judge, academic, and bioethicist* Bernhard Schaller, Swiss physician and medical researcher* Biff Schaller , American baseball player* George Schaller, American biologist* Hans Schaller, German luger...
. Some models were available with a solid walnut body and a stained ebony fretboard. Japanese models appeared in late 1984, sporting the same specifications as their American counterparts, except for the addition of a downsized body shape and a modern C-shape maple neck with 22 medium-jumbo frets. The Elite Precision's Schaller
Schaller
-Surname:* Barry R. Schaller, American lawyer, judge, academic, and bioethicist* Bernhard Schaller, Swiss physician and medical researcher* Biff Schaller , American baseball player* George Schaller, American biologist* Hans Schaller, German luger...
fine-tuner bridge has been later used on the Plus Series
Fender Precision Bass Plus
The Precision Bass Plus is an electric bass made by Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and designed by George Blanda in 1989. Usually known as the "Boner P-Bass", it was one of the first American-made Fender basses to feature a 22-fret neck, requiring the company to slightly oversize the body...
models in the early 1990s.
Fender has also produced several 'Deluxe' or 'Special' models over the years which feature active electronics and/or a Jazz Bass pickup or humbucking soapbar at the bridge position in addition to the normal split-coil pickup. Both of these measures are designed to increase the tonal options available to a fairly simple bass. Some P-Basses with J-style bridge pickups usually feature the traditional Jazz Bass control layout of 2 volumes and master tone and a side-mount jack socket; others had the front pickup volume control moved a step forward, leaving much enough room for the top-mounted output jack. Other variants include dual stacked control knobs similar to that of an early 1960s Jazz Bass or a 3-way pickup selector switch (as used on the Tony Franklin Signature and Plus Series
Fender Precision Bass Plus
The Precision Bass Plus is an electric bass made by Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and designed by George Blanda in 1989. Usually known as the "Boner P-Bass", it was one of the first American-made Fender basses to feature a 22-fret neck, requiring the company to slightly oversize the body...
P-Basses).
The 1990s saw the introduction of the Precision Plus
Fender Precision Bass Plus
The Precision Bass Plus is an electric bass made by Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and designed by George Blanda in 1989. Usually known as the "Boner P-Bass", it was one of the first American-made Fender basses to feature a 22-fret neck, requiring the company to slightly oversize the body...
and Deluxe Plus basses in 1989 and 1991, featuring Lace Sensor
Lace Sensor
The Lace Sensor is a guitar pickup designed by Don Lace and manufactured by AGI since 1985.This line of electric guitar pickups was used exclusively by Fender from 1987 to 1996....
pickups, fine-tuner bridges, 22-fret necks and passive or active electronics on certain models. The Custom Shop
Fender Custom Shop
The Fender Custom Shop is a division of Fender Musical Instruments, housed within their headquarters complex in Corona, Riverside County, California. The Fender Custom Shop primarily exists to compete with smaller companies and independent luthiers that, in turn, build products reminiscent of those...
40th Anniversary model of 1991 was a luxurious version of the Precision Plus Deluxe bass with gold hardware, a quilted maple top and an ebony fretboard with side dot position markers.
Other variants (sometimes with 21 or 22 frets on the fingerboard) and special-edition Precision Bass guitars have been offered in recent years. Fender made an American Deluxe
Fender American Deluxe Series
The Fender American Deluxe Series is a line of middle-range electric guitars and basses introduced by Fender in 1998 and upgraded in 2004 and again in 2010.The American Deluxe line replaced the Plus Series models of 1987....
5-string model with a split-coil neck pickup, a humbucking J-style bridge pickup and a 3-band active EQ between 2001 and 2007 and currently produces a passive American Standard with a high-mass vintage bridge and a gloss-coated maple neck with satin back and vintage tint as of 2008, tuned BEADG, along with a Squier
Squier
Squier is a musical instrument brand name owned by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.-History:Fender, under the ownership of CBS, acquired the Squier brand name in 1965 when it bought a USA based string making firm , but it lay dormant for many years...
Standard version sporting two J-Bass
Fender Jazz Bass
The Jazz Bass was the second model of electric bass created by Leo Fender. The bass is distinct from the Precision Bass in that its tone is brighter and richer in the midrange and treble with less emphasis on the fundamental harmonic...
pickups with alnico
Alnico
Alnico is an acronym referring to iron alloys which in addition to iron are composed primarily of aluminium , nickel and cobalt , hence al-ni-co, with the addition of copper, and sometimes titanium. Alnico alloys are ferromagnetic, with a high coercivity and are used to make permanent magnets...
magnets. The company has also built a Korean-made Squier ProTone 5-string Precision with dual humbuckers and gold hardware in the mid-1990s and a short-scale passive 5-string tuned EADGC called the Bass V
Fender Bass V
The original Fender Bass V was a quirky and unusual electric bass guitar model produced by Fender between 1965 and 1970. It was the world's first five string bass guitar, a popular concept today....
during the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
period in the mid-1960s. The Bass V did not sell well, and after it was discontinued, Fender did not offer another 5-string bass guitar until the 1980s.
Signature Models
Artists who are well known enough for using the instrument to have a signature Fender Precision bass model named for them include James JamersonJames Jamerson
James Lee Jamerson was an American bass player. He was the uncredited bassist on most of Motown Records' hits in the 1960s and early 1970s , and he is now regarded as one of the most influential bass players in modern music history...
, Pino Palladino
Pino Palladino
Pino Palladino is a Welsh bass guitarist who gained fame playing primarily rock and roll, blues rock, and rhythm and blues music, although he has been lauded for his ability to play most genres of popular music, including jazz, neo soul, and funk...
, Steve Harris
Steve Harris (musician)
Stephen Percy "Steve" Harris is an English musician and songwriter, known as the bassist, occasional keyboardist, backing vocalist and primary songwriter of the British heavy metal band Iron Maiden, which he founded in 1975...
, Tony Franklin
Tony Franklin (musician)
Anthony James "Tony" Franklin is an English rock musician, best known for his work on the fretless bass guitar with Roy Harper, The Firm, Jimmy Page, John Sykes' Blue Murder, Whitesnake and briefly, with Quiet Riot.-Fretless bass:...
, Duff McKagan
Duff McKagan
Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan is an American musician and writer. He is best known for his twelve-year tenure as the bassist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s...
, Matt Freeman
Matt Freeman
Matthew "McCall" Freeman is an American musician. He is best known for his bass guitar work with the punk rock bands Operation Ivy, Rancid and as the frontman of Devil's Brigade.-Playing style:...
, Mike Dirnt
Mike Dirnt
Michael Ryan Pritchard is an American musician, best known as the bassist, backing vocalist and co-founder of the American Rock band Green Day. While at school, he would play "air-bass." While pretending to pluck the strings, he made the noise, "dirnt, dirnt, dirnt"...
, Mark Hoppus
Mark Hoppus
Mark Allan Hoppus is an American musician, record producer, and television host. He is the bass guitarist and one of the two lead vocalists of the pop punk band Blink-182, as well as the bass guitarist and lead vocalist of the alternative rock band +44. He is a co-founder of both bands...
, Sting, Roger Waters
Roger Waters
George Roger Waters is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. He was a founding member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd, serving as bassist and co-lead vocalist. Following the departure of bandmate Syd Barrett in 1968, Waters became the band's lyricist, principal songwriter...
and Pete Wentz.
For a more complete listing of players, please see List of Precision Bass players.
See also
- Squier '51Squier '51The Squier '51 was an electric guitar made by Squier, a subsidiary of Fender. The '51 is notable for being one of the few original designs made by Squier, which normally manufactures less expensive authorized copies of Fender's popular guitars and bass guitars....
- Acoustic bass guitarAcoustic bass guitarThe acoustic bass guitar is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually somewhat larger than a steel-string acoustic guitar...
- Bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
- Fender Jazz BassFender Jazz BassThe Jazz Bass was the second model of electric bass created by Leo Fender. The bass is distinct from the Precision Bass in that its tone is brighter and richer in the midrange and treble with less emphasis on the fundamental harmonic...
- List of Precision Bass players
Literature
- Peter Bertges: The Fender Reference; Bomots, Saarbrücken 2007, ISBN 978-3-939316-38-1
- Martin Kelly, Terry Foster, Paul Kelly: Fender: The Golden Age 1946-1970; London & New York: Cassell 2010 ISBN 1-84403-666-9