Finally... discovering the Fender Precision!

#1 · September 18, 2015, 11:30 am

Quote from Forum Archives on September 18, 2015, 11:30 am
Posted by: bruno.glbproductions <bruno.glbproductions@...>

Hello dear brothers and sisters in Christ! I can't remember the last time I posted here but I thought I would share this with everyone, to give God the glory and to acknowledge his authority in all things.

In July of this year my father passed away - he was a guitarist, teacher, composer, conductor and a huge influence on my life. He was always around when I was growing up and without a doubt tried to be the best father he could possibly be. In the last ten years he and I worked together on his website and YouTube channel and I was able to get to know him not just as a parent but a friend and partner in making music.

After he passed away I decided to use some of my inheritance to purchase an instrument as a memorial to his life, something that would remind me of him every time I played it. The choice of instrument was pretty clear to me from the beginning - it would be a Fender Precision bass. I've been playing bass now for about 15 years (joined churchbass a week after I started!) and have always played jazz or jazz-style basses throughout that time. In 2003 I went looking for a precision but ended up with my Aerodyne Jazz bass, which is a PJ pickup configuration and sounds great, but is still not a P-bass!

The next question was what model to buy - I knew that I wanted a 4-string Fender (the original!) with a maple Fingerboard but of course they make more than a dozen different models. In the end I narrowed it down to either the American Standard, the American Special, or the Steve Harris signature model - I'm not really into Iron Maiden but I like the way this bass looks and I'm also a big fan of Japanese-made Fenders.

I spent the next couple of weeks trying out the various models. Fortunately availability of Fender instruments in Singapore is pretty good and there were several of each version that I could try. In the end I decided that the Steve Harris was just too heavy - if you've ever experienced this instrument you'll know that it has a massive neck and that badass bridge and it just struck me as being too much for an instrument that I'll be playing (and hanging around my neck) for the rest of my life.

The American special was ok but I didn't like the hardware (the bridge in particular seemed very flimsy compared to the American Standard) and the workmanship, especially the finishing of the frets and the sides of the fingerboard, did not really strike me as being up to the standard that I would expect from an American-made instrument. I also found that the tone was rather brittle in comparison to the American Standard with its custom shop pickup . Of course the instrument was substantially cheaper but this was not really the time to be penny-wise-pound-foolish.

In the end I settled on a Fender American standard in mystic red - this is a sort of 'brighter' version of my old favourite candy apple red and uses the same transparent red topcoat over a sparkle silver base coat. I also looked at the new colour Jade Pearl Metallic but unfortunately in person I found that it looked more grey than green, without the depth of the mystic red. My particular bass was made in 2013 - the place where I bought it has a very large stock and they will typically only display one of each model due to space constraints - if you want a different colour to the one on display you have to ask and they'll check their inventory. So this bass has been waiting for me for two whole years - God is very good!

I've had this bass now for about three weeks and it has been a fascinating journey. To say that old Leo Fender was a genius is something of an understatement - he not only invented the first commercially successful bass guitar, he single-handedly defined the sound of the instrument, in much the same way as C.F. Martin defined the sound of the modern acoustic guitar. Everyone who hears this bass says that it sounds the way a bass should sound - there's a reason this design has worked for 60 years and continues to work today.

This is the first bass I have ever owned with just a single pickup, and it's absolutely fantastic how that frees you from fiddling with controls and enables you to just concentrate on the music. It sounds good through just about every amp I have tried, both big and small, and even there I'll just set the tone controls flat, maybe with a bit of bass boost and midrange cut. Of course there are many options with the tone knob, and it's fun to hear the voice of the instrument change with every quarter turn, going from deep Reggae rumble and bloom with the tone all the way off through Motown funk and then to hard rock with it wide open. For the first time I'm happy with the factory strings - with my other basses I usually swap them out for a slighter lighter gauge, but this bass seems made for mediums.

The hardware on this bass is top notch - Fender seem to understand the need to keep certain things the same yet improve on what could be better. The high mass bridge that they use is every bit as beefy as the Badass (which is now no longer in production) yet is relatively compact and doesn't draw attention to itself. It's great to have the topload/string through body option - I'm currently preferring the latter. The tuning machines have a sort of 'semi-open' construction with a large nut on the front to hold the tuner into the headstock and a tension adjustment screw on the part that you turn. The bass as a whole is relatively lightweight and feels only slightly heavier than my Aerodyne Jazz, which is specifically designed to weight as little as possible.

The custom-shop pickup not only sounds good, it sound absolutely correct - there was not one point in the past three weeks that I have regarded the tone of this bass as being anything other than 100% Fender P-bass. In different venues it has been noise-free and sounds great through a DI. The output of this bass is pretty hot considering it's a passive instrument, which is always a bonus. In a band, the bass works great - I'm not constantly adjusting my tone controls and pickup balance, I just get down to business. Most of the time I play and sing, and in a small team the singing is just as important as the bass playing, so this instrument allows me to keep things simple on the technical side. I couldn't ask for more!

Needless to say, I don't think I'll be putting down this instrument for a long, long time. If you've never taken the time to get to know a P-bass, may I suggest that you do so before the year is out!

Blessings to all!

Regards,

Bruno

--

Bruno Goh Luse <><
GLB Productions
Singapore

www.youtube.com/glbpro

www.facebook.com/GLBProductions

--

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Posted by: bruno.glbproductions <bruno.glbproductions@...>

Hello dear brothers and sisters in Christ! I can't remember the last time I posted here but I thought I would share this with everyone, to give God the glory and to acknowledge his authority in all things.

In July of this year my father passed away - he was a guitarist, teacher, composer, conductor and a huge influence on my life. He was always around when I was growing up and without a doubt tried to be the best father he could possibly be. In the last ten years he and I worked together on his website and YouTube channel and I was able to get to know him not just as a parent but a friend and partner in making music.

After he passed away I decided to use some of my inheritance to purchase an instrument as a memorial to his life, something that would remind me of him every time I played it. The choice of instrument was pretty clear to me from the beginning - it would be a Fender Precision bass. I've been playing bass now for about 15 years (joined churchbass a week after I started!) and have always played jazz or jazz-style basses throughout that time. In 2003 I went looking for a precision but ended up with my Aerodyne Jazz bass, which is a PJ pickup configuration and sounds great, but is still not a P-bass!

The next question was what model to buy - I knew that I wanted a 4-string Fender (the original!) with a maple Fingerboard but of course they make more than a dozen different models. In the end I narrowed it down to either the American Standard, the American Special, or the Steve Harris signature model - I'm not really into Iron Maiden but I like the way this bass looks and I'm also a big fan of Japanese-made Fenders.

I spent the next couple of weeks trying out the various models. Fortunately availability of Fender instruments in Singapore is pretty good and there were several of each version that I could try. In the end I decided that the Steve Harris was just too heavy - if you've ever experienced this instrument you'll know that it has a massive neck and that badass bridge and it just struck me as being too much for an instrument that I'll be playing (and hanging around my neck) for the rest of my life.

The American special was ok but I didn't like the hardware (the bridge in particular seemed very flimsy compared to the American Standard) and the workmanship, especially the finishing of the frets and the sides of the fingerboard, did not really strike me as being up to the standard that I would expect from an American-made instrument. I also found that the tone was rather brittle in comparison to the American Standard with its custom shop pickup . Of course the instrument was substantially cheaper but this was not really the time to be penny-wise-pound-foolish.

In the end I settled on a Fender American standard in mystic red - this is a sort of 'brighter' version of my old favourite candy apple red and uses the same transparent red topcoat over a sparkle silver base coat. I also looked at the new colour Jade Pearl Metallic but unfortunately in person I found that it looked more grey than green, without the depth of the mystic red. My particular bass was made in 2013 - the place where I bought it has a very large stock and they will typically only display one of each model due to space constraints - if you want a different colour to the one on display you have to ask and they'll check their inventory. So this bass has been waiting for me for two whole years - God is very good!

I've had this bass now for about three weeks and it has been a fascinating journey. To say that old Leo Fender was a genius is something of an understatement - he not only invented the first commercially successful bass guitar, he single-handedly defined the sound of the instrument, in much the same way as C.F. Martin defined the sound of the modern acoustic guitar. Everyone who hears this bass says that it sounds the way a bass should sound - there's a reason this design has worked for 60 years and continues to work today.

This is the first bass I have ever owned with just a single pickup, and it's absolutely fantastic how that frees you from fiddling with controls and enables you to just concentrate on the music. It sounds good through just about every amp I have tried, both big and small, and even there I'll just set the tone controls flat, maybe with a bit of bass boost and midrange cut. Of course there are many options with the tone knob, and it's fun to hear the voice of the instrument change with every quarter turn, going from deep Reggae rumble and bloom with the tone all the way off through Motown funk and then to hard rock with it wide open. For the first time I'm happy with the factory strings - with my other basses I usually swap them out for a slighter lighter gauge, but this bass seems made for mediums.

The hardware on this bass is top notch - Fender seem to understand the need to keep certain things the same yet improve on what could be better. The high mass bridge that they use is every bit as beefy as the Badass (which is now no longer in production) yet is relatively compact and doesn't draw attention to itself. It's great to have the topload/string through body option - I'm currently preferring the latter. The tuning machines have a sort of 'semi-open' construction with a large nut on the front to hold the tuner into the headstock and a tension adjustment screw on the part that you turn. The bass as a whole is relatively lightweight and feels only slightly heavier than my Aerodyne Jazz, which is specifically designed to weight as little as possible.

The custom-shop pickup not only sounds good, it sound absolutely correct - there was not one point in the past three weeks that I have regarded the tone of this bass as being anything other than 100% Fender P-bass. In different venues it has been noise-free and sounds great through a DI. The output of this bass is pretty hot considering it's a passive instrument, which is always a bonus. In a band, the bass works great - I'm not constantly adjusting my tone controls and pickup balance, I just get down to business. Most of the time I play and sing, and in a small team the singing is just as important as the bass playing, so this instrument allows me to keep things simple on the technical side. I couldn't ask for more!

Needless to say, I don't think I'll be putting down this instrument for a long, long time. If you've never taken the time to get to know a P-bass, may I suggest that you do so before the year is out!

Blessings to all!

Regards,

Bruno

Bruno Goh Luse <><
GLB Productions
Singapore

http://www.youtube.com/glbpro

http://www.facebook.com/GLBProductions

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