The Fender P-bass vs. Fender J-bass

-Jon Chema

Being a musician, I tend to be asked many questions about my hobby. The majority going something like the following… “Is that a guitar your playing?”… “How long have you been playing?”….. “Can you teach me how to play?”…. “How’s your band going?” However, a few months ago, a fellow musican friend asked me a very interesting question. It happened to be the most intelligent one that I have heard over the past few months. The question was simple.. “What is the difference between a Jazz Bass, and a Precision Bass?”

The answer to that question is not a simple one-line response. It is actually quite complex, and I will bet you that the majority of Guitar Center employees could not tell you the difference. Describing something that you hear is normally an impossible task. You can’t quite describe a sound in words. Anyways, I will try my best to give you a little history lesson on the two basses, and then try to explain their distinct sounds.

Back in the early days, the concept of the bass guitar was unheard of. The only real intrument with a “bassy” sound was that of the upright bass. It was an enormous instrument, that could only be played while in an upright position (hence the name) and was not capable of being amplified. In 1951, Leo Fender created the Precision Bass Guitar. He realized that the process of building a guitar could be simplified, and dreamed up the idea of a bass that you could actually hold. This new bass could be played like a guitar, and had frets so it could be played with “precision”. This new bass could also be amplified, thus liberating bassists from unwieldy and increasingly difficult-to-hear acoustic basses. The new concept struck gold, and revolutionized the music industry. Along with the Telecaster guitar, these two historic instruments laid the foundation for a new kind of group and a revolution in popular music—what we know today as the modern rock combo. As opposed to the “big bands” of the era, electric Fender instruments made it possible for smaller groups of musicians to get together and be heard.

Upon seeing the sucess of the Precision bass, Leo Fender decided to create a new “upscale” line of basses. He later named them the jazz bass. This new bass guitar boasted two single coil pickups that hum-canceled more effectivly, a differn’t body style and pickguard, new knobs, and a slimmer (faster) neck. The new line was a sucess, and Fender was truely at the top of it’s game. Over time the Precision and Jazz basses evolved into what we know them as today.

When asked to contrast these two instruments, the first thing that comes to mind is the sound. The Presicion bass tends to have a big bottom end to it. It isn’t neccesarly a muddy sound, but it’s very deep and lacks alot of treble. The Jazz bass on the other hand, has a very distinct sound. It has a different selection of pickups, therefore giving it a unique mid-range growl. The Jazz bass, in my opinion, tends to give a crisp full sound but lacks the amount of bass that the P-bass gives. In modern music, the P-bass tends to be used more in a rock, hard rock, and Metal enviroment. The Jazz bass can me seen more often than not in the Jazz, Blues, and Country genres. However, the two are used in every genre all the time. The choice of bass really depends on the type of bassist, and the sound that they are looking for.

The Fender Precision and Jazz basses have revolutionized the world of music. We owe much of this to their father, Leo Fender.