Fender Precision Bass

The Fender Precision Bass, known as "P-bass" for short, is an early model of the bass guitar created by Leo Fender in 1951.

Related Topics:
Bass guitar - Leo Fender - 1951

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The Precision Bass was the first mass-produced electric bass guitar. In its stock configuration, it is a solid body instrument equipped with one single-coil electronic pickup. The Precision Bass is the most popular bass guitar of all time, and is still being manufactured today.

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Bass guitar - Pickup

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Similar to Jimi Hendrix's effect on the popularity of the Stratocaster, the early adoption of the electric bass was in part due to Bill Black's ownership; he owned a Precision Bass at the time Jailhouse Rock was made, and may have played electric bass on the famed record.

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Jimi Hendrix - Bill Black - Jailhouse Rock

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The electric bass had a transformative effect on popular music. The double bass (also called upright bass) is a very difficult instrument to play well; it is physically cumbersome, difficult to travel with, and by the 1950s, was increasingly hard to hear with big horn sections or next to amplified guitars. Fender's bass guitar made it easy for guitar players to "double" on bass. And it posed none of the physical challenges of the double bass. With a good amplifier the electric bass was easily loud enough. And the electric bass produced a different timbre than the double bass: a more focused sound, harder edged, with less percussive thump and more clearly articulated: it was as different from a double bass as a double bass was different from a tuba. And just as the transition from tuba to double bass helped bring about the change from Dixieland jazz to swing jazz, the sound of the electric bass transformed pop music rhythm sections, making bass a larger part of the song's effect. James Jamerson, the legendary motown bassist, is a primary example: what became known as the Motown beat would not have been possible without the electric bass. Overall, the electric bass made for more driving rhythms and was essential to the transformation from jump blues/swing to what became rock music.

Related Topics:
Double bass - James Jamerson

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The electric bass is probably the most significant of Leo Fender's innovations, in terms of the way it changed popular music. Other manufacturers made electric guitars, but the electric bass guitar was really Leo Fender's work.

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