The second unique attraction of the Fender Precision was not part of the bass, per se it was the amp that Fender introduced along with the bass. Any guitarist could cover simple bass parts with virtually no extra training. Now, guitarists could make an easy transition to bass, and a band in need of a bassist – particularly a rock and roll band – no longer needed to find a trained upright bassist. The guitar-based design may have turned off traditional upright bassists, but it opened up an even bigger market for the Precision. While there were apparent drawbacks to the Precision, it also had some unique attractions. Bassists were no different, and to make matters worse, few upright bassists could be expected to “downgrade” to a guitar in order to gain more volume. Guitarists had been slow in the ’30s to accept the electric guitar because it did not sound like an amplified acoustic guitar. Still, most of the pre-Fender efforts at electrifying the bass were upright concepts, such as the minimalist bodies of Rickenbacker and Vega in the ’30s, or the Ampeg endpin-mounted pickup developed in 1946.įender’s development of an electric solidbody bass guitar in ’51 seems today to be a questionable business decision. Seattle-based instrument maker Paul Tutmarc offered a fretted, solidbody electric bass guitar under his Audiovox brand in 1935. Gibson put frets on a bass mandolin, which could be played upright or in angled guitar position, in 1912. The idea of an electric bass or a guitar-like bass did not originate with Leo Fender. ![]() Fender probably settled on 34″ because it was five frets longer than the Telecaster’s 25 1/2″ scale. A standard 3/4-size Kay bass had a 42″ scale. The scale length was rather arbitrary in the context of upright basses. ![]() The body was enlarged only slightly – about half an inch. The Precision obviously differed from the Tele in the elements that made it a bass guitar the 34″ scale required a longer neck, but some of that extra scale length was moved to the body by placing the bridge closer to its end. And the strap button on the longer horn made the Precision even more unbalanced and body-heavy than was the Tele. While the bass side of the Precision’s body was scooped for a double-cutaway look, it still joined the neck three frets lower on the neck than the treble side, just as on the Tele. Aesthetically, it was of monumental importance, because it transformed the square-ish Tele body into a sleeker, much more modernistic design, and it introduced the basic shape that, after a heavy contouring treatment, would become the legendary Stratocaster body three years later.įunctionally, however, the extended bass horn provided only the illusion of an improvement. The Telecaster’s upper bass bout hinted at a cutaway, angling into the neck on a line that emerged on the treble side about three frets higher up the neck. ![]() The only fundamental design difference between the Precision and the Telecaster was the body shape. A round washer functioned as a string tree to give the two highest strings a sharper break-angle over the nut. The peghead was relatively narrow, with all tuners on the bass side. The neck was Fender’s one-piece maple design, with integral fingerboard. Hidden under a handrest, the pickup was a single black bobbin without a cover, similar to the Telecaster’s bridge-position pickup. Two adjustable saddles (made of a pressed fiber material rather than the brass saddles of the Tele) each accommodated a pair of strings. The solid ash body had squared-off edges and a blond finish. When it debuted in November, 1951, the Precision did have a lot in common with the Telecaster and Esquire, which Fender had introduced a little over a year earlier. Photo: Robert Parks, courtesy George Gruhn. However, unlike the Tele and Strat, which required only minimal wiring changes to reach their optimal design, the Precision had an evolutionary history more like Gibson’s Les Paul model, not reaching its preferred configuration until it received an upgraded pickup (among other changes) in 1957 and a new finish color in ’58. As an electric bass guitar, it was even more important, as an instrument that allowed bassists the same physical freedom as well as the same playing technique enjoyed by electric guitarists. As the first commercially successful electric bass, it was a landmark in the evolution of musical instruments. The Fender Precision Bass, introduced in 1951, was arguably more revolutionary and more influential on popular music than the Telecaster or Stratocaster.
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