Fender Blacktop Precision Bass

For guitars of the straight waisted variety (or reverse offset).
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HNB
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Fender Blacktop Precision Bass

Post by HNB » Thu Sep 08, 2022 6:56 am

I was kind of poking around looking for a worn Fender bass to adopt and found this guy. It was off my radar. Didn't know they were a thing. Of course what roped me in was the humbuckers that look like dual jazz bass pickups/jazzmaster pickup hybrid. I love it! The stock bridge is like the beefier bridge I tend to install on my own bass builds. Lovely fretboard. Simple volume, volume, and tone. Nothing to complain about. :D

Image20220908_074820 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

Image20220908_073044 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

Image20220908_074825 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

Image20220908_074804 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr

Image20220908_073100 by Christopher Louck, on Flickr
Christopher
Lilith Guitars

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Embenny
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Re: Fender Blacktop Precision Bass

Post by Embenny » Thu Sep 08, 2022 8:00 am

That's really cool. I've always thought that the JM pickup footprint looked like two Jazz Bass pickups put together (or maybe the other way around, since the JM came first!).

Regardless, that's a really cool P Bass. How does the neck pickup sound compared to a regular P?
The artist formerly known as mbene085.

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Re: Fender Blacktop Precision Bass

Post by HNB » Thu Sep 08, 2022 5:19 pm

It depends on how you use the tone pot. It can do the p bass sound, but it has a bunch of other tones with the tone pot and with the other pickup. These are higher output I believe than a typical p bass pickup, so they are louder.
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burpgun
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Re: Fender Blacktop Precision Bass

Post by burpgun » Sat Sep 10, 2022 12:56 pm

I can’t decide if this is a good or bad thing, but Fender seems to do almost all of its innovative work off its US production lines. Between Japan, Mexico and Squire that’s where the heat is. I’ve had my eye out for one of those Blacktop double P Jazz basses for a while, Fender did some cool stuff with that line.

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Re: Fender Blacktop Precision Bass

Post by Embenny » Sat Sep 10, 2022 1:24 pm

HNB wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 5:19 pm
It depends on how you use the tone pot. It can do the p bass sound, but it has a bunch of other tones with the tone pot and with the other pickup. These are higher output I believe than a typical p bass pickup, so they are louder.
That's pretty cool that it can nail the typical sound on top of others.

I don't think there's anything wrong with 1-pickup guitars or basses, but I prefer to be able to get multiple sounds out of an instrument. Guess I'm just a "more is more" person.
burpgun wrote:
Sat Sep 10, 2022 12:56 pm
I can’t decide if this is a good or bad thing, but Fender seems to do almost all of its innovative work off its US production lines.
I'm just glad that they sometimes do something interesting, period. We've had eras where they basically made standard models in red, black, white and sunburst, and that was it.

I do wish some of the cooler Japanese variants were more accessible though, like when Fender Japan released a 30" scale Jazz Bass with a scaled-down body, or that "bottom-master" Jaguar baritone with the built-in fuzz circuit.
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Re: Fender Blacktop Precision Bass

Post by HNB » Sat Sep 10, 2022 1:46 pm

I love guitars and basses that have different sound options so if you are in the mood to play something different, you don't need a different instrument. It is very flexible in that respect. Sort of like a Swiss army knife.
Christopher
Lilith Guitars

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