gringopig's guitars
2022 Fender custom shop
1960 Precision Bass Heavy Relic
I was alerted to a used Fender custom shop bass at my local guitar shop GuitarGuitar recently and was shown some pictures. It was exactly what I wanted. I had a Squier and a Fender American Vintage '74 Jazz Bass and they were very decent but I know how good Fender's custom shop is, so made plans to sell some guitars.
What a fantastic looking bass! It came in a period correct early '60's Fender G&G case and it looked virtually untouched as if never played.
Now, the Precision bass was the first electric bass and was Leo Fender's gift to the double bass player; unwieldy and expensive to move from gig to gig and not that effective at projecting the low end on stage either. Coupled with Leo's Bassman amplifier, the touring musician could now provide a solid bass and lead to big changes in how music developed.
The first iteration of the Precision Bass was slightly different, owing more to the Telecaster guitar. It was introduced in 1951 and the patent for the concept detailed the look:
This looked a lot like a Telecaster but with the introduction of the Stratocaster in 1954, the Precision Bass underwent a facelift to more resemble the new more curvy futuristic model - complete with comfort carves and a more stylised shape. Gone went the single coil pickup under the cover and in came a humbucker. Two single coils, one for the lower strings and one for the upper were wired in noise cancellation mode. This wasn't advertised in bold however as Gibson had the patent still. It is humbucking though!
So the more familiar Precision took shape. The old shape came back in the late '60's as the Telecaster Bass and was further changed in '71 to have a big humbucker near the neck and a one-piece pickguard.
So my bass is a reproduction of a 1960 rosewood fretboard custom colour Precision Bass. Complete with chrome guards and finger rest on the treble side.
Click on gallery for larger version
It came with roundwound strings but within a day, I put a set of 45-105 Labella Flatwound strings on. It didn't sound bad at all with roundwound strings but I want the flatwound depth and feel.
As soon as they were on I knew they were perfect. So smooth and the tone was incredible! They are higher tension so was expecting to have to tweak the truss rod but in fact, the neck held the tension well and no adjustment was required. I was so happy with them I decided to put flats on the Rickenbacker and dug out a set of DR legend strings. This wasn't as successful as the low E string was just totally dead and lifeless from this set, plus I had to file the nut of the Rickenbacker to get them to fit.
So I ordered another set of Labella strings from Bass Direct and within 2 days had them on the Rickenbacker and a tweak of the dual truss rods later as this neck definitely needed a tweak, it was sounding just as glorious. Totally recommended strings. Great quality and tone!
The neck of the Precision is very nice. I played a '57 custom shop Precision with a soft V neck but it was so huge it was hard to play. The neck width plus depth was too much for me on a 34" scale bass but the '60 has an early '60's C neck which is quite skinny at the first fret: about 0.79". On a guitar that would be too thin for me but on the bass it's perfect. here's the neck width of the bass at the first fret:
This was before I changed to flatwound strings. It's a nice spacing. Pretty easy to play. The Jazz Bass was much thinner as below:
The Squier Precision was much the same though and had a nice neck shape too. A tad thicker but still very playable. See below:
I have done a demo of this and maybe a revisit to the Rickenbacker is on the cards after the string change. Flatwound strings are the choice for me!
Check out my demo below:
