Ok, I missed a show wrap-up a while ago, but it was so close to our show at Spin that it just didn’t seem that important. However, I completely forgot that I played a second bass, and that is important.
My friend Chad had a great Japanese made Precision bass that wasn’t seeing any action and let me borrow it. Because it hadn’t seen any play time in a while, the strings were dead and DIRTY. You could feel the dirt sliding your finger over them. The frets also had they fair share of grim and grit. I took the strings off and set off brining this thing back to working condition.
The first thing was to clean the entire fret board. I have a ritual that goes something like this:
- I take #0000 steel whole to both the fret board and the frets. This helps get all of that surface dirt of the board and really bring the shine back to the frets.
- I use a Formula 65 cleanser that is basically an alcohol solution to go and really get all the dirt out of the board. It brings it all to the surface, so I apply the cleanser to the whole board and then go back with a micro cloth and wipe all the dirt away.
- Finally, I take the Formula 65 conditioner and apply it to the whole fret board. I then go back with a paper towel and remove any excess.
It may be overkill, but I like it and it always leaves the fret board feeling very nice. After that I strung up some DR Marcus Miller Fat Beams. I have really grown to love DR strings and these in particular. They sound fantastic, but they really feel great under my fingers. They also last forever so all around they are some excellent strings. I had to restring a couple of the strings because I had them going the wrong way on the pegs. I am used to how the Spector strings up and the Fender was setup the opposite.
I then had some other things to address before all was said and done. He had replaced the volume pot and the replacement wasn’t the same as the original so the volume pot sits higher than the tone pot. While I was checking to see if I could fix any of that, the nut holding the volume pot on shattered into 4 pieces. I grabbed a nut off my Squire P and J (more on that one some time) and secured the pot.
I then made sure everything was setup right. I didn’t get to do as much with it as I would have liked simply because I didn’t have time, but there was a dead fret that needed some attention, but otherwise it played really well. I applied some polish, transferred my strap to the Dunlop Strap Locks (I play with Schaler on the Spector) and took it out for a test drive.
Playing a four string felt great. I have played my five for a very long time and it was nice to deal with the narrower neck. However, the string spacing was something I would need to adjust too. The spacing on my Spector is much closer than the P-Bass. On a couple of occasions I went for an octave and came up short, my pinky missing the mark. I think with more practice this wouldn’t be such a problem, but I didn’t have as much time to get it down before the show.
The tone floored me. The Spector is notorious for not sounding like anything, which drives me mad. It doesn’t sound bad, it just sounds like any bass, there is no character. The P-Bass, on the contrary, has decades of character screaming from every poor. The lack of a flat response across the range makes is wonderful, to me at least. The mids are full and growl like Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor. The loud end is tight but not overly boomy. Comparing the two basses, the Spector has better response on the low end, but it can’t compare above that.
I thought the lack of control would bother me, but I am not a fidgety bass player, I am a Ron Popeil “Set it and Forget It!” kind of bass player. 
I might occasionally dial in a little more treble to bring out some brightness but that is about it. So one tone knob was a joy. I didn’t have to worry about tailoring the bass to me, I just had to tailor my playing to the bass. It felt more expressive, more connected. I am addicted.
I might occasionally dial in a little more treble to bring out some brightness but that is about it. So one tone knob was a joy. I didn’t have to worry about tailoring the bass to me, I just had to tailor my playing to the bass. It felt more expressive, more connected. I am addicted.The Search is on. I am now trying to find a P-Bass or P-Bass Special for under $500 to add to my arsenal and most likely succeed the Spector as my go to bass. I really can’t find it in me to ever part with the bass I have been playing for something like 10 years now. I have thought about selling it but I can never follow through. It needs work for sure, but it has been a huge part of my musical growth and I can’t just toss it out.
I will try and update you on any potential canidates and also get some pictures of the P-Bass I played at our last show.
In band related news, we are working on learning some covers to compliment our originals for a two hour set we will be playing at the end of the month at Bluffton University in lovely Bluffton, Ohio. Tell your friends.
The Covers - http://countvoncount.muxtape.com
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