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The Fender Precision Bass (often shortened to " P-Bass") is an bass guitar model manufactured by Fender since 1951. The Precision Bass is a solid body, four-stringed, full scale bass equipped with a single pickup and a 20-fret maple neck. It produces a characteristically "deep and full-bodied sound."
Leo Fender designed the Precision Bass prototype in 1950 for big band bassists and it was brought to market the following year.Wheeler, Tom, American Guitars: An Illustrated History, interview with Leo Fender, Harper Perennial, NY 1992 Roy Johnson of Lionel Hampton's big band was among the first bassists to use the Precision Bass in a concert setting. Music critic Leonard Feather wrote about this new development in Down Beat magazine, expressing surprise at hearing bass sounds from a guitar. Adoption by upright bass players was slow, however, and the Precision Bass did not find widespread success until the emergence of new styles of music like rock and roll and Motown sound, with the Precision Bass's guitar-like format allowing guitarists to easily transition to this new instrument. In 1957, Fender introduced several design changes to its bass, notably altering the headstock and pickguard to more closely resemble those of the popular Stratocaster, and switching to a split-coil humbucker pickup. Fender reissued the original Precision Bass design in 1968 as the Telecaster Bass.
The Precision Bass, as the first commercially successful electric bass, was a "landmark in the evolution of musical instruments", delivering "punch and presence while enabling a fleeter, guitar-like playability." Some historians consider the Precision Bass to have had a greater impact on popular music than Fender's widely-known Telecaster and Stratocaster electric guitars. Its companion bass amplifier, the Fender Bassman, also proved influential. Since its release, the Precision Bass has remained among the best-selling and most-imitated electric bass guitars.
Fender chose a 34" scale length for the Precision Bass after much trial and error. Thirty-four inches proved long enough to achieve the resonance Fender wanted but it was short enough to avoid uncomfortably-wide fret spacing. Not prioritizing the player's comfort was considered "marketing suicide" by Leo Fender. The 34" scale length would go on to become standard for "full scale" electric basses. Pre-1957 models used a headstock similar to a Telecaster, but this was later changed to bring it more in line with the Stratocaster's styling. The neck—initially made from a single piece of maple, but with rosewood later offered as a fretboard option—was bolt-on neck using four screws, rather than glued onto the body. The neck used a large "C"-shape with a 7.25" radius fretboard, which has earned vintage Precision Bass necks frequent "baseball bat" comparisons. Modern versions typically use a flatter 9.5" radius.
Pre-1957, strings were loaded through the body and over a bridge equipped with two pressed fiber saddles; post-1957, the strings were loaded at the bridge, which was later updated with four saddles made of steel. The bridge was initially equipped with a chrome cover with a foam insert to help mute the strings and prevent unwanted overtones and sustain. Players, however, often removed this cover to achieve a more cutting tone and Fender eventually stopped including them. The original model's pickguard covered much of the Precision Bass's body, including both horns. The later redesign was more Strat-like, covering less of the body but now with the bass's controls mounted directly onto it, as was a finger rest (or "tugbar") below the G string. At different times, the pickguard has been black, white, and tortoiseshell.
Following the principle of "bigger for bass", Fender opted to repurpose the Fender Esquire in a slightly larger format for the brand's new bass model. The Precision Bass shared many similarities with its guitar counterpart, including its headstock shape, non-contoured "slab" body made of ash, and bolt-on maple neck. The Precision Bass, however, used a double-cutaway design with two protruding "horns" instead of one and employed a 34" scale length. The name "Precision Bass" referenced the precision in which Fender's factory construction methods could install frets to achieve the most accurate pitch and intonation, something Fender and his engineering-oriented mind was described as being "possessed" with. Only a transparent blonde finish was available upon release.
The Precision Bass gained little notice at first. Distributors were aghast at the new instrument and few artists showed any interest. To promote his bass, Fender traveled the country, trying to win over musicians face-to-face in nightclubs and concert halls, where he found the most interest from jazz players. Bandleader Lionel Hampton became an early champion of the Precision Bass: his bass player Roy Johnson used it extensively, later stating he had no trouble transitioning to the new bass, which he began using in performances the day he received it. Chicago's budget instrument retailer Kay Musical Instrument Company was one of the first companies to realize the potential of the Precision Bass and licensed their own models from Fender; these Kay basses were taken up by influential players like Chubby Jackson and Donald "Duck" Dunn.
As smaller, louder groups became more popular mid-decade, the Precision Bass slowly started replacing more upright basses, but players faced issues with the poor quality of amplification at the time. Fender's existing guitar amplifiers, such as the 15" speaker-equipped Fender Pro that the Precision Bass was initially paired with, proved unable to handle lower frequencies at loud volumes, forcing the company to design the first ever dedicated bass amplifier, the Bassman. The Bassman was pivotal to legitimizing the Precision Bass and became an influential amp in its own right—among guitarists even more so than bassists.
The Precision Bass's most significant revision came in 1957. The headstock shape and pickguard were redesigned to loosely resemble the Strat's, with the pickguard no longer covering the upper horn but now extending along the lower edge of the body to cover the control knob area. This new pickguard was made of a single layer of gold-anodized aluminum with the electronics—including a new "split-coil" humbucking pickup—mounted directly onto it. This pickguard material scratched easily though and was soon replaced with tortoiseshell plastic. Strings were now loaded through the bridge, rather than going through the body, and the bridge was upgraded to using four saddles for better intonation. These changes solidified the Precision Bass's basic design, which has remained largely unchanged since.
In 1959, a glued-on rosewood fingerboard featuring "clay"-style dot replaced the one-piece maple neck. This remained standard until 1966/67, when the now-CBS-owned Fender company began to offer a separate, laminated maple fingerboard capped on a maple neck as another option. Fewer than 200 Precision Basses were sold a year in the early 1950s, but this increased to around 1,000 a year by 1959.
The original Telecaster-derived design, with a few updates, was reintroduced in 1968 as the Fender Telecaster Bass. Within a few years, this evolved into a model distinctly different from the contemporary Precision Bass, alongside which it was marketed through 1979. Two artist signature models would later use the Telecaster Bass body style: the Mike Dirnt Precision Bass, using today's standard single split-coil pick-up, and the Sting Precision Bass, using a single coil pick-up as did the earliest design. In 1972, an updated version of 1968's Telecaster Bass was released; its noteworthy change was the switch to a large humbucker pickup designed by the inventor of the P.A.F., Seth Lover, who had joined Fender in 1967.
Under new leadership hoping to restore the brand's reputation, production of Fender instruments moved to Japan as Fender's U.S. factories were reorganized. Among the first of Fender's new products to come out of this move were the "Vintage Reissue" series, which included two historically accurate Precision Bass models, the '57 Precision Bass and '62 Precision Bass. Production returned to the United States in 1987 with a renewed focus on quality and "back to basics" redesigns; new models included the "American Standard" series Precision Bass and the Precision Bass Plus, the latter of which used Lace Sensor pickups and featured a 22-fret neck and longer upper horn.
Fender overhauled its entire catalog of U.S. bass products in 1995. New models included the U.S. Deluxe Precision (later renamed the American Deluxe), a 50th anniversary Precision Bass, the Hot Rod Precision, and the five-string American Deluxe Five Precision. In 2001, Fender released the 50th Anniversary Precision Bass to celebrate five decades of continuous production, with its outward appearance still relatively unchanged since its redesign in 1957. Fender has since released further Precision Bass models as part of its American Elite, American Performer, and Player product series.
Numerous bass players have co-designed signature model Precision Basses with Fender, including Sting of the Police, Mike Dirnt of Green Day, Tony Franklin, Duff McKagan of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, Steve Harris of Iron Maiden, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, and Nate Mendel of the Foo Fighters.
Since its release, the Precision Bass has remained among the best-selling and most-imitated electric bass guitars on the market. After leaving his namesake company, Leo Fender himself would go on to co-design the Music Man StingRay, which was effectively an updated version of the Precision Bass.
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