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Post subject: Metal pickup covers on older P (and Jazz) basses...
Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2010 11:27 pm
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What was the purpose of those metal pickup/bridge covers on older Precision and Jazz basses? Aesthetics? Mutes? :?:


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Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2010 7:00 am
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Pretty much just for looks.

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Post subject: Re: Metal pickup covers on older P (and Jazz) basses...
Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2010 1:34 am
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verbeke7 wrote:
What was the purpose of those metal pickup/bridge covers on older Precision and Jazz basses? Aesthetics? Mutes? :?:


Initially on the 51 Precision the pickup cover was grounded. There was a ground wire that went to the screw that held the cover on at the "G" string side.

These first generation single coil pickups were pretty susceptible to RFI noise. The grounding helped a little but not enough to justify the time (time = labor expense) it took to install it so it was promptly dropped and a redesign commenced which lead to the split coil pickup of the second generation P-Bass

When the split coil pickups came along grounding was no longer actually necessary. Many players removed covers on their second generation P-Basses but James Jamerson left his covers on his '62. He was quoted as saying, that Leo Fender "put them there for a reason." And people wonder how Jamerson got his unique sound. Maybe it was the covers? The Labella 760M strings? Nope, it was just Jamerson.

The bridge cover on both the first and second generation designs was initially intended to beautify, but if if you've ever caught your pants leg on exposed bridge components and pulled an instrument off it's stand so it crashes to the floor you find the bridge cover indeed does have another purpose.


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Post subject: There was another purpose
Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 9:58 pm
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The metal cover over the bridge had a piece of foam rubber under it that muted the strings at the bridge. I have had a few old Jazz, Precision and Telecaster basses and they all had the foam still intact. If you notice, Bob Babbitt on the documentary, "Standing In the Shadows of Motown" has a piece of sponge under his strings at the bridge on his P-Bass. A lot of players who want to re-create that old tone will use this method these days, being that it's tough to find the old metal covers with the foam still intact. This WAS part of James Jamerson's and all the rest of the old soul bassists sound. If you notice on the old Motown recordings, the bass notes die out pretty fast, especially on the G-string. This was because of the deadening effect of the foam rubber under the metal cover. Originally when Leo Fender invented the electric bass in the 50's, people were used to hearing upright basses only, the deadening of the foam and flatwound strings made the electric bass sound more similar to an upright. It wasn't till the late 60's that round wound bass strings became commercially available, when John Entwistle helped pioneer them with Rotosound, then a lot of rock bassists began pulling off the metal covers and setting up thier basses with Rotosounds! Most soul and funk bassist tended to stick with the metal covers and flatwounds until the mid 70's, when slapping and popping got popular with Larry Graham, Stanley Clarke and Louis Johnson. Hope that summed it up for ya!!


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Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 10:22 pm
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+1 Sammy G.

You can also just use weatherstripping to replace the rubber on the cover. I prefer the foam under the strings as you described because it is more controllable.
Here is my elcheapo muting page. http://brotherdave.com/add_mute.htm


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Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2010 11:27 pm
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That's a very cool site you have Brother Dave!! I think fewer and fewer people know about muting these days. One other thing I'll make mention of is, if you do use some foam under the strings, it can mess with your intonataion, so you may want to tweak the saddles accordingly! I'm in Nashville and I played regular gigs on Broadway until about six months ago, when I got totally burned out on the scene and quit (Never was a huge country fan). When I was down there, there was only one other guy other than me using a regular old P-Bass with flatwounds and a piece of foam on the bridge! I don't think classic music sounds right when the bass player's playin' some crazy six string active circuitry bass! I mean even Jaco played a regular old '63 J-Bass with the frets ripped out! My favorite bass tone for any style is a regular old fashioned Fender four string!


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