Fender Precision Bass

The Fender Precision Bass (often shortened to "P-Bass") is an electric bass guitar model manufactured by Fender since 1951. The Precision Bass is a solid body, four-stringed, full scale bass guitar 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 bass players and it was brought to market the following year. Roy Johnson of Lionel Hampton's big band was among the first bass players 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, 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.