My J Bass is a 1973, is it gunna sound different to a new one???
Cheers Brian
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My 2 favorites are the two I built: The P-Bass and then there’s the Poison Apple Jazz bass, which I’ve found has a really unique tone that’s different from the others (I also have a PJ and a Steinberger headless) and I’ve used all 4 in Josh’s lessons. I’ll switch off between the P and the J but I just love the tone on the J.
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Yes and no most modern pickups can produce the vintage sound plus the more modern tone. Seriously industry as a whole is taking a pretty slow and lazy approach to innovation which is a little disappointing.
Worse the latest trends is to buy an Uber expensive bass that looks like it fell out of the truck and dragged through the city. That’s the biggest scam of the century.
It’s been 90 years since the first electric bass was introduced and 70 years since the first fender And today we were to a pepperoni slice pizza yeah wake up to slices one chicken bakep bass. One would think we’d be playing a touch sensitive polyphonic multi scale bass with built in speakers and effects already. Yet we are still talking about what capacitor and transistor to use.
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At my level (rookie) I want to feel comfortable. I’ve got a handful of basses laying around none of which were expensive and when I get to play together with new folks I don’t get that “playing up to the level of my bass” feeling which keeps me loose and focused on the task at hand. As far as a style of bass steering towards a style of music there may be something to that, you don’t see a lot of people playing jazz on a thunderbird and I’m sure there are other examples…but that was the first one that came to mind.
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They don’t all look like the F-series 
I like the natural wood F-series. They look like evil trees.
The B-series is a lot less metal:
My favorites are the Stream basses, though. So retro-Jetsons:
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I like the Stream basses and I reckon the natural F looks better than the B
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They don’t look like they can be in the Church band, but they have the versatility.
This is the one I like, which has a very vintage sound. LTD basses are a full line
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There’s actually some pretty classic looking Surveyors. Great basses.
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Looks like this thread has been well-covered, so I’ll just add the hard and fast rule of guitar tone is, if you want to sound like a specific guitarist on a specific song, you should look into playing the guitar they used when recording it. Same with bass, so if emulation is your thing, it’s a good starting point.
But if you’re just starting out and looks are your thing, go with what looks cool and play whatever music you like with it (make sure the bass is comfortable, too! You’ll have more fun). As you grow as a bassist, it’s very likely you’ll end up with multiple instruments and have trouble ‘putting the Sweetwater down’ soon enough that this’ll be a non-issue.
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I got my regular shipment of Laffy Taffy, Tootsie Rolls and fireballs today!
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To answer the OP’s original question, no. Your bass is your bass. Find one that plays well, is comfortable for you, and looks cool to you, and play that one. If you are up to whatever kind of music it is you want to play, it will be.
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Yeah. By far the most important thing, especially at this stage but in general as well, is to pick an instrument that feels good to you, and that you want to pick up and play.
After a few years in, if I were to stack rank these, I would rate them something like:
feel >> looks > tone
at like 50%/30%/20% for me. Tone is a 20% factor for me at the most.
You’ll be shocked at how much you can modify your tone with gear or software once you learn how. It’s really kind of a nonconcern in comparison to the other two for me. Feel and looks make you want to pick the thing up at all, and that’s critical.
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Seriously though I would say think about a “modern” bass (active electronics etc) - this gives you much more flexibility when using effects and trying to record things, as well as musical genres, like being able to switch from reggae to punk…
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Agree - active EQ on the bass really expands its tonal capabilities.
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