Fender is as Fender has done. It is neither the best bass builder nor the worst.
Leo broke new ground with the Precision, Jazz and StingRay. Other fine Music Man models came to be due to his vision and passion to improve his designs.
Many other builders, large and small, make basses that are arguably of higher quality than Fender. Countless other builders around the world do not.
Music legends have used Fenders to create legendary music. That will never change.
Bottom line: Play the bass that makes you want to play. Nothing else matters, extraneous rabbit hole journeys notwithstanding.
An excerpt from Sweetwaterâs History of the Bass:
Then came a musician and inventor from Seattle, Washington, who saw the need for an instrument with less bulk and more amplification. In 1935, after many years of successful pickup development and guitar manufacturing, Paul Tutmarc released a cello-sized solidbody bass instrument referred to as an âelectric bull-fiddleâ [8]. Though a far cry from an electric bass guitar, it was proof that solidbody electric bass instruments were becoming a reality.
But many cite Tutmarcâs Audiovox 736 Bass Fiddle, released to market in 1936, as the first solidbody electric bass guitar ever made. Although previously obscured in the annals of history, Paul Tutmarc is now regarded as the inventor of the solidbody electric bass guitar in a form we recognize today. His Audiovox 736 Bass Fiddle was the first of its kind. Musicians could play this bass horizontally like a guitar, and it had frets for maximum note precision â this made it easy for non-bassists to pick up the instrument, too. Its solid body was carved from black walnut, and it featured a neck-through design and an ebony fingerboard. Its total length measured 42 inches, and it had a scale length of around 30 inches with 16 frets adorning the fingerboard. Of course, Tutmarc designed an amplifier to accompany the instrument: the Audiovox 936 [9]. At the time, the 736 sold for $65, while the amplifier sold for another $75 [10]. Check out the video below to see this bass in action â with electronics in perfect condition. Wow!
Tutmarc devised the perfect instrument for bassists. The weight and reduced bulk would surely appeal to âpoor bull fiddlersâ [9]. So, why was the instrument lost to history for so long? Although Tutmarcâs and othersâ pickup designs of the decade worked well enough, the amplifiers had yet to catch up. They couldnât output adequate quality sound at high volume levels. Furthermore, the popular music of the time still required the tone of a true acoustic instrument. Nobody was playing incredibly loud, fast music yet. Additionally, during the Great Depression, many Americans did not have the disposable income to invest in untested technologies. It would be 15 years before another inventor made the right product at the right time.
Side note @howard I used to work with a guy in the military and you could never answer your phone in the car with him because heâd always shout this as soon as you picked up. Good times man!
I studied in Leiden for some time, so I know that area quite well!
Have some great memories from that time (I lived across âprins pilsjeâ, when he studied thereâŚ)
Ah, tulips and bulbs ⌠makes me want to return to Holland one day. And live in the windmill below.
Oddly enough, Iâm now in the PNW, but they have excellent local crawfish here. No real clue what to do with them, like most of their seafood, but still.
no Iâm from the part where all the bulbs and tulips come from
leiden is 5000 steps from my home