John deacon bass

I am not an expert in bass guitar, so I would love to have advise from people, or musicians, into it.

John used ever Fender Precision

Why he changed from black to White/red ?

I mean in Wembley he used black, in Knebworth White/red.

Also in the Tribute for Radio gaga he used White/red.

What is the difference and what he wanted to achieve doing so ?

Thanks

It was just the same bass, only refurbished with different colours.

^^^^. I'm not sure it was the same Bass.
In the 70's he had two sunburst precission's which were sanded down to their original bare wood, ss seen in the Bo Rhap vid. During the early/mid 80's one or maybe both were rebuilt and painted black. The red P Bass was bought around the time of The Works tour.

Oh, ok, thanks V.H. !

Only one of the P-bass was painted black, the other one was kept in its natural finish, as seen from the Miracle video.

[QUOTE] [b]Killer_queenIII wrote:[/b]

Only one of the P-bass was painted black, the other one was kept in its natural finish, as seen from the Miracle video. [/QUOTE]

That`s a 1961 Fender P-Bass wich was rented for the Video

Serial number 62741

hmm... I always assumed it was the other P-Bass, so were both P-basses painted black then or it's only the '68 bass?

JD's red Bass was an Elite model with active pickups and maple fingerboard, so certainly wasn't one of the 60's Basses. He also had either a grey or bronze Elite.

His favourite P Bass was painted black then I believe the 2nd one just before the tour so that he still had a matching backup bass.

One of them was destroyed in Knebworth, no?

Doge, re:

>One of them was destroyed in Knebworth, no?

No - just thrown down in temper.

His first Fender P-Bass was a sunburst one, which he got around 1972. By the time of 'Sheer Heart Attack', he had a second one. The only noticeable difference was the logo: grey and black.

He had one of them stripped off to natural at the end of the 'Sheer Heart Attack' tour, but the other stayed sunburst ... until a year later, when it received the same treatment. That means he had, for a while, a natural one and a sunburst one, the latter being the back-up. From '76 onwards they were both natural ... until early-to-mid '86, when one of them was sprayed black.

The third Fender Precision he got was the fretless one, again sunburst, which he first played live on the 'Races' tour in America and Canada.

Next was a vintage Fender Masterbuilt Precision, which he bought right before the Jazz tour and then used on and off both live and in the studio.

Fifth one: the Fender Precision Special, which people from Fender gave to him as a free sample in '81. That's the one he used on 'Under Pressure' (recordings, and also live from 1981 to 1985).

Sixth (and last that I know of) was the Elite 1, which was red. He played it on and off live and in the studio as well.

He'd occasionally 'punish' his bass when he was very upset. The most famous instance is the end of 'Ga Ga' (Knebworth) but it actually happened, on average, once per tour. He never did any significant damage to his basses, a few times they might've needed a touch-up but that was it. An exception seems to have been the band's penultimate ever concert, which took place in Spain. It seems that John's main bass (the black one) was hit to badly John had to play the last gig with the red one ... which he threw as well, but minutes later he played the second encore with it so it wasn't that big a deal.

Truth is, smashing instruments (let alone a bass, which is rather heavy) is not as easy as most people would think. Well... acoustic guitars are probably easy to destroy in a fit of rage.

Thanks guys, but my question was...
Why he changed bass during songs, as gaga for the tribute...
had the red white a difference set up, or a different sound?..
In the magic tour he use white and red for knebworth and leiden I think.
I Don T think he choosed regarding mood or colour..

What d u think ?

You change guitars for different reasons, but obviously the fretless one gives a very different feel for certain songs, the others again will have pick-ups that are wound slightly differently and therefore may have more attack or less depending on turns, so for certain songs he may want a different feel, some tracks he'd play with a pick and some without, so some guitars sound better played with one or other.

I suspect the main damage he likely casued to the Black bass in Spain would have been knocking a tuning peg off, which would be a pain to repair quickly, I think his roadie had to frequently check the necks to make sure they were still straight as he did seem to like to chuck them around a bit, and as Seb said it does take a lot to actually break a Bass, but you can knock the neck out fairly easily.

For the Tribute concert there may well have been tuning to different keys, and so easier to have a bass prepped and ready for that rather than have to play the song in a different place on the neck

^Since Radio Gaga was played in a lower key during the Tribute, I guess he switched to the red, which is tuned lower to, match the key they're playing the song to.