Ron Blair

Mentioned by Blair in this January 2013 Bass Player article.

I’ve tried some non-vintage basses, but the one I mainly use is a black 1964 Fender Jazz. The pickups are microphonic, so at the end of a song I have to turn it off real fast. Th at bass is similar to the one I used in the early days, which unfortunately got stolen. My friend Norm from Norm’s Rare Guitars asked me, “Whatever happened to that bass?” and I told him it was stolen. He told me he was going to find one for me, which went on for 15 years until he finally found the right one. It’s the perfect bass for me. It’s easy to get around on, and I like the playability. It’s got a great tone. You need both pickups’ volume full up or it hums, so if you want less treble, you have to adjust the pickup down. If I play with a pick I need to back it off a little, and if I play with my fingers I need to turn that up. But at those big gigs, you’ve got to be careful when you play with your fingers because you may lose definition in those big halls. But when you’re playing with a pick you don’t really hear the pick; it just becomes part of the general band attack. (...) So I basically use the Fender Jazz Bass and an Ampeg SVT. The beauty of that is, even in the dark I can set it. I turn up all the knobs on my bass, and reach over in the dark on the Ampeg and make sure everything’s at 12 o’clock, and I’ve got my sound.

Live, I’m using an Ampeg SVT Heritage from 2010, and on my Jazz Bass, D’Addario XL Pro Steels strings gauged from .045 to .105. I use medium Fender picks.

In the now defunct Hard Rock Café memorabilia page, one of the catalogued artifacts was Blair's candy red Fender Jazz Bass, used by Blair on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' 2008 tour. It has a "Fragile! Handle with care!" sticker and a "Don't tread on me" sticker.

Mentioned by Blair in this January 2013 Bass Player article.

I have some mid-’60s Fender Precision Basses that are great for working out bass parts. I also have some of these great cheap basses, like the Silvertone bass. It sounds really good, really orchestral. Also, these old Harmony basses that Ronnie Lane used to use in the Faces sound great and have that upright, acoustic quality to them.

According to Hard Rock Cafe's memorabillia website, Blair played this bass onstage in 2008.

Mentioned by Blair in this January 2013 Bass Player article.

I took to the bass right away. Before long I was playing in a thunderous band with four Acoustic 360 stacks behind me; John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin only played through one of them!

Mentioned by Blair in this January 2013 Bass Player article.

For the most part, we go in direct with the bass, and then they also put a Neumann mic on my Ampeg B-15 with the amp cranked up, so it’s got a bit of grit to it. I’ve never used effect pedals because they make me nervous. I look at Mike Campbell sometimes and go, “Holy moly, how do you work all of those?”

In a January 2013 interview with Bass Player, Ron Blair mentions using Fender Medium Gauge Picks during live performances with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.

Mentioned by Blair in this January 2013 Bass Player interview.

Live, I’m using an Ampeg SVT Heritage from 2010, and on my Jazz Bass, D’Addario XL Pro Steels strings gauged from .045 to .105.

Mentioned by Blair in this January 2013 Bass Player interview.

Live, I’m using an Ampeg SVT Heritage from 2010, and on my Jazz Bass, D’Addario XL Pro Steels strings gauged from .045 to .105.

Can be seen in this video playing a Höfner bass.

Ron can be seen here playing a Dusenberg Starplayer bass, which he used in promotional clips for MOJO.

Ron’s main amp of choice when he first returned to the band.