Around the middle of 1957, Fender made another very important change to the Precision Bass, replacing the single coil pickup with a split-coil design. This is actually a humbucking pickup, but Fender couldn't call that out in advertising or catalogs due to the fact that Seth Lover's patent hadn't yet run out. This era also sees the headstock shape change into something that more closely matched the Stratocaster model.

In late 1959, a slab rosewood fretboard with clay dot inlays was introduced, as was the case with the entire Fender line. In mid-'62, this changes to a thinner rosewood veneer, and then the clay dots were replaced with pearl dots in '64.

This was the last run of P-Basses made before the CBS buyout in 1965.