Bass Racism?

Rav · #1 03-02-2005, 04:56 AM

Has anyone noticed that most guitar effects and rack gear is in groovy bright colors while most bass gear is black on black with black.

Is there a manufacturer conspiracy to tell us all we are equipment racists and prefer all black face equipment if we play bass?

Or do they just think we are so stupid that if our rack equipment is at all interesting looking we will get distracted and forget how to play?

-Rav

"one and two and one and two and .. oooh pretty colors .. two and three and one and six ... mmmm red .. and three and pi' and..."

JimK · #2 03-02-2005, 04:59 AM

Black is my favourite colour...so I'm OK with it.
I was a little down when I replaced a black Demeter preamp with a silver Aguilar preamp.
Same, too, when I replaced the black SWR with a gold Eden.
...and I also prefer my blackfaced Bassman over any silver-faced Bassman, too!

NEXT!

Razor · #3 03-02-2005, 05:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rav

Has anyone noticed that most guitar effects and rack gear is in groovy bright colors while most bass gear is black on black with black.

Is there a manufacturer conspiracy to tell us all we are equipment racists and prefer all black face equipment if we play bass?

Or do they just think we are so stupid that if our rack equipment is at all interesting looking we will get distracted and forget how to play?

-Rav

"one and two and one and two and .. oooh pretty colors .. two and three and one and six ... mmmm red .. and three and pi' and..."

Figjam · #4 03-02-2005, 06:34 AM

My bass is black on black.

**Adam Barkley** · #5 03-02-2005, 07:14 AM

Out of my 10 effects; 2 are black. Everything in my rack is black, but out of the 3 things in it, two are PA gear so they don't count.

**baba** · #6 03-02-2005, 07:14 AM

My Eden is gold and my Presonus compressor is blue! My Deep Impact is red. I gots color!

Aussiephoenix · #7 03-02-2005, 07:14 AM

I think it might have something to do with the 60's / 70's stereotype that the bassplayer wasnt even visible at the lineup of a band... all their equipment should be black so that they can blend into the shadows of the stage. Oh, they should also wear all black with black face/hand Paint. and NO funky basses over 4 strings. lol. hmmmm-k?

SteveC · #8 03-02-2005, 07:20 AM

I have a chrome grill Bergantino cab, silverish Avalon U5, darker blue PreSonus Blue Max Compressor, light blue Boss CEB-3 Chorus, white Boss TU-2, black BDDI, and two tone QSC PLX 1202. I like how it looks.

superbassman2000 · #9 03-02-2005, 08:17 AM

equipment is a race?

**Bryan R. Tyler** · #10 03-02-2005, 08:48 AM

Maybe they figure we have taste?

FunkMachine · #11 03-02-2005, 08:57 AM

All the black equipment is to help us become even less noticeable on a dark stage.

Rav · #12 03-02-2005, 09:23 AM

An example of what I'm talking about. Line 6. Everything that company makes is in dayglo bright or neon metallic colors. Rack effects, guitar pods etc. All except their bass gear. Its all "inner-city-krylon-graffiti-matte-black". Even in the guitar lineup the different products are all different colors but every single bass specific thing they make including the pedalboards are black/black.

The few products that are of alternative colors that bass players sometimes rack up are non bass specific. Like sonic maximizers, various compressors and effect processors. If we want color it seems we have to go to general use products and not bass specific ones.

The only pure made for bass product that comes to mind that isn't black is eden amps. Regardless of how they sound they look about as retro 1970's consumer grade marantz home hi-fi as any product I've seen in any decade since. Not exactly high tech edgy and flashy like the guitar stuff.

Even the companies that don't go 100% black go black/silver or black/white or white/black.

Most bass gear only has simple single color status lights while guitar gear seems to use a lot more 3 color LED's and multi-color backlit LCD's.

They must think we are color blind as well.

-Rav

Rav · #13 03-02-2005, 09:26 AM

I just noticed another one.

BBE.

BBE has been moving to red/silver for all of their products in the last 2 years. Suddenly they have a new set of bass specific preamps the bmax and the bmax/t, black.

-Rav

JimK · #14 03-02-2005, 09:28 AM

No, we're not color-blind...we, on a whole, just don't go for a bunch of needless crap.
Just one man's opinion.

Hawkeye · #15 03-02-2005, 09:40 AM

If the equipment companies are making guitar stuff all colourful and bright and bass stuff black and boring, I decide to take it as a compliment.

Let's look at it this way. With the zillions of effects boxes out there for electric guitarists, companies have to come up with zany or whacko graphics to get noticed.

The bright colours attract the guitarists who then immediately dream of how cool they'll look onstage with their multi-coloured pedals and purple lights, and glowing dials.

The effects and amp companies know this, so they add bold logos and mud-flap girls, purple and yellow and red graphics on their boxes, all so that the our six-string colleagues with the short attention spans can have something groovy looking to compliment their 'stylin' performances.

Bass players, being a much more cerebral and more sophisticated species of musician are more interested in function, performance, and substance etc. So, why not basic black? We're looking underneath the bold colours, to judge the frequency response, S/N ratios, the power ratings etc.

Bass players want performance, and usefulness of a piece of equipment is judged according to how it affects our tone, not our fashion sense.

There see, as Martha Stewart would say: "It's a good thing".

Brendan · #16 03-02-2005, 10:25 AM

Black is slimming. Christ, thanks for bringing up my weight, Rav. Jerk.

DanGouge · #17 03-02-2005, 11:59 AM

Guitarists need bright colours to tell things apart

Seriously though, I can't say that this is a major concern for me...

Sundogue · #18 03-02-2005, 12:29 PM

I go out of my way to avoid gaudy colors.

If I wanted gaudy, I'd have been a singer or guitarist.

Wrong Robot · #19 03-02-2005, 12:36 PM

My BNX3 is Blue, Ampeg SVT 3 pro is silver and black, My ashdown cab has Blue speaker cones, and my radioshack adaptor is gold on black.

of the pieces of gear I hope to have in the future:
The presonus firepod is silver, and the Roland Fantom XR is also mostly silver.

Most importantly, my powerbook is aluminum.

Rav · #20 03-02-2005, 12:38 PM

Regardless of if you like black gear or not. I'm sure there are guitarists that wish some of their mint green and strawberry gear was more basic colors.

Point is. Why did not one but an overwhelming majority of hardware manufacturers decide that guitar gear = multi spectrum and bass gear = gothic only ?

Who makes these decisions and why. I'm sure you could make a marketing demographics case that 90% of all bass gear that sells well is black so lets make the new stuff out of black. Of course this is self fullfilling because 90% of it was black only to start with so how could anyone have bought anything else.

Why is it black and why is non bass gear inversely proportianately not black.

Leave out the responses of "I like black" I really am not soliciting opinions of if you like it that way or not so much as why it is the way it is.

To be back to the point of topic "Bass Racism" Someone somwhere decided that the gear should all look alike for us and everyone that competes with them almost unanimously agreed and that is the cards we are dealt.

I find it hard to beleive in a community of people who regularly spend $5k to $10K on a bass to get it a pretty color with matching pickup covers and knobs that there isn't even one of you that wouldn't want the occasional preamp in one of the millions of CMYK colors that isn't Just K.

-Rav