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Are We Obsessed or Crazy...

Are we obsessed or crazy?

  • Bass is hard to play and lower frequencies harder to reproduce so we need all the help we can get

    Votes: 5 6.1%

  • We are just obsessed with all things bass and borderline nuts

    Votes: 43 52.4%

  • Carrots (the correct choice)

    Votes: 34 41.5%
  • Total voters
    82
#42
Dave W said:
Have you ever been to The Gear Page? Some of those guys put most of us to shame.

Do these nickel plated pickguard screws sound different than these gold plated ones? BOOM! 30 page thread discussing sound differences in friggin' pickguard screws.
Click to expand...

That was genuinely funny! And sadly...true. And also curiously maybe that's what differentiates us apart from them, we may worry about a million things, but things that matter :cool:
 
#45
Timmah said:
Are we obsessed, or crazy?

Por que no los dos?
Click to expand...
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#46
I myself must be obsessed and crazy. I have spent 40 years of buying and selling basses and amps playing for little or no money in return. I now have 5 basses 3 different heads and 2 cabinets, various effects.
Through it all though, I wouldn't have it any other way! I have more fun and absolutely lose myself when I'm playing. And I will still be looking and buying and playing until they pry my 75 Precision from my cold dead hands.
Rock On!
 
#48
GAS and overall gear craziness aside, I actually like conversing with people who pay attention to details, appreciate how products are made, how they can be improved, what the tools can and cannot do for you, and overall craftsmanship and quality control. It's nice to know there are like-minded people who actually care about details, process, and quality. There's plenty of people who don't pay attention to these things -- not just with music gear, of course.

The key (and problem) is to make sure you don't reach that point of diminishing returns where talking (or thinking) about gear overtakes actual use of the gear and improvement of actual skills. That's when it gets frustrating and counterproductive.
 
#52
For sax players don't forget whether or not you want a custom neck or a stock neck, what material you want the neck made out of or plated with (brass, gold, silver etc.). What kind of set up you have to actually keep your reeds fresh (this can be anything from a mini humidor to glass plated cases, some with humidors installed). What you use to and whether you even bother to prep your reeds e.g reed knife, reed sanding surface or paper, reed clipper and reed wells for soaking (then the debate on what to soak them in). What you choose to use to clean or swab the instrument as every option has drawbacks. Then of course there is the age old argument over just about every instrument or accessory except drum hardware that is -vintage or new. Also what kind of pads and resonators you have installed. Whether or not to use key risers or key adjusters. And as stated mouthpieces and reeds can easily be a conversation longer than strings and pickups by far. Even what type of cases to hold and carry them in are a significant point of contention.
 
#53
It really is something you see in every hobby. People are passionate about their hobbies or they probably wouldn't bother doing it to begin with, and with passion comes crazy. I'm sort of a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none. I have quite a few hobbies (comics, motorcycles, RC cars/helicopters, music, computers, firearms, gaming {tabletop RPG, PC/console, CCGs, miniatures} and so on) and I've seen that type of crazy everywhere. Only the RC nuts were crazy enough to turn me off of it... come to think of it the local Linux User Group guys were so dorky I never went back to any of those meets either.
 
#54
I've really started to go the other way with things. Some people like to obsess over details and if that makes them happy then cool. I've come full circle and just keep gigging the heck out of my $260 Franken P and $190 GK combo. I have to admit though if I do decide to treat myself to something I have no real use for, a MM Stingray will be it.
 
#55
I blame this forum. Before I came here I didn't know how much I didn't know, and I didn't realize how much I needed, and was clueless on what I was missing out on. I may have occasionally experienced GAS, but wasn't infected...until I came here. It's a mob mentality where we can speak with like minded people and the conversation can go into such depth because the speakers all have the same bass background.
 
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#58
jthisdell said:
I mean, do other musicians obsess over every little detail? Bass, pickups, cords, pedals, preamps, amps, speakers, wood, strings, setup, tension, nuts, bridges...The list goes on and on.

A million little details, some huge, some insignificant. Yet I am guessing the average TB'er stresses over many of them. Granted, I feel that reproducing lower frequencies is much harder than say what a guitar player deals with (at least amp-wise).
Click to expand...

Yes, other musicians geek out on stuff, but in different ways.
Guitarists are superstitious mystics that assign otherworldly properties to their instrument. Go to any Les Paul discussion group and you will see the musical equivalent of a discussion about early Catholic catechism. They obsess about everything right down to the braiding on the leads connecting their pots or the exact type of capacitors being used.
Drummers are sort of like the mad engineers of the musical world because they have to deal with a lot more physical mechanics than anyone else. If you look at the combination of physics that go in to just a tom or cymbal, its pretty impressive, and they get all up in that. The wood of their shells, the sizes, the alloys the cymbals are made of, the gears in their pedals, proper baffling, etc.
Bass players are a little different, and a TB bass player even more so. A lot of bassists I meet in the "real world" at gigs don't know or care a lot about their gear. They either have what they can afford or what seems right (ie A Fender with an Ampeg.) In the 6 years I've been with TB I feel like I've discovered the "Deep Web" people are always talking about; some kind of a murky underworld of unearthed arcana to be secretly studied and jealously protected. 80% of the brands of basses, speakers, amps, and pedals I see here only exist here. Dingwall, Roscoe, or Stambaugh? Never heard of them. Bergantino or fEARFUL? What's that. Any pedal that isn't a Boss or a EHX? Huh?

So are bass players in general more obsessed with their tone than other musicians? I don't think so. Are TB players psychos that live in an alternate reality where the Goblin King has an endless treasure trove of fascinating gizmos? Yes.
 
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#59
Not a vote here, but a comment: In general, I think we are on par with the rest of the instrumentalist world with obsessing over details, but are more influenced by marketing bs & trends.

Talk to a reed player about the temperamental nature of their reeds and instruments. That stuff would make me crazy.

Me- I'm obsessed with getting my optimal setup and keeping it that way.
 
#60
Drum forums are populated with drum geeks who are every bit as obsessive as bass geeks. Drumforum.org (DFO) is close to the size and makeup of TB. A few years back there was a holy war on that site between those who play Ludwig and those who play Drum Workshop drums. It was pointless, petty and rather ugly at times. It sounds ridiculous as I type this, but it was rather heated.

In the real world I don't find as many who obsess as much as we do on forums.

I believe in people playing whatever makes them happy.
 

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