British Country Music

You should use whatever feels best to you. This is a one man's opinion.

 

Agree..whatever sounds good to you.

I remember seeing John Prine in Dublin a couple of years back...his bassist used a Danelectro Longhorn as his only bass all night, sounded great to me!

 

Anybody trying to tell you what bass to play is feeding you bu!!$#!+.

I live near Branson, Missouri, which has many music shows geared towards "country." With that, and all the weekend bar gigs I've played over the years, here are the basses I've played, personally, for "Country" gigs over the past 35 years:

no-name P-bass copy with a J-bass nut width neck when I was in high school (the USA equivalent of UK O- and A- levels)

Fender Am Std P-bass
1975 J-bass
1976 Rickenbacker 4001
1981 Rickenbacker 4002

several borrowed basses over the years, or basses I was working on for other guys to make sure they were gig-ready (including a P-bass copy that had been painted in John Deere (the farm implement company) green, complete with decals and toy tractor tires added to the control knobs for effect

Mustang bass (also short-scale)
Double bass

My custom fanned-fret P-style bass with narrowed string spacing and a Rickenbacker HB-2 pickup (see my thread on my custom bass in the Luthier's corner)

And probably more that I can't remember right now.

FINALLY -- The Beatles,with Ringo singing, recorded the Buck Owens' song "Act Naturally," with Sir Paul playing the bass parts with his Hofner, and he recorded his Wings song "Sally G" (definitely country-styled with the pedal steel guitar in the mix) with his Rickenbacker 4001.

It's not the instrument, it's the player. Add a little bit of bridge pickup into the primarily neck pickup tone of the Hofner mix for a little more presence and you'll be just fine.

 

I brought my Hofner Club to rehearsal and the lead singer/song writer/rhythm player said "What'd you bring that for? I like the sound of your Active 5 string!" After rehearsal, I gave him the cd of 14 songs we went through. Funniest thing, next day he called and said "That sounded pretty good!" Hey no SxxT.
To echo others, find the sound that excites you and makes you happy!

 

This seems to be a discussion mainly about basses, so I'll move it there from the General Instruction forum where it was started (for reasons that I don't understand).

 

Personally, I think a Hofner strung up with flats would be great for country music.

The only thing is the look, and musicians and audiences alike might have a funny reaction to it. But if you want to be a maverick, go for it.

I know the tone will be fine, because I own three Hofner violin basses, and though I've never used them for country, I've used my Fender Coronado (with flats) and it is virtually the same bass in terms of electronics, scale, etc. The Coronado sounded awesome, and so will the Hofner (with flats).

 

This says it all.

 

Use whatever you want... I've been known to use a 90's Kramer pointy headstock bass and a BC Rich Warlock in my country rock band... The are naYsayers in every genre!!! I used a Steinberger or Status headless basses in a death metal band just because the singer hated them