Do you ever actually NEED more than one bass?

[cheapbasslovin]

Thread tl;dr-

To eat? You need zero.

To gig? You need one.

To record? Probably a couple.

To get any tone imaginable? You need a bunch.

 

[glocke1]

EDIT: I can understand if you're creating very different sounds, like an electric bass with brass wounds and an acoustic with nylon flatwounds, but in the ordinary course of rock 'n' roll......

If going by "need" i think realistically two is a reasonable number.

I went full dufus this past year on bass buying after somewhat of a hiatus and probably ended up with a half dozen. Certainly don't need that many, but they play differently enough that I find I get inspired by them and as a result play differently.

 

[Gianni "Orlandez" Orlati]

I own more than one bass but they may all become redundant and, hence, unnecessary, when I may afford building a custom bass made with the body of a P bass, provided with two humbucking soapbar pickups, a jazz bass neck and a good passive electronic package for the tone control to work properly ...

 

[mellowgerman]

The only things I NEED are food, water, and shelter.
My old Guild Starfire bass is my most prized possession and because of this it is important to me to have a second bass that plays well and sounds good; one that I can bring to a party or an open mic at a bar or leave in my trunk if I'm not going home first after work and so on.

 

[Jon Moody]

Since you ask, yes.
Fretless - 90% of the time
Fretted - 8% - 'cause sometimes you need that slappy, tappy, plucky sound
Electric Upright - 2% - keeps the bluegrass and jazzy folks mostly mollified if not actually happy like a real upright would.

This for me. I do a lot of musical theatre, and these three basses are what are usually called for in a pit situation, or at least the electric and the upright.

 

[TonyP-]

Do you ever ask a carpenter if they just have 1 saw? Or need more then 1 saw?


I don’t even know how many I have because that number is always in flux.

I have enough to do my job with backups, different tunings and appropriate sounds.

Now where is my coffee....

 

[Boogie Woogie]

..

 

[Nashrakh]

Since no one but ourselves can discern the difference, I say one. And even that is a stretch, you may as well play bass synth, but there's always someone who's gonna say it won't look right. So your job is to look right.

 

[Copperhead]

To answer the question directly, no
However it is kind of like asking do you only need one friend ?
Do you need more than one kind of food ?

Fortunately we seldom need to narrow ourselves to bare needs. Many of us have been there, but there is no compelling need to stay there if you don't need to.

 

[ColonelZulu]

Depends on the band and the type of music.

In any case, I’ve learned to always have a back-up bass for a paid gig. Needed? Depends on your experience and level of professionalism. If you’ve never had an input jack go loose, or a pot short out, good for you. Try dealing with that when a club owner is paying you, when the band mates are counting on you, when the audience is watching and listening to you.

If you play in a band that does a variety of music and insists on getting close to the required tone, you may need one with flatwounds or maybe a Fretless. Let’s put them together just for simplicity.

Why don’t guitar players get questioned on this? Or do they? Altered tunings? Drop tunings? A tele, strat, LP?

 

[Copperhead]

Why don’t guitar players get questioned on this? Or do they? Altered tunings? Drop tunings? A tele, strat, LP?

They do. I can think of at least one time when someone asked me why the guitar player kept switching guitars.

 

[gelinas666]

Yes..Different tunings,pickups,scale length,neck width,tone woods,body styles.. The list goes on and on.. So does the GAS! Bring them on!

 

[Larchi]

Just 2.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and after 20 years of playing 1 bass: my awesome Neil Kennedy Dolphin 6, I'm gonna retire this heavy beast, and replace it with a much lighter Dingwall NG3 6-string (arrives in Jan).
If the house catches on fire, I will only have to run out with a 6-string under each arm.
So I suppose I am a bass player, not a bass collector.

 

[thedukeofno]

I can’t speak for you lot, but there is an electric bass guitar on my personal version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs... it’s located somewhere between “Love/Belonging” and “WiFi access”.

...and you always need a backup because things fall apart.

...and a backup to your backup.

 

[marmadaddy]

Need? Two. A primary and a backup.

I gig pretty frequently and play a lot of well paying functions. If I have a problem with my instrument I have to be able to grab the backup and go immediately. I've had two issues in the last 1.5 years, one just a couple weeks ago on a high paying sub gig.

 

[ColonelZulu]

They do. I can think of at least one time when someone asked me why the guitar player kept switching guitars.

By a fellow musician?

 

[BassBrass]

Yep, I need 5. And if I see another one I like, I might need 6.

Sounds like a version of my favorite Game of Thrones quote
The Hound: Think I'll take two basses. Polliver: You don't seem to understand the situation. The Hound: I understand that if any more words come pouring out your xxx mouth, I'm gonna have to buy every xxx bass in this room.

(the original is about eating chickens but said just to start a fight, which did happen after The Hound drank 2 horns of ale on an empty stomach. Obviously he and his "little friend" were victorious.)

 

[NeonVomit]

I could get by perfectly fine with my Stingray 4 and my Marleaux 6, for my current projects and interests. 4-string for my punk/thrash bands, 6 for my progressive/experimental stuff. I mean I guess technically I could do both with one, but the constantly varying tunings would make it problematic and inconvenient.

Anything else is superfluous.

 

[kev451]

How often do you need different tunings in a gig? Genuinely curious - not a wind up.

More often then one would think. My first band had pretty much all of our songs in E standard. Then there was that one oddball D song then came a C tuning song. Now I’m in 3 bands. One band uses standard E tuning. One band is Drop C and the other band is C#. Lol I have a Total of 5 basses...a primary and a back up.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

If you are gigging, then you really do need 2; otherwise, 1 will suffice. If you are on a gig and your bass fails for any reason, you want a backup you can just pick up and continue on. I've been gigging for over 50 years and I've never had a bass fail, but I have smoked 3 amps. All 3 times, I had a backup amp.
Now, there are some of us who like owning multiple basses just because...<insert rationale of choice here>. Other collect coins, stamps, or cars. I like really pretty basses and strange and different basses.