Do you own any basses you don't love?

[Manticore]

Yes. Fender basses have never really spoken to me. I have one Jazz and one Precision. I don't care for either one, and I have multiple other basses that easily cover the sounds available either the J or the P. (Yes, I've owned many over the last 45 years or so, trying to find one I like.) I keep them around for the increasingly rare bandleader that absolutely, positively INSISTS on having a Fender bass on stage. No disrespect to the legions of Fender guys; they just aren't for me.

 

[DougBass]

An early 80's Kramer aluminum neck Flying V (black and white stripes).

 

[Ewo]

Good question.

I think as much as I want to be rid of my Rogue and as positively useless as it is for playing, there's something to be said of my obsession for getting rid of it in "the right way."

I could score twenty bucks at a pawn shop for it and not have to look at it anymore, but there's still some sentimental attachment lingering there.

Maybe I love how much I hate it, or I love the saga that is my attempts to remove it from my life, but then... it was technically my first bass, and I think a part of me has too much affection for that fact to make letting go of it all that easy.

--^@

I think it makes perfectly good sense to keep a bass _just_ as a memento. An artifact of your life story, as it were.

 

[dave64o]

Kind of. I bought an L-2500 last year and was only able to play it at home for the first 7 months or so that I had it. I liked it, even more so once I experimented with several different strings and found a round and a flat I think work really well on it. Still, I wasn't wow'ed yet. Then we finally had a couple of rehearsals and I saw that it can really shine in a mix. But nothing has happened since then and I accept that the band is over at this point. I think that once I get to know it well and learn how to get the sound I want in a band mix I will love it, but it will likely be a while before I get opportunities for that love to really develop and that sucks. I REALLY want to love this bass

But I'm still planning to keep it until I get back to playing again. I've been tempted a few times to offer it as trade bait but it wasn't too hard for me to fight off those urges. However, I may be in trouble if I see a 5-string Star Bass pop up here. That might be the one thing I won't be able to resist.

But as far as my other basses go, "love" is not a strong enough word for how I feel about my Stingray and my Precision. Those are keepers.

 

[twinjet]

Self explanatory question.

I like my backup bass that I bring to gigs, but I don't love it. I wouldn't probably ever voluntarily choose to play it first at a gig if I had a choice. I play it at practice though.

Wondering if it's worth keeping a bass I'm not in love with or if I should give it up and continue the search for a backup bass I love.

I sold the backup I didn't love. A natural/blocked maple Squier VM jazz. Much as I wanted to, it wasn't for me.

 

[Iridescentone]

No, but sometimes they don't love me back.

Does that count?

 

[HolmeBass]

I have a MIM Precision special, or deluxe, not sure, it has a jazz pickup in the bridge position, tobacco burst, with a gold anodized pick guard. It came with a very nice HSC, leather stitched old style Fender HSC.

I never loved it, and I have a different precision now that sounds better, so I'd love to sell this bass. I am worried that I can't get very much money for it though.

 

[EdwardofHuncote]

Obviously not, as the collection seems to keep growing.

 

[Chicory Blue]

I think it makes perfectly good sense to keep a bass _just_ as a memento. An artifact of your life story, as it were.

But it' so uglyyy...

--^@

 

[bmdfla48]

I've got a "Frankensteined" fretless jazz bass that I'm not all that into. Picked it up cheap from a local guitar shop a couple years back to see if I'd get any enjoyment out of a fretless. I had been listening to a lot of the Firm at the time and had just seen Tony Franklin playing with Kenny Wayne Shepherd. (Killer show btw!). Anyway, I probably played it like 8 times and just never got any satisfaction from it. The neck seems really slow and has a lot of dive, and either the pickups are really low quality or I need to try to rip the strings off while I'm playing so I can get some volume out of it.

Do not love.

 

[Hamerguy]

Of my five basses I really only like two so much that I'd say I can play everything on them. The other three are uncomfortable somehow, the Gibson RD Artist sounds great, plays horrible, The Gibson Q-80 and the Fender Am Dlx fretless J play nice but don't sound like I want them to...

 

[Mosstone]

I have a hard time thinking of an inanimate object as a love interest. My rule for basses is much simpler, if it don't get played it don't stay in my house.

I do however lust after inanimate objects because they can't tell on me when i touch them in inapropreate ways, but that's a whole nother ball of wax.



I recently did some playing with a guitarist friend who is a fellow hobby builder. He had with him a really nice white tele style guitar i'd never seen so i asked after it and he said it was his NoMo guitar. He went onto explain he'd been trying to be satisfied with it for some time, but no matter what he did, it always seemed to be lacking something. He said after most of a year of various pickups, control configurations, strings, etc, etc, he finally gave up and said no more time or money would go into the build.

Sometimes a guitar turns out greater than the sum of its parts, but sometimes, you can do everything right, and it still falls short. It's important to know where to draw the line.

I may have missed that point a while back, but at least I'm not paying for the work.

 

[carsbybigd]

Yeah , I have a Spector Euro 4LX that does nothing for me . I find it hard to find a tone I like . That's why it's in the TB classifieds right now .

 

[PortlandBass77]

That's good that you keep a bass you don't love with you: that way when there is a bar fight you'll have no hard feelings when using it as a weapon

 

[ONYX]

I have a P-bass that I don't love. It's never been to a gig or a rehearsal. I keep it locked in a dark room. Every few days, I slide new strings underneath the door.

 

[Growlmonkee]

I have an SX P/J that I bought with the intention of having a bass I could take anywhere, and not worry at all about if it would possibly get damaged. I added Fender pickups, a Fender High mass bridge, and a 3 way switch, and cleaned up all the fret ends, (they were just a bit sharp, but not terrible) It now plays, and sounds really good, it's on the light side, at just over 8.5 lbs. (alder). I have 2 other basses, both Fenders, I love both of them, I do not love the SX. It has no dents, or scratches, after about 6 years of occasional use, it's 3T sunburst, maple board, and it plays well enough that someone else might love it, after picking it up, but, I do not. Because it isn't worth much, I'll most likely keep it, for it's intended purpose.

 

[somebrains]

No, anything I don't love I won't buy.
I have a variety of baseball bats, golf clubs, computers, and shoes.

Everything serves a specific purpose, even if I just like it and that's it.

Selecting the shoes was the hard part.

 

[Fender_Bender]

I'm not totally in love with my gold guard P bass. The 1.75 neck width is just a little too hard to get around on with my old hands. It's also so cherry that I'm a little scared about getting so much as a scratch on it. I have a piece of bone kicking around somewhere that I might make a new nut from with the E brought down a tad so that it's not at the extreme edge of the board. If I got rid of it I'd probably end up regretting that decision at some point.

 

[madjazzbass]

Yeah, but instead of selling it like I was intending to do, I'm going to turn it into a fretless.

 

[five7]

A good friend gave me a peavey grind. I like the tone but the neck is just too thick. Don't want to sell it or give it away so it just sits in the case.