Do you switch basses mid-set?

[Jefenator]

"Doubling" with upright & bass guitar has been a thing for quite some time. When a musical director wants that, I am more than happy to oblige. I can switch pretty quickly – I've never held up the next song, or imposed any restrictions on the set order. (The way some guitarists seem to like to do.)
For the Salsa band, I like to use a hollowbody for the old-school material and an active 5-string for the modern pop stuff. It's not absolutely necessary, but it's not that big of a hassle, either. (Actually helps keep that heavy Warwick from wearing out my shoulder.)

I often prefer to keep things simple, and use one bass for the whole set. When I bring an extra for backup, it can be fun to switch those out between sets. Variety is good.

 

[GIBrat51]

I've never once switched basses during a set. I'm a BEAD guy, no fives, no EADG basses... I'll bring two basses with me, and play the one that feels right and the other one stays in the bag.

Do you bust out your 5 for a song or two? Or do you keep the same bass on all night?

Well...
The short answer? No...
Longer answer? In the early 1970's. I was the substitute bass player in a GI band stationed in Panama. I played the regular bass player's bass. We were all too poor to have multiple instruments. Back then? For all practical purposes, there was no such thing as a 5 string bass, anyway... The bass in that band was an inexpensive Japanese copy of a Fender P-Bass. I didn't much like it, because it was right handed - and I am very much not. But, it was perfectly adequate for what a GI bar band played in 1972-73...

 

[bass.slinger]

Yes. Fretted and fretless. Switch a couple of times (plan the set list to decrease the amount of switching). I find I can switch faster than the guitarist can tune .

 

[sdurborow]

I gig with two Fender Jazz basses. They are setup specifically for standard and dropped tunings.

The band I’m currently with covers songs in standard tuning (E, A, D, G), half-step down (Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, and with the low string tuned to C#.
We typically order the songs such that the dropped-tuned songs are at the beginning or at the end of the set so we only change guitars once during a set.

 

[Wyrdlow]

In one set there'll be a cluster of three or four songs on the fretless. That's the only change for me.

 

[crazycloud]

Do you bring a backup amp as well?

In the car, yes. I have another small class D unit coming soon, so then there'll be a pair of them I can easily carry in on the trolley with all the rest of the gear, only adding another <10lb.

 

[dbflats]

No, but I did change basses mid-song one time, playing an outdoor show in some park in downtown Milwaukee. I have two identical headless basses which, due to their being headless, fit inside a nice guitar double gig bag. At any show where I'm playing bass, the spare instrument resides in that case while other is being used.

Broke a string half way through a song, hit my tuner pedal to mute, unplugged and cased the bass with the broken string, got out the other one, all tuned up and ready to go, plugged in and finished the song with the rest of the band.

 

[Ric Vice]

Only occasionally when a theater or cabaret gig calls for it. I ‘m fortunate enough to have a Kolstine Busetto Travel Bass with a Hercules bass stand and
GR Bass AT Cube Acoustic. So, easy peasy. For most gigs, one bass only. As Sean Connery said “One ping only”

 

[murphy]

For those of you that bring a backup bass in case of emergency. Do you bring a backup amp as well?

Yes...usually have another Class D head in a case

 

[Clark Westfield]

Always, always , always bring a backup bass.

Most gigs we do were the only band, so if a bass goes down, we don’t need to cut the gig early and go home.

One time, my pickup screw came out during a set, finished the song and did the swap.

Good thing I was prepared.

 

[logdrum]

I follow Tower of Power advice

" Don't change horses in the middle of the stream"

In our originals band, there are some songs needing a fretless. I use the fretless on that set. I learned early on to not mwah too much unless it adds to the song.

Our guitarist changes but not too crazy as some bands who have 7 or more when I played guitar, I can get most things with a Tele. I have also a Godin semi hollow with split coils and a piezo and I use an IR loader for the piezo sound to be realistic. It has also 2 outputs so Piezo goes to an acoustic amp or PA.

I have done jazz gigs that require upright and electric and that's the only situation I switch mid set. But I have already prepped the EQ and use a Radial Tonebone to switch.

 

[Lefty Joe]

Just one for me, thanks. I once played in a band where the guitarist used five guitars at every gig. Drove everyone nuts with his constant changing.

Ha ha, last band I was in, the guitarist brought three. To be fair, one was in a drop tuning, the third was backup to the first. Floating bridges make backup guitars a good idea.

As for my bass work: I'll bring two if one is fretless. Otherwise, less gear is less hassle.

 

[hrodbert696]

I've never once switched basses during a set. I'm a BEAD guy, no fives, no EADG basses... I'll bring two basses with me, and play the one that feels right and the other one stays in the bag.

Do you bust out your 5 for a song or two? Or do you keep the same bass on all night?

I have, depending on the set list. For the most part, though, I look at the list, and if any songs in a set need a 5er, I just play the 5er for the whole set. The guitarist makes the set lists and I generally ask him to avoid putting those songs in the first set, so I'm playing a 4 at the top of the night and then switching at the break.

I've done a tight turnaround, though. We do a medley of two Bon Jovi tunes, "Livin' on a Prayer" and "You Give Love a Bad Name." It used to be that right after that, we'd go straight into "Talk Dirty to Me," which I play on the 5 (don't have to, but I like it better on the 5er). So I actually had more time to switch basses in the breakdown in "Bad Name" than between songs, and would do it then. I could just barely pull it off.

 

[DJ Bebop]

This is interesting. In view of the number of people who swear they bring two basses to gigs «just in case», one would think that more people would seize the opportunity to bring a slightly different bass for some parts of the set.

When I started to play my fretless out I always took a fretted bass.

One time that made me feel good was, I started the gig on fretless. Halfway through the set I announced I was switching over to the fretted bass because I was tired of the whining out-of-tune playing on my part, as I was feeling uncomfortable on it at that moment. After the first set ends someone from the audience shouted out, “We like the the whining out-of-tune playing!” Which came with a round of applause.

 

[Nedmundo]

I haven't switched basses during a set in about 20 years, but I've done it a couple of times. In one case, I wasn't happy with my playing for some reason, so I took a pause and switched to my Fender J, which provided a "reset." In the other, I was subbing in an original band with one track that required the high E at the 21st fret on the G string. That fret didn't exist on my Fenders, so for that track and a couple others I switched to a DiPinto Belvedere semi-hollow, which had 24 frets--and sounded tremendous.

Now that I'm thinking about it, that was probably the last time I played the DiPinto on stage. I recorded some tracks with it for an EP, then sold it a few years later.

 

[chris_b]

I'll bring 2 basses and decide which one to use during sound check. Sometimes I'll switch basses during the break, but never during a set.

 

[pepj]

Yep... sometimes its because I need to...sometimes its because I want to hear what nuance it gives. Can always swap back

 

[kinopah]

Not always, but most gigs I switch between fretted and fretless or between electric and upright. Use an A/B pedal so no more than a 5s delay changing.

Partly this suits our music and I like the variety. I also remember the first time I saw the Flecktones in the 90s and Vic had 3-4 amazing basses he swapped between and I just loved both the precision and diversity of each tool for its purpose AND the aesthetic of a buncha cool basses on stage.

I don’t go that far but I do like having a 2nd.

 

[Crusher47]

It depends.... I always bring 2 basses for every gig, sometimes I will play set 1 with 1 bass and set 2 with the other, if there is a 3rd set, I go back to the first bass but other times if the bass is sounding great and feels good, I keep it all night and the other is just a backup. I have not had to swap basses mid set during my gigging career and hope it never comes to that, however.....

During my last gig this past Halloween, the original bass I was using was having a weird static like popping sound every so often (ground issue?) so after the set was done, I used the backup for the next 2 sets.... I do try to rotate all my basses though so they all have some type of gigging experience on them.

 

[Gaolee]

I play doghouse and plank, often in the same set. Each one has a wireless transmitter set up so the output volume is the same between the two. Swapping means turning off the transmitter, putting one on a stand, picking up the other one, and turning on its transmitter. It's like an AB pedal, except wireless.