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GAS: As I see it.

#41
I think the number 1 should just be. Men want what we cant have.

Go buy a black p bass,want another p bass. Why? Oh that ones 3 tone burst and rosewoodfinger board,mines black and maple. If you had gotten the burst first,you'd want the black and maple.

We're all children inside,and want the pretty new shiney things. It doesn't matter if you have this one, you want THAT one.
 
#43
It also might be that the same personality types that gravitate toward playing bass may also be the same as some personality types that are predisposed to fall victim to GAS.

Do you have GAS for other things besides basses? I used to have it toward camera equipment. You desired the latest incarnation and rationalized your GAS that it would allow you to take better photos. It didn't. Another bass would allow you to play better or to obtain a different sound. It doesn't (in my case) but I still lust after basses.

It's a disease...
 
#45
Since I got my MIA Precision V, my GAS has subsided because I also got an Indo-Jazz Fretless with the deal.

What I want more than gear is a challenging gigging situation again. Working as a musician strangely enough lowers my GAS pains and gets me thinking about the even worse SAS pain.

Skill Acqusition Syndrome.
 
#46
LutherHeggs00 said:
It also might be that the same personality types that gravitate toward playing bass may also be the same as some personality types that are predisposed to fall victim to GAS.

Do you have GAS for other things besides basses? I used to have it toward camera equipment. You desired the latest incarnation and rationalized your GAS that it would allow you to take better photos. It didn't. Another bass would allow you to play better or to obtain a different sound. It doesn't (in my case) but I still lust after basses.

It's a disease...
Click to expand...

I think your on to something here...that new Nikon d7000 has me burpin pretty badly...:D
 
#49
I think for me GAS relates right now to two things;

1. A "lightweight" amp. My current rig weighs over 250lbs.:eek:

2 "Maybe" a fretless. Lotsa guys here play some really pretty stuff on their fretless basses. I've only tried to play one about thirty minutes and I don't know how well I'd do with one but I'd like to try.

My GAS isn't related to I've got something useful but I'm tired of it, but rather things I've never tried.

:D

God Bless, Ray
 
#50
JoshuaTSP said:
I just don't understand why most basses only sound good when you first get them and the last time you play them? :confused:
Click to expand...

So true. They sound so great when you first get them, the "honeymoon" as it were. Then you want or think you want something else. You sell or trade it, and play it one last time and think why the hell am I selling this great bass? Happens to me all the time.
 
#51
LutherHeggs00 said:
It also might be that the same personality types that gravitate toward playing bass may also be the same as some personality types that are predisposed to fall victim to GAS.

Do you have GAS for other things besides basses? I used to have it toward camera equipment. You desired the latest incarnation and rationalized your GAS that it would allow you to take better photos. It didn't. Another bass would allow you to play better or to obtain a different sound. It doesn't (in my case) but I still lust after basses.

It's a disease...
Click to expand...

Maybe it is a disease... and the name of the disease is "creativity"! For me I try to avoid the GAS "disease". That would be GASing for items that represent only cosmetic differences from what you already have. Like say buying a new P-bass and then GASing for one with a different color scheme (UNLESS, of course, that color scheme relates to the image you are trying to project when playing).

Here's the deal. We are all artists. Hence we can never be satisfied unless we are exercising our creativity. The link between GAS and practice is that they are opposite poles of the same action. As a creator you are looking for new sounds, new licks, new ways of doing things in short a constant supply of new creativity to satisfy your artistic urges.

So is it "all in the fingers", or is it in the gear? Obviously it's in BOTH. If what you are "creating" is about fingers, then practice is obviously the way you get it. If it's about gear then obviously it's going to be about GAS. Your fingers aren't going to make your bass fretless or have a couple of extra strings. To me real GAS is about getting musical ideas, getting fascinated with certain tone or sounds (fretless for example) and then trying to get the best possible instrument FOR YOU to develop your ideas on. Those two words "for you" are the key and what makes GAS something of a chore. It means you need to pour over available stuff, separate the part that is actually practical for you to buy and then try to pick the one that will give you what your hearing in your head.

Sure, your ideas may work out and ramp your playing up a notch or they may not work out and the object of your GAS may just be one more thing to sell off to get the cash for the next idea. I personally see nothing shameful or "diseased" in any of this. I know there are guys who find one bass they love and never buy another. They just keep playing that one thing forever. To me that's stagnation. It would drive me nuts. But some people are working on their creativity in their fingers. And for them, GAS means nothing. Practice means everything.

But as for Camera GAS, it is the same as bass GAS. Professional photos demand professional gear. Quality gear WILL allow you to take better photos. But it doesn't change your knowledge and talent! Unless you've been a photographer as long as I have, I can give you my Nikon and I'll take some cheap junk camera and my pictures will always be better than yours! Why? Because I have the knowledge and experience to know what gives an image impact and how to compensate for the shortcomings of the bad gear. But the BEST photos will be taken by me with the pro gear! We've all seen this. Some killer bass player grabs the Squier of some kid in a band and just tears it up. Everybody's jaw drops. But it's no different. It's just that he knows how to compensate for that instruments shortcomings. But he doesn't play a Squier in HIS band! His bass is awesome! And in a way that is what GAS is about: Knowledge and the gear where you can put that knowledge to best effect. And about dreaming about how you can get from where you are to that point.
 
#52
I haven't been on talkbass for a little while because I had been so busy with a show I had been organising. Show over, I returned to talkbass, then Isibashi. I saw a Yamaha silent bass that spoke to me and GAS reared its ugly head. I would have purchased it there and then.

Luckily I'm not such an impulse buyer. As I did my research I concluded that its not for me. But the internet does that to you. I blame all of you for giving me GAS.
 
#53
I like good deals I love zon basses I don't play that great I love a fat tone I loved my rig for years untill I heard a Berg box. Now I love Bergantino stuff. I didn't know what to push it with thus the LM as recomended by Brian at the low end. I ahd a sound I was hunting and he and a couple others helped my get headed in the right direction many years ago. Now I want to have that sound but in a little package. I have gas less now days than the old days gone are the dozen bass years down to two or three. Trying to get back to two. I have a Zon Legacy Elite with a spaulted maple top to me there is no where to go from there. Then I have tried to get a less expensive bass and a very different sound thus a Warmoth with flat wounds who woulda thunk it I love it. I guess my age is showing I don't have to change monthly. Really if I never bought anything again I'd be ok I like my sound / weight and portability. I get very positive responses on my sound. In the early days it was a lot of changes to get what I wanted now I'm pretty happy.
 
#54
"1. Buying stuff is easier than practicing!"

Guilty. I sometimes think if I spent half the time obsessing about the next bass purchase in the practice room knuckling down, I'd be twice the bass player.

"6. Impatience, instead of saving, I have traded or sold a great bass to get something new."

Again, sadly, raising my hand on this one too. Currently trying to undo a past transgression where I sold a nice maple boarded blonde P bass a couple of years ago to fund the urge of the day and haven't had a P bass in the herd since. Now ready to right that wrong and it's gonna cost me plenty.

Now off to the classifieds...:hiding:
 
#55
pacojas said:
i blame GAS on the internet, period! i used the same equipment for 20yrs. after finding TB i have purchased 5 basses, 2 amps, and 1 cab in less than a year. <sigh>
Click to expand...

I gotta agree with this. Back when I started playing I hardly knew anyone with more than 2 or 3 guitars or basses.

In the mid-80s through the early 90s I worked in radio some and booked shows for the Midwest circuit for awhile. I got to meet bands of all calibers and levels of fame, and being a gearhead I frequently talked equipment with them. I rarely met anyone who had anything like what you'd call a "collection" of guitars or basses. They just had the tools they needed to play, practice and do their jobs.

Modding is another thing that has been fueled to a great degree by the internet.

Obviously people have been modding their gear (and collcting instruments) from time immemorial, but I realy think those things have exploded since the advent of the web.

Still, either way, not sayng there's anything at all wrong with collecting or modding. It's fun!
 
#57
Yet another very interesting thread :D

To me,
GAS = IMPULSIVE

I love the excitement of looking for something new and different, I convince myself that I need the item then go out of my way to get it, as long as I can afford it, the way I see it, if times were really tough and money really tight then the GAS would not be there, I am not rich, am on the average wage but I budget well and dont throw my money away on drinking, drugs, wild women or smoking, any money left after the bills is for GAS and long may it be so, tomorrow I could be redundant so today I spend :hyper:
 
#58
I'm GAS-free for a while. Why?

My drummer started us jamming in odd time signatures and those Marco Minneman type reduction patterns, and you know what? It sent me scurrying back to my most comfortable and familiar basses so I could concentrate as much as possible on the MUSIC... not my gear.

Playing challenging music kills GAS for me. For a while, anyway.
 
#59
This evening, I killed some time at GC playing a really nice used Modulus Q5. It has Barts, and a has a really rich tone that is even through all the frequencies. My Yamaha is mid heavy anda bit thin on the bottom, but the basic tone is that modern, soapbox tone. I was playing both basses back to back, and although the Modulus had a richer tone, I noticed that some really fast (at least for me) licks were easier for me to play on my Yamaha. Since I was playing a Markbass, it was easy for to set the amp in a way that made up for my basses weakness (high cut, low and low mid boost, cut off the two special filters) and the tone of my Yamaha really got rich. It was still mid heavy compared to the Modulus, but I would say after some amp twiddling I was able to get into Ken Smith/Cirrus territory on that BBNII5.

My point, is that the GAS-sy thing to do is to just go, "Wow, that Modulus smokes my Yamaha!" The practical thing to do is simply work some other signals in your chain to improve your sound.:bassist:
 
#60
Dr. Cheese said:
During this time, I have thought about GAS, and what has made me GAS. I have worked up a list of GAS factors for me, YMMV.:)

1. Buying stuff is easier than practicing!
2. Boredom
3.Falling in love with a great sound from a recording or a performance.
4. Listening too much to others instead of trusting my experience (this is why I got rid of some nice 17mm spaced basses like Millenniums.)
5. Wanting to get the "hot" bass.
6. Impatience, instead of saving, I have traded or sold a great bass to get something new.
7. Buying a "good" bass because of the price although it's not what I really want. This sets up future GAS, trades, swaps, or sales.
Click to expand...

While I do admit that there can be a LOT of wrong reasons for GAS, like say believing the marketing hype that getting a bass just like Joe Blow has, that then you'll play just like Joe. Or being influenced by the opinion of others instead of your own muse. Or duplicating the function of basses without carefully thinking about WHY you are buying the new gear.
GAS is GOOD!

1. GAS is easier (and more fun) than practicing. Sure bass playing MUST be about the music, but if it were ALL about the music then you wouldn't need a bass at all. Just a ream of staff paper and a box of pens. Go at it and be creative. But then Music isn't ONLY about gear either. The public is really impressed with a great player, but unless your gear is theater (row of washers and dryers) all instruments and gear look the same to the public.


2. Boredom. This is a BAD thing. It's drummer in a rut. It's writer's block. It's musical stagnation. You've GOT to shake yourself out of it. And one trick that often works is to radically change your instrument. Stuck in that 4 string rut? Go get a 7 string or a fretless. Stuck in 5 or 6 string active bass rut? Go get a passive 4 string P-bass. GAS will help you through this crisis. ;)

3. Falling in love with a new sound. This is NOT bad. Art is never standing still. There are ALWAYS new things to try. Some may not appeal to you. Some will. But let's face it. The ONLY way you can work out YOUR "take" on the "new" sound is to get the gear that makes it and live with it until YOU "get it" too. Yup. GAS again.

4. Influences. All artists are influenced by other artists. Whether it's stealing licks and tricks or buying a green bass because "everyone" is into green right now. If you substitute the judgment of others for your own, that is bad. But you do need to understand that it is this "influence" thing that creates whole movements and styles of art (music). One guy does something cool, and other loves it and does their own take on it which gets more people trying their version of the same idea and next thing you know "jazz" or "funk" or whatever is born. Same thing goes for styles of gear. GAS is just a reflection of that.

5. Wanting the "hot" bass can be a waste or it can keep you "current". Music is many things and "show business" is one of them. According to your "act", look, dress, and style can have a varying degree of importance. The currently "hot" bass could be a part of that. The trick is deciding what part is fad, what part is show, and what part gets down to the essence of what you are trying to do. Pick the wrong one and your GAS is wasted.

6. The one thing you never want to do is to get rid of a great bass unless you are TRULY sure you are through with that style of instrument FOREVER! Doing so on a lark or fad just puts footprints from your own shoes on your own butt! Great basses are MUCH too hard to find to dump them without VERY good reasons.

and lastly 7. I never worry about a bass that is reasonably good and WAY under priced. Even if there are no proper reasons to buy it. This is not a GAS question at all. It's a BUSINESS question. If you can sell that bass later at a profit, you don't need any more justification. And you need to buy it then because "Ya snooze, Ya lose!" You are not the ONLY "smart" person on the planet who understands that this bass is a great deal with potential profit. If you don't BUY RIGHT THEN, tomorrow or even in a couple of hours, one of those "other" smart people will be along and your deal is over. The bass will be gone. Trust me. Just buy the bass, learn as much as you can from it, sell it, put the profit in your GAS fund. Don't look back on that one.
 

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