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How do you bond with a bass?

#41
To me, love is too strong a word for feelings toward and inanimate object. I think love should be reserved for family and friends. I have a few basses that I really enjoy playing and would never sell due to sentimental reasons but I also get bored very quickly and have a tendency to buy and sell basses all the time.
 
#42
Do not love the bass. Instead, love the music you are able to play with it. It is a tool, not a girlfriend.

Play some gigs and get payed in the process. Do it several times and your life will depend on it. Then you will appreciate it and wouldn't ever think of letting it go because it is not a life perk anymore but a tool of the trade.

Bass = tool instead of Bass = toy
However, you could try sleeping with it... Waiting to see if some love shows up next morning. :rolleyes:
 
#44
Keep trying new strings and experimenting with Guage sizes.

After you have owned so many Basses and have a better idea of what you really want (because youv had it all already) it gets easier to stick to your main squeeze, yeah i still look at other Basses and buy them cause they are pretty but theres that one that just feel and sounds right, thats usually the one you can make work in any situation, that the Bass you would audition with, even if its not the ideal Bass for the project, it sounds like YOU.
 
#50
For me, it has to do with feel at first. I can tell in a minute whether or not a bass will work for me in that department. After that, the barometer I use is whether or not I am always thinking about playing it. If I am infatuated with it then I know it is the one for me. Many times, I will find myself someplace away from the bass, and will be distracted by thinking about playing the bass. That is when i know.

The feel test definitely ( and sadly)broke my 20+ year infatuation with Ric's. About 4 years ago, I finally went and tried one out, and absolutely could not find any comfortable place to play on it. I played the thing for 4 hours and it just did not speak to me. Now I know that I will only appreciate Ric's from afar.

No other bass has "spoken' to me other than Fender P's, J's, and 80's era Charvels. But recently, I have found the Gretsch White Falcon starting to creep into my mind a lot....might have to go try one out
 
#51
I'm not sure I bond with bass guitars or any other instrument. They all have their charms, and I like picking up one or another. More than one means I don't get bored. Bonding is probably the wrong word. Bein satisfied is closer to the truth, since there's no magic bass that's going to give me talent or skill that I don't have. And, the minimal talent and skill I have is well served by the instruments I already own.
 
#52
Sometimes for me, the only way I realize a bass is "the one" is after I sell it. I did this recently with a certain jazz bass. I sold it (luckily to a friend). I missed it after seeing pics of myself playing it at gigs, remembering how good it sounded. I was fortunate enough to buy it back from him.
 
#54
vin*tone said:
Concentrate less on the bass and more on the notes coming out of it. The instrument is only the vehicle for your ideas.
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+1

I prefer a bass that plays well and looks good but the tone is the only thing that will keep me playing an instrument.

I've owned a Lakland with a maple fretboard for 11 years, and I don't like maple fretboards. I'll overcome the look and playing difficulties of any gear if it sounds good enough.
 
#56
Munjibunga said:
I recommend having at least ten basses, but more is better. Then when one starts to lose favor, you move to the next. If you rotate through basses, say, one every two weeks or so, in a half a year coming back to the first one is like hooking up with an old friend. Trust me, it works. But you have to keep every bass you buy.
Click to expand...

This has been an official decree from the Ministry of GAS :greedy: - you will now be returned to your regularly scheduled program. BBB (Big Bass Brother)
 
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#57
chris_b said:
+1

I prefer a bass that plays well and looks good but the tone is the only thing that will keep me playing an instrument.

I've owned a Lakland with a maple fretboard for 11 years, and I don't like maple fretboards. I'll overcome the look and playing difficulties of any gear if it sounds good enough.
Click to expand...

same here...I hate burst basses...but 2 of my 3 are burst cause I couldn't pass them up at the time that, and for the price that they became available, and because they feel great.
 
#58
The most noticeable thing for me is that instruments I keep are the most effortless to play. It frees me of thinking about technique and lets me play. A lot of times its more a model then a particular bass. I personally found musicman sterlings to help play the best i can. I bought my sterling 14 years ago and haven't considered buying another fretted four string since then. Not joking. Once I find an instrument I love, it's almost like finding a wife. I owned a gorgeous lakland that sounded great but it was too hard for me to play so I sold it. I do think there is a level of quality that comes along with having a long relationship with an instrument.
 
#59
The whole "women are things to trade off with another when you're bored with one" attitude by some is disturbing to me. Really disturbing. I don't think any -person- likes being treated like a thing.

But back on topic.

I have a hard time bonding with basses as well OP. I've had...more than I can count over the past 18 (ugh almost 20 years since I was 16 already? bleh) years. The bass I really really bonded with was my first 5 string, a 1997 Ibanez SR405. I loved that bass. But I had to sell it a few years later to help with some car repairs. Of course my car would break the -week- I had started a new job and hadn't yet gotten a paycheck.

Since then, I've had basses I've really liked...many of them... and some I loathed or just felt nothing for. I loved my Brice Defiant 5, not as much as the Ibanez 405, but it was too heavy and the scale length too much for my midget self. If they sold a shorter scale of the Defiant 5 I'd never ever buy another bass again...but I doubt that'll ever happen. So maybe one day I can afford to have a luthier make me a short scale Defiant 5 copy, which would just be amazing.

Most of my basses I don't feel one way or another about, though. I either like them or sell them pretty fast.
 
#60
Usually by playing it. And occasionally by looking at it; thinking "damn, that's one sexy piece of furniture!" ;) Also having an instrument for a long time, creates attachment due to shared history.
And what's this crap that the concept of "love" is reserved for people/family/friends etc.
You can love just about anything as long as it's legal and/or appropriate . It's emotional. Right?
Why do people find it hard to quit smoking, after doing it for a long time; even though they use nicotine replacement?
A friend who smoked for 18 years, and quit a month ago, told me a couple of days ago: He said that he honestly missed smoking very badly. Because the cigarettes has been, apart from his parents and siblings ; the longest constant in his life. He hasn't lived in he same city/ held a job/ had a girlfriend etc. for 18 years at a time. He also commented that those people who says "nah, it's really easy" are just BS'ing. And I said; yes, or in denial!
And the people who treat other people like things is also not unheard of, I mean; psychopaths do it all the time. Others just say it; usually guys who haven't gotten any or not enough, and then compensate for it by pretending to be tough. Stuff like that comes from feeling like a looser, usually.
 

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