How many electric basses exist in the world?

[40Hz]

Iä! Fhatgn!!!

 

[arbiterusa]

I'm guessing that the number is at least 4 figures.

Far more. The number of Steinberger carbon fiber basses - the L/XL models - is about 2500 and that’s not a common instrument. My guess - and it is only a guess, I can’t quantify it like I can the number of Steinbergers - would be somewhere in the millions.

 

[BadSanta1281]

One MILLION basses...

 

[StereoPlayer]

Jaco only need 4

 

[jd56hawk]

There are almost 3,000 Wishbasses out there!View attachment 4386511

Yes, I believe the OP was joking about four figures.

 

[Wilmingtonian]

It's easy, take the number of guitars and divide by ten. Add the number Geddy Lee owns and you are done.

 

[Bassist Jay]

There has to be at a minimum, in the single digits of millions of basses in the world and maybe as many as in the tens of millions in the world considering that upright basses were invented at some point in the 15th century and a more modern electric bass has been around since at least 1930 when Paul Tutmarc invented the Audiovox Model 736 Bass Fiddle. And then who knows how many have been mass produced since 1951, after Leo Fender invented the first Precision bass? Keep in mind how many companies have mass produced basses since then. Fender alone was making around 400 guitars a day in their Fullerton factory in the 70’s alone. If even a quarter of those were basses, then that would be 100 a day or 500 a week. That would equate to 26,000 a year minimum that were made each year in the 70’s, just from the Fender factory in Fullerton alone. I have heard that Fender Guitars then sold more new guitars in 2020 that they had ever done in their history before. Same thing with many other guitar manufacturers as well. So the amount of basses in the world has to be in at least the single digit millions in my opinion.

 

[logdrum]

There has to be at a minimum, in the single digits of millions of basses in the world and maybe as many as in the tens of millions in the world considering that upright basses were invented at some point in the 15th century and a more modern electric bass has been around since at least 1930 when Paul Tutmarc invented the Audiovox Model 736 Bass Fiddle. And then who knows how many have been mass produced since 1951, after Leo Fender invented the first Precision bass? Keep in mind how many companies have mass produced basses since then. Fender alone was making around 400 guitars a day in their Fullerton factory in the 70’s alone. If even a quarter of those were basses, then that would be 100 a day or 500 a week. That would equate to 26,000 a year minimum that were made each year in the 70’s, just from the Fender factory in Fullerton alone. I have heard that Fender Guitars then sold more new guitars in 2020 that they had ever done in their history before. Same thing with many other guitar manufacturers as well. So the amount of basses in the world has to be in at least the single digit millions in my opinion.

Data-driven reply, I like it

 

[JohnnyChatter]

I’ve had this thought several times. Same with amps. Like there has to be millions by now and how many rare basses are just in some old dudes closet he forgot about? If they make thousand of basses every year a ton must be going to people who buy a bass and than just put it away after a couple days of trying to learn.

 

[logdrum]

There are also bass deaths. There is a infamous documented guitar-cide by Gibson but we do not really know of the other executions. Fender is just not telling us.

 

[BobKos]

All I know is that there are most likely MORE 1964 Jazz Basses in the year 2021 than Fender made in 1964.

 

[FrenchBassQC]

If it is proportional to the amount of basses a person (sometimes a bassist) would own, probably a lot of basses are existing in the world...

 

[CenTexThumper]

I wonder how many gigging bassists are out there compared to basses.

Grey is working bassists. Pink are the basses.

View attachment 4385770

Glad to be grey.

 

[Mshraderbass]

There’s approximately 315,140 members on talkbass, we are considered a niche community. Most bass players I talk to in the real world have never heard of it! So I’m going to say there are probably 15 million bass players in the world and probably 500 million basses! They have been cranking them out for a long time year after year at this point!

Seems like a reasonable estimate to me, I have over 2 figures myself

 

[blastoff]

i too have pondered this while lying awake at night.
what gets me, is that (above grotesque video notwithstanding) i cant imagine that many basses ever get actually THROWN AWAY. Like, how many straight end up in the landfill? i certainly have never tossed a bass guitar. is a “wall art” bass still considered a bass?
some tragically rejoin the carbon cycle in fires, and many have met their demise in rock and roll incidents of stage bashery. But even accounting for that, ive got to imagine that FAR far more basses are being manufactured, than are being decommissioned, one way or another….
which leads me to think, if we’re not careful, before long, we’ll end up UP TO OUR A$$E$ in bass guitars !
like this but with basses:

 

[Bryan R. Tyler]

How many electric basses exist in the world? All of them.

If I find one floating above Saturn, we’re gonna have words….

 

[sabre79]

But you are discounting the possibility that those worlds are inhabited by humanoids who may be sufficiently evolved to have invented the bass guitar...

I wonder what their best bass for "metal" is?

 

[2tonic]

That's wrong.
It's "all your bass are belong to us"

Socialist!

You share if you want, but as for me, they're mine!

 

[Grinderman]

New Topic: How many guitar picks exist in the world?

 

[yberwaffe]

Not all of them, some seems to vanish into thin air