I was lucky. You'll see...
In the beginning:
I don't think we had a radio or tv, so my earliest memories of music were live. They were: old folks playing in my grandmother's living room (and it was almost certainly bluegrass), singing and clapping in church with no instruments, and this one blind man playing an acoustic on the street for tips - fifteen seconds I'll never forget. Oh, and my mother's singing. Any other music I heard at that time would have been church or country on the car radio. I felt that all of the above was sincere, and that was important.
Once we had a transistor radio my first memories were from the years of the early Beatles, etc., and I followed the evolution of new sounds through the "British Invasion". I did notice black stars and did notice the prominence and style of the bass and vocals. And another indelible memory was of the black church in my neighborhood that we drove by many times at night when services were being held, and of admiring the apparent sincerity audible for blocks around. I grew to be moved by these things at a later age but I regret not tuning into them at that time. In this I was not lucky, and it was my own fault.
Then we bought a little plastic record player. My dad provided Hank Williams senior, Johnny Cash, and others.
Learned 6-string:
Pre-teen learned simple acoustic guitar: Rolling Stones, etc. Thanks to my sister, who was four years older, I was exposed to Creme, etc. (of the recent past), and to Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, etc. (current at that time), Concert for Bangladesh, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, etc. Late teens finally bought an electric, a used sunburst Les Paul Deluxe with the smaller pickups, but I didn't understand what I had. (An ordinary teenager could afford it that time? Yes.)
Revisited 6-string:
Around age thirty I had some younger friends in the workplace who were listening to music. Thanks to them it drew my attention and I suddenly started playing again. Had to have a Les Paul and a tube amp. The sounds I liked were somewhere between Black Sabbath and Metallica.
But instead of continuing my development as a guitar player the whole project turned into a tube amp hobby. I guess I deserve to be flogged and keel hauled etc. for tearing up all the equipment I went through, and I no longer have any of it. Never loved any amp more than a 5F6-A I built in a blackface chassis, with the first two stages of a Marshall master volume but keeping the treble cap of the 5F6-A. At different times and with different tubes and speakers it sounded just like many of the famous people who had used an amp like that. So, with regard to innovation I was a total failure , hopelessly addicted to the past. Well, I wasn't the only one.
Starting bass now and how I made equipment choices:
I haven't played guitar for about twenty years. Owned a bass (Pbass clone) briefly, thirty years ago, and the only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted heavy flatwound strings, and I didn't regret that, but I never played it seriously. Flats seem to be popular now. The bass playing friend I had used round wound strings and metal style distortion, hogging the entire audio spectrum. It was horrific!
Wanting to play something again, but not wanting to get tangled up in the 6-string world again, and needing something a little slower and simpler because I'm older now, I recently spent about two solid weeks studying my options with regard to bass guitar and model player. I reviewed the players I had loved in the past (Radle, Bruce, Cornick, Odum, Dunn, McCartney, and others), especially the ones whose tone I had most loved, and who had played most tastefully (not too many notes, fully supportive style). Radle in "Let it Grow" almost makes me cry. Something like that. No slapping and popping, no jangle, tone rolled back (and probably flats), melodic, totally supportive of the rest of the song. For me, maybe no bending either.
Then I looked at the hardware I'd need and where I would make compromises required by my finances and anatomy and current strength.
First "compromise" (although after my research I don't think its a problem) is a 30" scale.
Second compromise is flats that aren't as heavy as I had been considering. Saw a YouTube demo of 760FL that was plenty solid, so I'm thinking maybe 760FS-S.
I had considered the Mikro but it was *so* comfortable that I'm no longer worried about a 30" (especially since I also just heard about Simandl-type fingering and hope to convert to it wholeheartedly). Then, looking at the 30's, I noticed something that I haven't heard anyone mention: the P pickups on the Squire VM Jaguar SS (and the Fender Mustang PJ) are proportionally farther forward than on a P. (I don't know about the absolute distance, but they are proportionally farther forward.) Those are fine guitars but whatever tonal difference between those and a P could be partly due to this, not just the shorter scale. Lastly, I noticed that the SX's nut is as narrow as the Mikro's, J width I think. I went with a probably beefier neck because of the flats.
So, I chose the Ibanez TMB30, ivory. It should arrive tomorrow, and barring any factory defects I'm sure it will serve me. Already have a headphone amp and good headphones, and will leave it at that for now.
That's where I am. I intend to learn the whole fretboard this time and be literate. Wish me luck. Thanks to the TalkBass community for being here, and for helping me even before I joined.
In the beginning:
I don't think we had a radio or tv, so my earliest memories of music were live. They were: old folks playing in my grandmother's living room (and it was almost certainly bluegrass), singing and clapping in church with no instruments, and this one blind man playing an acoustic on the street for tips - fifteen seconds I'll never forget. Oh, and my mother's singing. Any other music I heard at that time would have been church or country on the car radio. I felt that all of the above was sincere, and that was important.
Once we had a transistor radio my first memories were from the years of the early Beatles, etc., and I followed the evolution of new sounds through the "British Invasion". I did notice black stars and did notice the prominence and style of the bass and vocals. And another indelible memory was of the black church in my neighborhood that we drove by many times at night when services were being held, and of admiring the apparent sincerity audible for blocks around. I grew to be moved by these things at a later age but I regret not tuning into them at that time. In this I was not lucky, and it was my own fault.
Then we bought a little plastic record player. My dad provided Hank Williams senior, Johnny Cash, and others.
Learned 6-string:
Pre-teen learned simple acoustic guitar: Rolling Stones, etc. Thanks to my sister, who was four years older, I was exposed to Creme, etc. (of the recent past), and to Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, etc. (current at that time), Concert for Bangladesh, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, etc. Late teens finally bought an electric, a used sunburst Les Paul Deluxe with the smaller pickups, but I didn't understand what I had. (An ordinary teenager could afford it that time? Yes.)
Revisited 6-string:
Around age thirty I had some younger friends in the workplace who were listening to music. Thanks to them it drew my attention and I suddenly started playing again. Had to have a Les Paul and a tube amp. The sounds I liked were somewhere between Black Sabbath and Metallica.
But instead of continuing my development as a guitar player the whole project turned into a tube amp hobby. I guess I deserve to be flogged and keel hauled etc. for tearing up all the equipment I went through, and I no longer have any of it. Never loved any amp more than a 5F6-A I built in a blackface chassis, with the first two stages of a Marshall master volume but keeping the treble cap of the 5F6-A. At different times and with different tubes and speakers it sounded just like many of the famous people who had used an amp like that. So, with regard to innovation I was a total failure , hopelessly addicted to the past. Well, I wasn't the only one. Starting bass now and how I made equipment choices:
I haven't played guitar for about twenty years. Owned a bass (Pbass clone) briefly, thirty years ago, and the only thing I knew for sure was that I wanted heavy flatwound strings, and I didn't regret that, but I never played it seriously. Flats seem to be popular now. The bass playing friend I had used round wound strings and metal style distortion, hogging the entire audio spectrum. It was horrific!
Wanting to play something again, but not wanting to get tangled up in the 6-string world again, and needing something a little slower and simpler because I'm older now, I recently spent about two solid weeks studying my options with regard to bass guitar and model player. I reviewed the players I had loved in the past (Radle, Bruce, Cornick, Odum, Dunn, McCartney, and others), especially the ones whose tone I had most loved, and who had played most tastefully (not too many notes, fully supportive style). Radle in "Let it Grow" almost makes me cry. Something like that. No slapping and popping, no jangle, tone rolled back (and probably flats), melodic, totally supportive of the rest of the song. For me, maybe no bending either.
Then I looked at the hardware I'd need and where I would make compromises required by my finances and anatomy and current strength.
First "compromise" (although after my research I don't think its a problem) is a 30" scale.
Second compromise is flats that aren't as heavy as I had been considering. Saw a YouTube demo of 760FL that was plenty solid, so I'm thinking maybe 760FS-S.
I had considered the Mikro but it was *so* comfortable that I'm no longer worried about a 30" (especially since I also just heard about Simandl-type fingering and hope to convert to it wholeheartedly). Then, looking at the 30's, I noticed something that I haven't heard anyone mention: the P pickups on the Squire VM Jaguar SS (and the Fender Mustang PJ) are proportionally farther forward than on a P. (I don't know about the absolute distance, but they are proportionally farther forward.) Those are fine guitars but whatever tonal difference between those and a P could be partly due to this, not just the shorter scale. Lastly, I noticed that the SX's nut is as narrow as the Mikro's, J width I think. I went with a probably beefier neck because of the flats.
So, I chose the Ibanez TMB30, ivory. It should arrive tomorrow, and barring any factory defects I'm sure it will serve me. Already have a headphone amp and good headphones, and will leave it at that for now.
That's where I am. I intend to learn the whole fretboard this time and be literate. Wish me luck. Thanks to the TalkBass community for being here, and for helping me even before I joined.
Got a lot of miles out of it. 
I won't use the "pile of excrement" emoticon because I still love that territory and always will, but you know what I mean. 
