Owning 5+ basses is like owning a dog

7 basses too many?
That's crazy talk!
Owning basses is more like clothing.
The T-shirts and jeans get worn the vast majority of the time.
The suit gets the call for special occasions
And the shorts for hot weather .

 

I certainly understand the idea of collecting things, but for me the 3 basses I have are enough.

To each his own.

 

Put flats on all of them. No more buying strings. Convert them all to passive. No more battery expense. Use the saved money to buy more basses!

 

7 seems extreme to me. I have 4 but 2 haven’t been taken out of their cases in almost a year. Sure all 4 are drastically different, but the 2 that get played do everything I could possibly needs including covering the sonic ground the unplayed 2 cover.

 

I have a dog . Twenty basses too .
I keep fresh rounds on a couple , many have flats because I love that old school thump . When we shut everything down over the covid considerations I set up each instrument . Polished frets , oiled necks , cleaned up , adjusted everything to suit my preferences .

 

Uh yeah why would you replace flats ?

 

And 4 more in cases.
All very different. All joys to own
Oddly, now that I'm building my own, I'm slowly divesting many pictured here.

*I'm a cat owner.

The equivalent of a cat lady I suppose (just I'm male)

 

Yeah I'm going through a phase of detaching myself emotionally from ANYTHING I don't use.

My half dozen basses all get used. But I'm going to get down to one cab and a couple of heads.

To me, It's more like owning more than one car. Even if you don't drive them both, you have to maintain them both. It becomes more of a hassle and a chore rather than something that brings you joy.

These days I'm focusing more on people than I am things. Just my recent approach.

 

I'm in that same boat...I had a bunch and then I pared it down to 3. My rule right now is that I can have whatever I want as long as I keep the number down to 3 basses.
Right now I have a P bass, an L2k tribby, and an Epiphone Thunderbird and it covers just about everything I need with the kinds of music I like to play.

 

I have 6 and I often think I may have too many. All are different, so staying, but I know I could really be fine with 2 or 3.

 

11 basses, 3 dogs, 2 cats. I make it work.

 

Funny you say that, I just counted up 7 basses and think I want to get rid of, say, two.

But if I do, I won't have the Danelectro lipstick pickup sound or the funky, tight Bartolini sound....

 

See this: Bass Hoarding Personality Disorder (BHPD) - You are not alone. Bass Hoarding Personality Disorder (BHPD). For an amateur, seven is more like a starter set, you will fit right in. A lot of good advice to get past your seven and really bloom. And stimulate the economy.

 

have 4 and refinishing another....ugh!...they all have different pickups and necks and i do try to play them all (fenders)..I bought my jazz and precision and left them as-is except the j i installed dimarzios...then started the parts build thing and now the last one im working on, im trying to sand/refinish myself, just to say i did it..(PJ shoreline gold and maple neck)..but like OP, i think i need to stop and possibly sell a couple eventually....hard to let go when they play and sound beautiful.

 

First, claiming to “love a bass” (or more than one) is backwards. As one Dalai Lama stated:

“People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason why the world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used.”

― Dalai Lama XIV

Moving right along...

We can certainly feel love for dogs; but, here is one further difference between dogs and basses: eventually the dog dies. Which is a particularly tough moment if you happen to be the one that has to hold the beloved family pet while the shot is administered. I’ll just leave that there.

Most tools require maintenance to keep the expected capabilities at the ready. The number of basses one has can somewhat determine to what extent one is a player vs a collector. The player wants the instrument in top performing condition. The collector just wants the instrument in some kind of collectible condition; and strings and such don’t enter into the latter category.

It is true that keeping more than a few basses in top performance condition can be both expensive and time consuming. So, one does have to figure whether that time is best spent practicing vs performing tech work. No slam on tech work; I enjoy it myself. Different strokes and all that; one just has to figure out where the particular comfort zone is.

 

If they're not constantly wiping their butts on the carpets, I don't see the problem.

 

Dogs are pack animals. So it's only fair to you and the dog to have 2 dogs. So by my calculus you'll need 10 basses. My work here is done.

 

I have 7 basses too. Some get played more than others, but even if you're playing them all regularly, the string investment isn't that bad. If you're playing one bass enough to re-string it once a month (that would be an aggressive restringing need), and you divide that time across 7 basses, you'd basically need to restring them all every 7 months. Or, just under twice a year.

I also soak my strings in denatured alcohol when they show signs of being too dead. So for most of my basses, I have two active sets. One on the bass the other being soaked. I can usually add to the useful life at least twice or three times as much.

Now, I have a few basses that I have extra strings for but don't play 'em regularly. One that I use for 'compact travel' (like if you need to fly, etc.) gets played for those gigs and in the run-up to them just to refamiliarize myself with the bass. The same strings have been on that bass for 2 years now.

...my old Jazz bass gets played very very rarely and often for just a couple moments. I did a setup on it last week for the first time in about a decade. Strings were totally fine and still zingy.

My main player for stage use when I've been hitting the road hard gets the strings changed every three weeks or so (using the two-sets, one soaking method outlined above)...If I get 3 uses times 2 sets at 3-weeks per use, that means 18 weeks, or four and a half months.

 

The worst is having to clean hanging basses. I can't believe how dusty my place actually is!

Now where did my duster and French maid costume go?