Playability vs. Tone

[firststringer]

My good old, 2 band Stingray sounds great and is without a doubt my all-time favorite player but my Lakland Skyline Joe Osborn, which doesn't play quite as well as the 'Ray, actually sounds a bit better overall.

I'm not asking for any solutions to this "problem" (as if having a couple of quality instruments from which to choose is a problem) since I go back and forth all the time, but I was wondering if anyone else has ever felt conflicted by the choice of playability over tone?

 

[firststringer]

Looks like I posted this in the wrong forum...

Mods?

 

[SteveC]

I thought the title didn't really go with the forum.

I ended the struggle by having only one bass.

 

[Jeb]

I've never played a bass that didn't sound good to me. Unless the instrument sounded absolutely horrible, I'd prefer to have a bass that plays well. And maybe, subconciously, a superior player would make me think it sounded superior as well.

 

[Nashrakh]

Play the better sound bass on recordings and the better playing one live.

 

[jmattbassplaya]

Play the better sound bass on recordings and the better playing one live.

I was about to agree with this until I remembered the last time I recorded. I absolutely wanted my StingRay on one of our tracks because its tone matched up perfectly with a song of ours, but no matter how we EQ`d the thing it just wouldn`t sound good through the board.

I ended up using my Warwick Streamer which lacked (IMHO, sadly) in the live setting but sounded phenomenal on tape.

 

[Gab124]

I think playability is most important for me - unless the tone is just awful I can usually eq to my needs.

 

[troy mcclure]

Play the better sound bass on recordings and the better playing one live.

+1

I think with a bit of eq tweaking I can get my easy play to sound as good as my best sounding

 

[SirGrotius]

Playability first, tone second. Just buy a Sansamp VT Bass Pedal and you'll never have to worry about tone again.

 

[steveksux]

Sell the Stingray and get something that plays even worse.

Then the Lakland is the best sounding best playing bass you have.

Seriously, what is it about the Lakland that isn't as nice as the Ray? Get a good setup on the Lakland, no reason it should be harder to play.

My old ray had 17mm string spacing, and my MM Jazz 5 had 19mm, so it seemed harder to play. Until I played it for a while, now I don't even notice the 19mm string spacing. Play the lakland, you'll get used to it.

Randy