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Recognizing a GAS Trap
- Thread starter Dr. Cheese
- Start date
I hear you Doc and I’m sure you know you’re not alone. I stopped by my favorite local shop today. I’ve been on a J with rounds kick and wanted to try some modern options. They had a Ying/Yang. Never been in the same room with one until today. Played great, sounded great, but the $ was well beyond my comfort zone. So my friend who runs the bass room suggested I try the Fender Ulta P. You know that feeling when you play a bass that seems like it was made for you? Perfect neck profile and setup. A range of great tones. Closer to my $ comfort zone. Then I tried the used Roscoe PJ4 hanging on the wall. My lord it was perfect in every way and I was offered a sweet deal on it.
I politely said I’d give it some thought (either bass would be worthy of obsessive thought), bought some strings and drove home. When I was back in the house I picked up my trusty Squier J and thought to myself “I’m good.” But oh lord, the temptation!
You and I must have been swapping it back and forth.. lolI can't tell you the number of times a Sparkling Burgundy Jack Casaday has been in and out of my zZounds shopping cart this past week.
Having arrived at upright, I find my GAS diminishing across the board. That also seems to come with the style of music I’m playing.
don’t get me wrong here. I still love listening to Yes and ELP and Deep Purple as much as ever. But having played that stuff on multiple instruments, and having had the equipment to do it, now that my playing is shifting more to jazz my need for gear is diminishing. So much so that I was recently considering purchasing a ‘bop’ drum set - but have decided to simply stick with the double-kick Neil Peart style set I have. I can, after all, just pull a few drums from that if I ever need a bop kit for jazz outside my studio. No need to have yet more drums sitting around.
With bass, it’s gotten to the point that I’m in the process of unloading a few things. Time to recycle some of the amazing gear I have, back into the bass population.
don’t get me wrong here. I still love listening to Yes and ELP and Deep Purple as much as ever. But having played that stuff on multiple instruments, and having had the equipment to do it, now that my playing is shifting more to jazz my need for gear is diminishing. So much so that I was recently considering purchasing a ‘bop’ drum set - but have decided to simply stick with the double-kick Neil Peart style set I have. I can, after all, just pull a few drums from that if I ever need a bop kit for jazz outside my studio. No need to have yet more drums sitting around.
With bass, it’s gotten to the point that I’m in the process of unloading a few things. Time to recycle some of the amazing gear I have, back into the bass population.
My P is a Roscoe Classic P4 and I LOVE it. It's my main bass. TI flats. My "Pino" bass. It kills in almost every situation.
JeezyMcNuggles
Inactive
- Feb 23, 2018
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- I suck, but nobody really notices
I had to post this video of the Buckeye Burl Hadrien Feraud Ken Smith Burner. It sounds just like a Jazz Bass but it sure is pretty!
Ric5
Inactive
- Jan 29, 2008
- 29,772
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- I like 5, 8, 10, and 12 string basses
I am trying too, but there's not really anything I want at the moment.
I think a great question to ask yourself if you feel a Gas attack coming on is what do you want to do with the bass that has your attention that you cannot do with what you already own!
One way to help GAS-proof yourself is to begin looking at basses based on their number of strings and pickups. Ignore the body shape or headstock. What you find is Sooooooooo many basses are really just J basses in disguise. Or PJ. So, yea it may be shaped differently but is isn't really going sound that much different. This helps you start to realize that you already have what you're looking at.
At the end of a semester, recording and reporting final grades is a nice feeling accomplishment.
Speaking of GAS...
I've been hunting for a good six string for several months.
I really want a Yamaha TRB1006J, but there are none available domestically at present, and there's a six month waiting list for backorder, so I quelled the GAS - or so I thought.
Then I started looking at Ibanez, specifically the SR line (sound gear - which I've always liked, though having never owned one), and came across an SR5006 - the absolute top-of-the-heap in the Ibanez stable, and the only one of its kind in Australia.
To make matters worse, I checked out some clips on youtube and it sounds exceptional.
I've been hunting for a good six string for several months.
I really want a Yamaha TRB1006J, but there are none available domestically at present, and there's a six month waiting list for backorder, so I quelled the GAS - or so I thought.
Then I started looking at Ibanez, specifically the SR line (sound gear - which I've always liked, though having never owned one), and came across an SR5006 - the absolute top-of-the-heap in the Ibanez stable, and the only one of its kind in Australia.
To make matters worse, I checked out some clips on youtube and it sounds exceptional.
Remember that exceptional players always sound exceptional. The gear doesn’t matter.
Never a truer word spoken Doc.
My benchmark for fine bass playing is AJ on his Career Girl, but that low B, the high C, and the prospect of playing some extended chordal passages is sucking me inexorably into the vortex...
I find myself justifying the transition ever further in the knowledge that my favorite player INVENTED the six, so I need to pay homage to him, the great Anthony Jackson, my mentor. It's the least I can do !
