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Who finds black basses boring?

Thing is that my fiancé bought it for me as an anniversary gift and she loves the look of it. She thinks it looks great for rock and that i should keep it how it is. Because she bought it for me, I have a hard time bringing sandpaper to it.


Your fiancee thinks she got something awesome for you. You're not crazy about it...

You need to (and trust me on this one) talk to her about it. If you sand it down before you talk to her, she'll feel like she failed (and again, trust me: you don't want this.)

Sit her down and talk to her about how you feel about the color. Remember: when she picked it out, she was thinking of you. Tell her that you're thinking about changing the color and you wanted to know how she felt about it. Your reasoning shouldn't matter.

I know I'm getting a little off-topic, but COMMUNICATION is the key to every successful relationship.

I'm done bestowing knowledge.

Feel free to PM me.
 

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In my very humble opinion,

Black basses look very cool in daylight or a fully lit room, which is not what you have at a gig.
In club lighting, you can barely see black basses so their interesting shapes are kind of lost on the audience. Exception would be with neon strings and a blacklight, so it looks like you are playing a set of glowy strings hanging in midair.

I'll go for white or pearl white every time because there is no color of stage light that makes them look bad.
 
Definitely agree with this; it doesn't get any more boring to me than a plain black finish. Tobacco and regular 3-tone sunbursts are almost as bad though. Any of those colors devalue a bass in my eyes; if it's a bass I'm planning to keep (rather than quickly flip), it would have to be a significantly better deal to get me to buy it than other colors I like more.

There are ways to make black more interesting though; a black or white pearloid pickguard and eyecatching hardware can help, or maybe neon strings as posted by robd. Also, I bought a black sparkle Ibanez ATK-305 because it was super cheap and the only other color was sunburst; I didn't expect to like it too much but the sparkle is actually pretty cool :)
 
Black basses look very cool in daylight or a fully lit room, which is not what you have at a gig. In club lighting, you can barely see black basses so their interesting shapes are kind of lost on the audience.
I have a Mikey Way signature Squire Mustang is sparkle silver that is just the opposite - fugly in daylight but awesome under stage lights :D .

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Maybe not maybe so. Not my first choice. My black BEAD is tolerable with the red pearl pg, maple fingerboard and second string status. I have a black Strat that bugs me more. Cant find a PG that has scratched the itch yet. ( bought a tort, think that's it).
 
Some look awesome in black, others don't. It's something you like (or not :p). For my taste, it all depends on the model.

I like P / J-style in black, if they use a coloured pickguard. One example is from Oliver Riedel (Rammstein). He has 5 black Sandberg California PM basses, with matching headstocks. He also give the basses a older look, with a process called ''ageing''.

Professional luthiers at Sandberg Inc. use tools to ''damage'' the bass guitar and make it look like it's on stage for 20 - 30 years!

The pickguards have 5 different colours : Black, Green, Yellow, Red and Yellow / Orange diamonds (like the diamonds on a card game :p) The one with black pickguard is his main axe, tuned to Drop-D, Rammstein's main tuning. Other tunings are : Standard, Drop B, Drop C and Drop A (and some now and often Low B tuning)

Here are some pictures of his black basses

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His signature bass, the Sandberg Terrabass, was coloured black too

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I've always liked them. They have that "blackness" cool about them. I stay away from the color, though, because I like the instrument to be visible on stage in what are usually somewhat dark clubs. The Black ones really shine when the player is in the light of day or when dressed brighter behind the instrument.
My big one-cent design philosophy blurb.....

Josh