Why Do You Stick To The Same Type Of Basses?

[klokker]

G&L 5 string guy here. I have an USA L2500 and an USA M2500 that can cover anything I need from bulldozer vintage to hi-fi whatever. Exactly the same layout different electronics. That's just it for me, done.

Sometimes my Fender American Standard P bass calls from under the bed. That's a real sweet bass too, there is nothing like a P. But I'm just G&L.

 

[JimmyM]

Alembic to Ibanez? Or maybe Alembic to Zon?

Not in 1976.

 

[TBird1958]

Because Thunderbirds…….

I first played one back in '78, it was love right then and there. I've owned many other basses but none work for me the way a Thunderbird does.

 

[JimmyM]

I don't... I see no point in it. However if you have lots of $$$ you can buy the same bass(es) in different colors, woods, etc.

I certainly don't intend for this thread to be about with single color basses only. It's just a coincidence that my three big players are black and I posted two sets of others that are pretty close to each other. I'm a little OCD about having black Fenders these days because I look so good with them. And at least they have different woods in some cases. But all that matters is the want to play only one type of bass when it comes down to shows and studio.

 

[JimmyM]

FWIW, although I've been highly promiscous when it comes to basses, I've been faithfully married to the same woman for 32 years.

If only our spouses would sit in the stand and be quiet about it...

 

[JimmyM]

Ok, you make a post that is not intended as a challenge to one's preferences; but could easily be interpreted as one by an egocentric mind. Here. And then expect no whininess, douchebagginess, or sniping. Ok JimmyM...Ok. BTW I love your basses!

Thanks! But you say "egocentric" like it's a bad thing. Of course I'm egocentric! That stage is MY stage We all could use a little more ego from time to time. Except sociopaths. They could back it down a few notches.

 

[JimmyM]

I'm an amateur bassist, so my opinion isn't much of anything, but a P bass is uniquely woody and vulnerable. I identify with that. As long as I fumble over myself pretending to be competent at this stuff, a P will always be in my stable.

It's all good, man! Your opinion is just as valid as anyone. There are no tests required

 

[LowActionHero]

"douchebagginess"...

 

[steve_rolfeca]

I've always been a one-bass guy. It seems to be the way I'm wired.

For nearly 55 years, I've been about playing in front of live audiences, and I like having a consistent, "one bass to rule them all" for gigging.

I'm not hot on studio work, and I've never been famous, so I don't need a ton of specialty instruments, or a dozen colours to match my outfits.

My first long-term relationship was with a '64 P-Bass, with a narrow neck, the limited edition red metalflake finish, and beat all to hell. I bought it initially because it was the only pro-grade instrument I could afford at the time.

Once I stripped it and painted it black, I developed a love/hate relationship with the thing. It worked well, but I didn't love it.

At first, I was like Jimmy: I wanted something more exotic, but couldn't afford it. The itch never went away, but I grudgingly made my peace with the Precision, mostly because it worked so well in the mix. I eventually got so I could afford "better" basses, but bandleaders wouldn't let me get rid of it.

That tension lasted from the early '70's to the mid 80's, when I saw my first 5-string, and fell hard for the low B. By then I had a family, and my gigging income had fallen off. I did a couple of trades, trying to work my up to an active fiver that was as good on stage as the old Precision.

I finally solved that problem in 1993/94, when I finished building a custom 35" single cut neck-through fiver, with lots of help from my luthier buddy Tony Karol Karol Custom Guitars.

It was styled roughly like a Fodera, but with the general body outline of a Precision. I routed it for one and eventually two EMG soap bars. That one lasted me the next twenty-odd years.

A chronic back injury from my teens finally caught up with me in 2013. When I realized that it was get a lighter instrument or retire, I sprang for a Dingwall ABZ.

At this point, I'm pretty sure that's the one I'll be buried with. Clarity, tone, flexibility, ergonomics, I now know that this is exactly what I was looking for way back in 1973.

Ironically, as much as I rarely gig anything but my #1, I've been intermittently unfaithful since the mid 90's. I like to have a little something different on the side, just for inspiration and variety.

Since they are just for fun, I've had some pretty weird stuff in that #2 seat- ABG's, an Ashbory fretless "rubber bass", a couple of sold body electric uprights, a three-pickup Epiphone Viola bass, and most recently a couple of little guitar-sized ABG's.

I thank God for so many years of stage time, and hope I'll still be going strong in another 20 years!

 

[scottfeldstein]

I like five things in a bass guitar. Here's each one, in no particular order.

1. I like a bass with low string height. Sure, any properly made bass guitar can be adjusted to have low string height, but only certain ones can get super slinky. This comes from learning to play on crappy, poorly adjusted instruments and not knowing how to do anything about it. As God is my witness, I swear I will never go hungry again!
2. Fast, thin, comfortable necks. No log necks for me.
3. I like basses that have a bridge pickup, not just a P-style split coil in the middle. I think they give you more definition and a wider range of tones. Not that I would ever play the bridge pickup alone. With the tone rolled off. Pretending to be Jaco.
4. I like a five string bass guitar. I decided to make the switch a few years back and I resolved to never play a 4 string again. It's just too tasty to be able to reach down for that low D or even C, when composing a riff.
5. I do like a bass that isn't too heavy. I injured my back in my 20s and I have been re-injuring it once or twice a year since just by moving furniture or other dumb stuff that people just expect you to do. I can't always have this, but it's very nice when I can.

 

[Doctor Intrepid]

I own only Hofner 500/1s. After a 25 year hiatus from playing bass I bought thee lowest price point Hofner Ignition in order to honor my Grandfather. He meant a lot to me, and when he died I grabbed his old fiddle. I always planned to restore it and learn how to play it. I never did that, so when I came back to bass buying a Hofner was the obvious choice. Once I played the Ignition I fell in love with the tone and the feel of the bass.

That is not the only reason I stick only to Hofner 500/1s, though. I also do it to keep my GAS in check. If I started to buy other basses I like things could get out of control . . .

 

[steve_rolfeca]

...That is not the only reason I stick only to Hofner 500/1s, though. I also do it to keep my GAS in check. If I started to buy other basses I like things could get out of control . . .

View attachment 3660754

I think you might have a point!

 

[JimmyM]

So I finally got to read the thread all the way through and I'm enjoying it a lot! It's fun to see a lot of variety in our obsessiveness. It was also fun to hear from the occasional person who doesn't get it, but at least some of them had pics. Oh well, what can I tell you? I play what works for me. In black.

Some folks have posted old pics of them playing and I guess I'll bite. Actually found a couple incarnations of my 76 Precision on the net. I was terrible about keeping pics till the net came along. Haven't found every incarnation but here's a few choice ones. Here I am with it in 1980, still unmodded:

In 82, the modding got started. Bigtime. There were a couple other quick colors and pickups before this one, but through most of the 80's and early 90's it looked like this. Silver body, white maple neck, Schaller bridge, EMG active J's, and white pickguard. I wanted PJ, but I only had a few days off, the tech had a set of Duncan Hotstack J's there, and I went with it because I dug the look.

Then once I finally got another good bass, I stripped it to bare wood and tried to make the neck fretless after attempting to learn how to refret and do fret dressings, but botched it even worse than the frets. I still have it, it still works, but the neck is ridiculously narrow front to back now and I hate it. Anyway blah blah blah more mods a second neck a third neck, back to passive PJ eventually which leads us up to its most current incarnation before it was forever scarred by the Black Spray Can Of Doom:

And the fun never stops. I bought some aluminum knobs which came tonight, and lightened it up considerably. So now that it's black, it won't show the Schaller bridge holes, and I can put a bent plate bridge back on it. Anything to shave a few ounces off it, as it was at my limit with the old knobs. Since the tuners are the old school big heavy dealios, it would be nice to get light ones, but the neck's only mod is a Hipshot and I still have the original tuner, so I may tread lightly on that. But while I can never make this bass stock again, I can make it better...I'll think about it, I guess

 

[Tim Skaggs]

Many bases have come and gone at my house, but many stayed. I won't bore you with a list of "haves", but here are a few that got away.

81 Gibson Explorer - 32" scale. Maybe the only Gibson that I thought sounded good. Traded it off for a '95 Am Standard Jazz that I also wish I had, but traded it for a 90s Jazz plus 5 string. Kinda heavy and had a big neck, but it sounded really good active or passive. Sold it outright.

~1984 Peavey Foundation. First really good bass I owned and bought new. Traded it for a new 1987 Peavey Foundation "S" that I still have. It's the one I stick with. Plays & sounds better any of my 10 or so other basses.

The "one" that got away; my wife worked with the wife of another bass player. She said her husband had a bass for sale. My wife brought home that news, so I told her to find out what it was. Next day after she gets home from work, my wife reports that it was some kind of old Fender and he wanted $400. This was in the 1980s and that sounded too high to me.

A few weeks pass. I'm playing in a "battle of the bands". A buddy of mine in another band met me as I pulled up to unload. He said I had to come see his new bass. It was the bass I passed on, which ended up being a '64 Jazz. If I got it next week for $400, I would probably still play my '87 Foundation at my next gig....

 

[WillyW]

I love Fender Precision/Tele necks. The Pbass body is ok...

I love Gibson odd ball bodies. The 34" scale Gibson necks are ok...

I have built a TeleBird that I absolutely love.

I have a non-reverse bird body in the works, that will have a precision/tele neck as well

next project will be an explorer, then a V.

I could be happy with a regular Gibson Explorer and V, and may go that route, and be satisfied. Price is the biggest prohibiting factor with going with real Gibson's.

I do need a neck made for my non-reverse project and I am trying to decide if I am going fretless.

half of my bass collection is fretless, and while I'm not proficient at it, I really love it and am on the brink of playing fretless only/mostly.... intonation be dammed...

 

[bassrique]

Like it or not, we still live in a Fender world. With this in mind I have two Js and a P. Then there are others that mimic. Tally ho.

 

[rutrho]

my go to things these days are 5 strings and no frets. Something about the P body (and ibby/zon bodies) just sit well with me, comfy to play and they feel right. Jazz basses, warwicks, etc etc etc just haven't done it for me.
Currently I have a GWB35 that I am absolutely in love with.

I love P basses though as I had one as my only bass for over a decade... If I can get a fretless P in sea foam green, well...

 

[rutrho]

I love Fender Precision/Tele necks. The Pbass body is ok...

I love Gibson odd ball bodies. The 34" scale Gibson necks are ok...

I have built a TeleBird that I absolutely love.

I have a non-reverse bird body in the works, that will have a precision/tele neck as well

next project will be an explorer, then a V.

I could be happy with a regular Gibson Explorer and V, and may go that route, and be satisfied. Price is the biggest prohibiting factor with going with real Gibson's.

I do need a neck made for my non-reverse project and I am trying to decide if I am going fretless.

half of my bass collection is fretless, and while I'm not proficient at it, I really love it and am on the brink of playing fretless only/mostly.... intonation be dammed...

give it 6 mo of fretless only, your intonation will get better but it'll take work...

 

[NoSlapForYou]

Basses are expensive, so if I've found something I like it's easier to stick with it than spend a lot of money on something I might not like. I've also been wearing the same 2-3 types of shoes for 20 years.

Also, I'm pretty particular about my necks. (Jazz bass necks rule, and all others drool.) To me, that's the biggest determining factor on whether I like to play an instrument.

All that said, down the line, I'd like to own 4-5 different types of basses for different purposes. I'm thinking one P bass, one StingRay, one Rick, and maybe a hollowbody or short scale. I suppose I'd get used to the different neck profiles.

 

[JimmyM]

Basses are expensive, so if I've found something I like it's easier to stick with it than spend a lot of money on something I might not like. I've also been wearing the same 2-3 types of shoes for 20 years.

Also, I'm pretty particular about my necks. (Jazz bass necks rule, and all others drool.) To me, that's the biggest determining factor on whether I like to play an instrument.

All that said, down the line, I'd like to own 4-5 different types of basses for different purposes. I'm thinking one P bass, one StingRay, one Rick, and maybe a hollowbody or short scale. I suppose I'd get used to the different neck profiles.

I did but I do prefer a J neck overall.