Why Do You Stick To The Same Type Of Basses?

[Greg P Schmidt]

A summary of what I have.....

4 Fender Jazz Basses
4 Fender Precision Basses
Gibson Grabber
Gibson Thunderbird
Peavey T-40
Hofner '63 reissue 500/1
Rickenbacker 4003
Rickenbacker 4003S
Ibanez SR1400E
Ibanez BTB745
Danelectro '58 reissue Longhorn
Spector Euro4LX
Ovation Magnum II
Warwick Double Buck
Breedlove Studio Acoustic
Ampeg SVT7, PF800, 4x10 and 1x15 Ampeg cabs.
Fender Bassman 100 with 2 4x12 Bassman Cabs
Sunn 2x15 cab
Acoustic head

Like I said, I'm just a whore for basses.

 

[Neon Blues]

I'm not a touring or studio guy. I play Blues, Blues and more Blues.

I don't need a big variation in gear. I recently went full Kala and bought a heap of their basses.

I loved the look, sound, weight, size and how fun they are to play. Build quality has been amazing and haven't even got my USA one yet. Hopefully tomorrow.

 

[somebrains]

When I was a kid I had to rely on magazines and shows to inform me.

Luckily I grew up in San Francisco, so a little of everything was hanging on walls for me to get my grubby hands on.

The first bass I played was the school P with ancient flats, and I have avoided that sound when I had the chance. It also pushed me to wrenching on gear.

I sought out guys that wrenched on big name act gear to work exorcise the feel of that school P. It was never setup but it wasn't as bad as a baritone sax so here i am still playing bass.

First "real" bass was a CP Thornton my buddy lent me when he went to school. Late 80's-mid 90's was 15-21 for me, so everything I like formulated around some kind of J equipped thing thru very specific types of amps and cabs.

That's it, set in my ways for the most part.
Only P equipped thing I really liked was a white 80's Pedulla MVP hanging on the GC Berkeley wall way long ago, and an 80's Spector at a pawn shop in Oakland.

Those are just find memories, they never work when I try them now.

 

[2cooltoolz]

Whatta you mean, "Stick To The Same Type Of Basses"? Two of my current basses aren't even Sunburst/Tort!! I like to get wild with variety!!!

 

[devnulljp]

Because I like PBasses and I cannot lie.
#1 and #2 1962 and 1972 Precisions

 

[Mekana]

I've had a bunch of different basses, and loved them all! But my options are narrowing down due to physical issues. I limited myself to only short scale basses about 10 years ago due to a shoulder issue, and now recently limited myself to only narrow string spacing (on 5 string basses), low action, very flexible strings AND short scale due to elbow and finger tendinitis. In a way, I'm really not sorry that I only have a few options, lol. It helps with the GAS. I'm just glad that I have basses that are comfortable enough to play for 3 sets.

Also, playing basically the same bass helps with muscle memory so I don't have to look at the fretboard as often to know where I am or where I'm going. (It definitely helps with learning to play the fretless!)

So anyway, for 4 strings I play Fender Mustang PJ's.
And for 5 strings I play Brice short scales.

 

[RhynoRock]

For the most part I don't, but single coil pickups seem to rule the roost.

I can second this. I've had a bunch of very different basses over the 21 years or so I've been a bassist, and I can say with certainty that single coils are my preference as well, but the actual instrument itself I have a pretty broad taste in. My very first good bass was a first run BTB500. One piece ash body, Ibanez humbuckers & active EQ. But my life really changed when I just happened to win $1400 on a monday sign in at the local old guy club I was a member at, so I collected my dough & ran out to the House of Guitars in Rochester and bought me a 4003. Those single coils just SANG to me, for 8-9 years it was my workhorse. A nightmare of a bass, but thru overdrive it sounded SO GOOD. Then I grabbed a US made S.U.B. as a backup for when the Ric needed surgery (hence the nightmare) but I wasn't a fan of the sound. I had to switch to 5 strings pretty much exclusively in the last 4 years or so because of what I've been doing musically. My first 5er was a Tribute L2500 I got from a friend for cheap (R.I.P. Todd Cervantes) which has really cool sounding pickups but it just didn't work well with my other stuff, so I bought a Warwick Streamer with MEC J's, and recently a player series Jazz V with Nordys. So yeah, my preferred basses all have single coils instead of humbuckers. My ol man still has the Ibanez but I sold the S.U.B. to GC just to get rid of it really, but everything else I still have.

 

[fdeck]

My basses, since 1977:

Fender Mustang Bass
Kramer DMZ-5000 fretless
De-fretted the Mustang
Pedulla fretted
Entry level Ibanez, de-fretted
Back to the Fender Mustang Bass

The Kramer was my best sounding bass, but too top heavy and painful to play for 4 hours.
Pedulla was top heavy, and I never was able to play fretted well
Ibanez was fine, and my Fender was on loan to a niece who appreciated the short scale
Now I have the Fender back, and it has grown on me

This isn't going to make sense... I can play 42" scale upright just fine, but electric is awkward for me. Maybe I need to practice more. I probably play the same bass because I have the same body. Someday I'd like to have a really high end bass, but can't justify it right now.

I might like to think about putting a shorter scale neck on a full scale body, so it's deliberately butt-heavy, and see how that goes for balance.

 

[natbers78]

Feeling y'all on Pbasses. It's my jam.
I've owned and played lots of different kinds of basses, but nothing comes close. I currently have a 55-94 also, which is without a doubt an excellent instrument. For me, nothing feels as good or sounds as good as a P bass.

 

[mcrawfordmusic]

I learned to REALLY play on a 5 string Yamaha TRB, but transitioned to an active Fender Jazz 4 string when I discovered Larry Graham and Marcus Miller.

I then discovered the Precision bass, and started diggin' guys like George Porter Jr, Willie Weeks, Jamerson and Pino. Through them, I discovered flatwounds. My first Precision was an '83 Squier JV that I strung with some DR Legend flatwounds.

I then began to expand my collection, influenced by the players I love. I aquired an EB3 like Jack Bruce and Mike Watt, a Musicman Stingray like Louis Johnson and Flea. I also bought and sold a lot of basses. Fenders, Gibsons, Ibanez, G&L and many others.

I went through a lot of basses, but the Precision always felt like home to me.

I finally got my hands on a 60's one, and I have been playing a Precision bass nearly exclusively for the past 5 years.

 

[Anemic_SluG]

Like most of you I have my share of tools in the toolbox. For me home base has always is a thin front to back neck. If it is deep at all it is uncomfortable. So my list is this:

'83 Fender jazz
Charvel fusion iv
Nash PB57 with a Nash jazz neck
Fender p bass special
Fender 57 AVRI wide but thin neck
84 BCRich mockingbird
Gibson Thunderbird
Fender pbass lyte
80' Fender jazz special
And the 2 oddities that don't see much use because of their neck size is a:
Warwick Corvette $$
Music man SUB USA
And the one lonely 5 string:
G&L MJ5 has a slim neck front to back as well

anything chunky and deep just doesn't feel right and even with the current stable of basses I find myself grabbing 1.5" nut thin necked basses. I assume these feel right because I played the Fender jazz for so many years.

 

[Bruiser Stone]

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.

 

[sgtpepper]

Since I started playing bass at the age of 15, I always fancied Fender basses. I guess it was because most of the pop/skate punk bands I grew up listening to had a guy playing one, Millencolin, Rancid, Blink 182, The Ramones, Green Day, to mention a few, so maybe I grew up with that fixation. The only "different" bass I had was a Warwick Rockbass Corvette. I wanted to try Warwicks because another of my idols in my teenage years was Dirk Lance from Incubus. Nevertheless I sold it a couple of months after because it just didn't have that "magic" my Fenders had. I've owned maybe 10 Fender/Squier basses, but sold most of them due to lack of playing time and a ring in my wife's hand. Currently I only own two of them, a J and a P. Both are parts basses to my own specs and not having to spend boutique money on them. Here they are:

 

[Mastermold]

Posting this as hopefully a fun thread with without judgment, without whininess because someone doesn't want to play yours or my favorite basses. I'm in it for the pics and fun stories of why some folks have settled on only one type of bass or one beloved favorite for everything. So please don't muck up this thread with douchebagginess, but yes, I'm going to talk about why I ultimately stuck with Fenders or Fender "tributes." Please feel free to contribute stories about what made you stick with only one type of bass if you have, and leave the sniping at other brands to a million other threads. And post pics.
...

I'm a Fender P fan too but this Kay is special!

 

[JIO]

Like and play a number off very different basses which all work for me. Either not picky (in that regard) or I just enjoy variety. It's why I don't get the 'this brand vs this brand' tribalism. Enjoy what you play.

 

[mattj1stc]

The old school P bass (1.75 nut) always felt like home base for me. Not sure why, but it just sort of clicked for me, making other bass geometries feel wrong. It might have been that my first "good" bass was a P bass like this, so maybe part of the bonding was just a flight to quality.

Anyway, when I had to move to a 5er to accommodate the lower tunings for some of my vocalists, I went through a long period of trial and error before locking in on the Lakland Skyline 55-64 (5 string P). I've found Lakland to be very good in terms of quality, consistency and durability. My only arguments would be to have more colors (other than burst) and of course, a flashier pickguard, which I decided to fix on my own.

 

[wraub]

I played an active fretless Ibanez Musician as my only bass for 6 years...then switched to active Ibanez Roadstar II 5 string basses, fretted and fretless...then got a passive Jazz bass, and then a passive P, and then a passive PJ, as well as a Strat... I hardly ever play the Ibanii anymore.

I think the main through-point has almost always been price plus value times need combined with available funds... when I need/want a thing, I usually look for it until I find it at a price I can justify.
This has led to some waiting, and some amazing deals.
I'm okay with this.

 

[Wild_Bill_57]

I started out early 80s with a loaner Fender J Bass from the school they let you use in the Jazz band program. A Mid 70s Black and white tuxedo J, with the deadest strings you could possibly imagine and a tuck and roll Kustom amp and cabinet at school and an old Silvertone guitar amp at home that I talked a neighbor out of. It took a while to figure why it would buzz and was fretting out constantly, but some help from the home town music store and I was off to the races. I have had a little bit of everything since then from short scale EBO to P basses, a thunderbird, a Hofner and a bunch of other stuff. I always seem to go back to P and J bases. I still have a couple of fender P basses now. I ended up trying a Sadowsky and was instantly hooked. Now I have 3 Sadowsky Basses. I think I'm pretty well where I want to be at this point.

 

[Kubicki Fan]

I am definitely a Warwick guy. Started out on a 1975 Fender Musicmaster that my cousin loaned me when I was 12 (and I later purchased for a very good price of $300, and I still own it and will never sell it) and then got a bass for basically gas money that was a Series 10 Professional from a friend. I was super into punk and hardcore and a lot of the bassists I liked all played Stingrays so after a summer job I bought an Ernie Ball Musicman SUB. It did the job for about a year or two, and then as I faded out of the punk scene and started getting into jazz and world music I bought an Ibanez Soundgear fretless for like $300, and then I started to really find my sound. That's when it started. I walked into my local music store looking for something versatile and modern and clean (I was super into Victor Wooten then) and there was an '02 Warwick Corvette Proline 5 on consignment. Funny enough I picked it up, played it (without plugging in)... and hated the neck! I liked the build style and construction of it tho and a lot of bassists I liked had Warwicks so I looked into them some more. Decided I would maybe save up for one more to my specs, so went back into the shop to hear that one plugged in and it blew my 17 year old mind and I put my savings down to hold it and came back with every penny I could scrounge from part time job and owned it. That started my love affair with Warwicks. I quickly adapted to the neck, really loved the 5th string, and that bass carried me to New York City for music school and by conservative estimates I logged at least 3000 hours on that bass. I ended up changing the preamp for a bartolini, and also installed a ramp. I now have a passive fretless Corvette Standard (bubinga), and a Streamer CV that I got in a trade for a Corvette $$ that I just didn't like.

After all that, Warwick's generally always feel comfy to me. I love the deep profile necks and the ability to change the nut height as well as all the different ways you can change the bridge. The Streamer CV was love/hate for a while as it's spec'd to be a jazz bass, but it's grown on me a lot and tends to cover all my straight ahead rock gigs. Not a big fan of the newer thinner profiles, but they are home to my sound and the benchmark of what I like. Played tons of other basses I would gladly take home that aren't Warwick's and I am pretty open minded, but now if I ever get a custom bass made it's gonna have J/J or P/J, an active pre, hopefully be a Warwick, and have an absolute baseball bat for a neck!

Pray tell more about the love/hate process vis. the Warwick CV. BTW Is it a custom shop, team built, or asian instrument? My CV has pushed my other well loved instruments into the background.

 

[Manticore]

I bonded with my first number one on the day I first played it. That Mapleglow 4001 was my only bass for most of the 20+ years I played it.

I also bonded immediately with my current number one the first time I played it roughly 28 years ago.

Although I own quite a few basses, I'm not one to switch basses often on stage. The one I've taken to virtually every gig for the last 28 years is the walnut top Alembic Elan on the right. The other two in the photo are both Alembic Elans; one of the two additional Elans almost always goes to every gig as a spare.

I guess I like neck-through basses more than bolt-ons. I've had a preference for Alembics due to their extreme versatility and excellent build quality. The Elan body style has excellent balance either standing or sitting. I also have a preference for wide string spacing at the nut.