I promised my wife I would cap the size of my bass collection. She is (semi-rightfully) afraid of my GAS getting out of hand, and filling up space with bass guitars. She is less worried about the cost of said guitars, and more the space they take up.
She’s fine with me keeping 4 at home. (I keep 1 at work to practice during downtime.) I can buy new basses, but then I have to get rid of one.
A couple weeks ago, I saw a bass I’ve been lusting after: Sire Z7 fretless, in blue sparkle. Used at Guitar center, so I have 30 days to return.
Now, I need to decide what bass to sell on: the Z7 fretless, my fretless P-bass, or my Ray 35HH. Or if one of these moves to work, and I sell my Yamaha BB434. (The P-Bass is a Fender P with a Warmouth neck, strung with LaBella flats.)
I don’t like lined fretless necks (can be fixed with some paint and stickers)
Not wild about active electronics. I prefer the simplicity of passive. (But it has a passive tone control, and I can just play it like that.)
P-Bass pros:
Wonderful Warmouth neck
Feels great to play
Emotional attachment - the bass that made me fall in love with fretless
Great tone for jazz, soul, or metal
Hardest to sell
P-bass Cons:
Am I going to get much use out of 2 fretless?
Less versatile tone
Ray 35HH Pros:
Very nice and versatile
It’s my only 5-string
Ray 35HH Cons:
My least played bass
My least loved bass
Not wild about he position of the neck humbucker
Easy sale and probably most value
Easy to replace with something I’ll like just as much
Would probably prefer a 35” scale and/or passive
It would also make sense to move the Ray 35 to work to practice with here. Then sell the Yamaha BB434
BB434 Pros:
Great, simple instrument
Inexpensive - don’t care about it getting messed up by all the temperature and humidity swings of the brewery
BB434 Cons:
No strong emotional attachment
Very easy to sell
Very easy to replace
The most “logical” or “practical” answer would be to sell the fretless P-Bass. But not the emotional one.
I’m concerned I’m going to get tired of the lined neck on the Sire and just start playing the P more often.
Emotion says - I care least about the Ray35 and the BB434. Sell one or both of those. Heck - sell both and get a BB435 as my work bass to keep practicing 5-string.
You have very few basses compared to most people here, so it isn’t even close to being out of control GAS. If problem is space, there are some possibilities. Those bass guitar racks that can be kept in a corner of a room on the floor, in which even 5 basses can be kept side by side without taking much space. Or, hanging them from the walls, but not everybody likes that, as they take a lot of wall space.
I have only 2 basses right now, each one has its own stand. If I had a rack for them such that they would be side by side, I think the same space could be used for up to 5 basses.
Or you could hide one under the bed, like @Whying_Dutchman , or build a shed in the backyard if you live in a house, and get some hundreds more basses @Al1885
But if you need to give up one bass, then maybe you could sell one of the fretless. The one which doesn’t have emotional importance. (EDIT: I corrected this last sentence, as I had accidentally said the opposite of what I meant to say. You should keep the bass you have a strong emotional attachment to.)
My girlfriend actually discovered that bass a few weeks ago, cause I used the storage space under her side of the bed for two guitars too. I have to sell those guitars for the widow of her uncle, that died unfortunately some time ago.
It was a bittersweet occasion, as I’m selling all his guitar stuff, and from the collection he had, as well as the state it is in and the mods he did to it, I could tell my girlfriend stories about the mindset of her uncle.
So, she was in a sentimental mood, and had to laugh at the same time about my childish behaviour (is there any other way to behave?)
All good & well now … and I can even take that bass on a vacation with her family … provided I play “Celebration” by Kool & The Gang on it
Also, my girlfriend takes some pleasure out of me hiding stuff, like a silly squirrel (her words, not mine).
Or me secretly replacing stuff, like my silver A/V for a much better black A/V receiver … which she found out months later: “I’ve been meaning to say this for weeks … somehow that thing over there looks different. Is it new?” :-).
That’s tough. Because the other one is the brand new shiny one that I am currently more excited to play, and looking forward to the tones I can get from it.
I already do that. There’s still wall room, although not too many more convenient studs to screw into.
For her, I think it’s more the principle of the thing to keep me in check. She knows that I will end up buying more, so she is putting up resistance to slow the rate that happens. So I build up the stable to 6 basses in 5 years, not 10.
What I might do… 3 of the basses are on the wall in the basement. I use that as my practice space, but it’s a nice finished basement and that’s something of a rec room with the HiFi system and dance floor. But 1 is on the wall in my personal room. There’s not much spare wall that isn’t blocked by bookshelf, but I could get a 3-guitar hangar to keep another 2 up there as needed.
Yeah. I think this is the answer. Or maybe BB735. But… yeah…
In this case, probably there is no hurry to sell one of the basses? You could say you need more time to decide. Meanwhile you can play more with the new fretless, and it might be easier to make a decision later.
I really like a ray evolution with a single H, and then smaller pickup towards the neck, which is what the Z7 and my Reverend are. If another humbucker, I’d prefer the positioning of a Warwick Corvette $$.
I think the only thing that’s really time-constrained is the 30-days if I decide to return the Sire. But I’m leaning towards keeping it, just adding different side dots.
That is understandable. I am fortunate that my wife built and remodeled a studio/office for me that fits the rack with a little bit of room to spare. However, now that I am up to eight basses, she is saying we might need a bigger house.
