I am trying to choose between bringing my Ibanez Mikro and renting a bass for practice when travelling. Any of your past experiences with this situation would be much helpful!
I’ll be flying internationally to Vietnam. 2 weeks in Da Nang. Then 2 weeks in Ha Noi. I’ve contacted some local stores and they’d rent out their basses for approx. $60 USD per 2 weeks (= 1.5m VND). So I’d be looking at USD 110 - 120 for the whole trip. I’ll include the available basses below.
Alternatively, I could bring my Ibanez Mikro by removing the neck then putting it back after each flight. That’s 3 times: Da Nang, Ha Noi, then when back in Melbourne. But I’ve never done that before - risk of messing it up and having no bass to practice or badly damaging the Mikro haha (unlikely?)
I do exactly that. I bought a very cheap, 13th hand Hofner Shortie bass that lives in my suitcase (as in I do not put the neck back on when I get home). It has survived multiple trips - 10’ish, not sure. In the case I have a screwdriver for the neck and tools for a quick set-up, if required (basically, Allan keys and a small screwdriver for intonation). The bass plays pretty well and is perfectly acceptable for hotel room practice and even bass covers. Its last trip was to the Canary Islands (holiday) and its next will be to Central Asia (work).
Take your IEM(s) and the dongle DAC or a DAP with you load a few songs on the “Trip” playlist and just listen to that. Live version is especially good for this.
Just spend your time building other skills, even more important skill like listening, to be more specific, critical listening skills. Listen to the bass lines, how it plays, what’s the timing, where’s the emotion, how it flows, and even try to mime along with the song and transcribing that in your head. You’d be surprised how well you can do that and once you get back to your bass, not only you’d be fresh and eager to play you can simply unload what you learned off the bass.
Many important skills you’d learn off the bass. Last year, I was off the bass for a few months from illness condition, I spend sometime off the bass practicing bass, I picked a few songs and played them on my IEM(s) a few hundred times and once I was back on my bass, this happened. I’ve never transcribed it with my bass just in my head. To me the Phrasing was spot on right off the bat because I took a different route of transcribing.
I’ve done that a bunch of time but always ended up spending more time and effort on logistics than playing, especially only for a few weeks.
I have several options too my 5 string 23” scale could pretty much covers everything buy why? Even when I flew home to Thailand where I have 8 basses there between my house and my Condo, I don’t get to play much.
So, if you were to fly to Hamburg, where I live: how many basses do you have here and where did you hide them? Asking for a friend
Hahaha!
So, I tried to yodel with random locals I met - like the nice girl that works in the supermarket - and found that really funny, cause I was under the impression that everybody yodels there (Süd Tirol).
I was 100% wrong and looked into many many many blank (and some angry) faces
By the way: in Germany, foreigners like me have to go to yodel school to become a citizen.
It looks like this:
or badly damaging the Mikro haha (unlikely?)
