I can’t really chime in here on models because I don’t know what lefty options there are.
But I do know travel.
I only carry on bags, never check anything, I bring my work backpack and either travel bass or electronic sax. That’s it.
I am an extremely efficient traveller for work or pleasure. Freedom of movement when traveling is important to me. I can last an entire week packing my work backpack (laptop etc and expands a bit for clothes). All my travel clothes are lightweight and thin, so I follow a pretty simple philosophy - small and light is best - as long as functional. For me this is the Traveller P bass. The piezo model is smaller and lighter but useless IMO. Anything bigger quickly becomes a PITA when schlepping around the world. I’ve never had an issue with the Traveller and flight attendants are generally happy to help find room if there isn’t. However - this bass can generally fit on top of other bags which give lots of options. A full scale bass won’t. A full scale can be relegated to the hold and it’s up to the gate agent or flight attendant to decide that. There are no steadfast size rules regarding instruments and policy on instruments changes all the time.
I don’t travel as much but I work as a paramedic and I wanted to bring a base to my station with me.
As we drive a lot between stations, I wanted something small and light, but the TB4P has other features that make it an ultimate on-the-go practice instrument.
The headphone jack and AUX are a killer combo for practicing without an amp. Just plug in a backing track and your headphones and you’re grooving away.
Even more important, for me at least, is how light the bass is. I find that even at home I reach out for it because I can literally practice longer when I use it over my Yamaha, purely for the weight.
I really think it’s a worthy investment. If you can find a local tech that can help you reverse the nut so you can reverse the strings I think you’ll like it. I guess the ergonomics might be a bit odd, with the rounded lip for the forearm moving to the bottom and the headphones and AUX jacks, as well as the regular jack and volume/tone knobs now being all at the top… But that’s the same for every lefty who takes a righty guitar and reverses the strings. I don’t know how comfortable that is.
But my vote is on the TB4P for a travel bass, they really did a good job.
@HowlinDawg I don’t know if you’ve been to the Maldives but there’s well over 1,000 islands and about 200, give or take, are inhabited. A lot of the inhabited islands are basically tourist resorts and no bigger than a couple of football pitches. The music shops will most likely be in and around the capital of Male, which is not easy to get to from all islands; it can often be a seaplane trip away. It would more cost effective to have a Fender custom built.
I looked at the Squier Mini bass but it’s not available in a lefty.
Buying a second hand cheapie and leaving it there is not a bad idea but I do travel so I’m looking for something I can keep hold of.
I’m not actually going away until 16th September but I’d ideally like to by something by August to give me time to decide if it’s something I can live and travel with or not.
@John_E I travel for both work and pleasure but haven’t quite perfected the art of travelling light even though I’ve been flying worldwide for work 38 years and counting. In my defence, I have to carry a lot of crap so hold luggage is an unfortunate necessity. As well as the obligatory laptop, I also have to carry at least one camera, personal safety apparel (including steel toe boots), work clothes and casual clothes. I can also be gone for several weeks, sometimes a couple of months (although that’s extremely rare).
I’m seriously limited in my choices being a lefty, so much so that I’ve written to Traveler to see if they have any plans to release a bass in lefty format (I don’t see why not as they produce lefty guitars) or, failing that, could they do a custom build for a price that wouldn’t involve a letter from my wife’s lawyer.
Realistically, I think my choices are either a Ibanez GSRM20 or SteinbergerXT-2. The Steinberger does appeal because of its, um, unique appearance (I’m partial to a bit of left field) but I’m mindful of @athosmr2003 's advice that it’s not light. I’m almost always in a premium cabin anyway, where the flight attendants will stow the bass in a wardrobe for me.
@y.farkash not a bad idea to go down that road but I’d want to try and get my hands on one first to see how/if it would work holding it upside down. That’ll be a last resort though, if I can’t find a purpose built lefty that works for me.
I actually own a shredneck bass. I’m still not sure if I’m happy with it or not. It’s great for scale practice on my left hand. It’s awkward to hold. I can easily bring it anywhere. I can even play in my car while sitting in a drive through line, Homer Simpson style.
There’s just something about it that annoys the hell out of me when I use it and I’ve yet to figure out what it is.
Nice play on words since Tony Lewis of The Outfield played Steinbergers If you do get a Steinberger, make sure your straps stay locked on though. I’ve had issues with mine, especially the front strap lock.
Ok, I bit the bullet and ordered a Steinberger XT-2. Took me a while to find one because my local store can’t order them in and the only places that seem to have them are the large ‘supermarket’ type music stores (Thomann, etc.) and I’d rather not use places like that. Anyhoo, I found a small instrument store way up in the north of England and they have a couple of lefties in stock. One is being set up for me today and should be with tomorrow or Thursday.
My XT-2 arrived yesterday. I only managed about 20 minutes on it last night and probably won’t get to sit down and have a proper play until the weekend because of work commitments.
Anyhoo, first impressions: I can’t believe how small the body is; with that in mind, as mentioned by @athosmr2003 , it is indeed a heavy bastard. Ok, it’s not going to rip my arms out of my sockets but it’s surprisingly heavy in light of how small the body is.
I’m not sure if it’s an odd shape or if it’s just because I’ve never picked up anything like this before but the body of the bass seems offset to my right. When I’m playing my left (plucking) hand seems to fall naturally to the pick up closest to the bridge and it seems like I have to stretch my right arm to reach the lower frets. It’s probably no different to jumping out of a Mini and into a Land Rover and I’m sure I’ll soon get used to it.
That little sticky out thing on the bottom to keep it in place when on the lap is worth its weight in gold and lets the bass rest on the lap nicely. For some reason, the fret board seems easy to move around almost as though it’s narrower that what I’m used to. That makes me happy as I have very small hands.
I’m not sure why but I think I’ll probably change the strings - it was just a ‘feeling’ I had last night but I can’t explain why.
I think I’m going to have a lot of fun with this little bass.
Thank you for all the comments and advice above, especially those that convinced me that I ‘needed’ another bass
Awesome @PaulD it felt a little naked playing with that little body, the last time I played it in a jam session. The sound and tone is quite good. I’m ok with almost every except for the lack of arm rest, but that just me being too lazy to hold my arm up, lol.
I took it down to my local store yesterday to have the one pick up set further into the body of the bass. My fingers kept hitting it during plucking and it was annoying the living daylights out of me. Now, after two minutes with their guitar tech, it feels really good.
I can’t tune it very well with my Snark clip-on (which a lot of people on here seem to really dislike) so I ordered a plug-in tuner from Amazon yesterday, Korg TM60, and that’s coming later today. All I need now is a stand for the XT-2 and I’m all set.
If you do get a Steinberger, make sure your straps stay locked on though. I’ve had issues with mine, especially the front strap lock.
