I know cases are one of the less glamourous pieces of kit, but they’re pretty important. I wanted to share the case I have because I really love it. One of the bass teachers I studied under had this case. I just had a Fender gig bag at the time, and I wanted something with more protection and storage and that was easy to carry. I asked him about his case, and he said he liked it, so I decided to get one.
I love, love, love this case. It’s very protective for not being a hardshell and is lighter, of course. It has the usual carry handle, as well as one on the back, which I use a lot to just move the bass a short distance. It has lots of pockets and I can store all my sheet music, some bass books, setup tools, cords, etc. It keeps everything very organized.
I think my favorite feature, though, is that it also has straps on the back so you can wear it as a backpack. They have a nice pocket they go into when you’re not using them, and it’s very quick to pull them out or put them in.
The case has held up for years, with no broken stitches or anything. You wouldn’t want to take this on a plane, but for everything else, it’s great.
Most of my soft cases have been unremarkable but the stock Yamaha soft cases for the BB734A and Revstar Standard are fantastic, with about 1.5-2cm of padding.
Seems to me based on my few seconds of research that gig bag and soft case are synonymous.
So yeah, this thread is for all cases, not just gig bags/study cases.
Personally when I say gig bag I man the cheap ones with no padding, as that’s a “bag”. As soon as you add padding, it’s a case. But that’s just my own interpretation.
Also there are soft cases for trumpets and other wind instruments, and we never called them gig bags. So I’m guessing gig bag is specific to guitars/bass and soft case is more universal.
That’s really interesting. In my experience playing trumpet in bands and orchestra, a hard case was just called a case. The assumption was that a instrument case was a hard case. The only times I heard it specified were when people talked about soft cases, because they weren’t the norm.
A lot of gigging jazz trumpet players would use soft cases, because you could get ones that held 2 or 3 trumpets, so you could bring your Bb trumpet, flugelhorn, and even piccolo trumpet in one case.
Of course with trumpet, case weight wasn’t really a concern. I saw soft cases more often with alto and tenor saxophones because they were big enough that weight was more of a concern.
I don’t know how to quantify most, I think the highest production are probably the very cheap untrustworthy ones. Here’s my fiberglass one, and a link to the cheapest “traditional” case on the best known strings retailer in the states where the description says plywood shell.
